Adventures in the life of an English allotment
I woke this morning to find the world covered in a thin layer of beautiful snow! Realising that the water feeders in the coop would probably be frozen, I quickly dashed out, pausing only to grab a hat and a coat. The allotment looked absolutely stunning. All the soil covered in snow with small tracks... Continue Reading →
This morning, we braced ourselves for feeding the chickens in the freezing temperatures. It was one of those beautiful clear, sunny and crisp winter days. Upon our arrival, we discovered that every water feeder and water butt was completely frozen over! Welding a large screwdriver, my husband set to work smashing the thick layer of... Continue Reading →
Down at the allotment today, occured a small miracle. In the greenhouse Sadie, Leia and Lilja has spent around 24 hours unsupervised. Unsure of what I would find, I cautiously looked through the glass. What I saw amazed me. Sadie was on the top shelf with Leia and Lilja pottering around on the floor. No... Continue Reading →
This morning I ambled down to the allotment to clean out the greenhouse. It's been overdue for a few days and we managed to get hold of some new shavings late last night before the shops closed for Christmas. I arrived on site and stopped to say a quick hello to Geoff. Due to the... Continue Reading →
With a sudden influx of wheelchair orders, I dashed down to the allotment this morning intending to quickly feed the chickens. As it turned out, I spent quite a bit of time with Cliff trying to plug any tiny gaps in the coop to ensure no wild birds can get in. The sparrows are very... Continue Reading →
Yesterday I picked up an old tyre from a local seller to make a swing for the chickens in the main coop. Lugging the tyre down to the allotment was rather amusing and I wish I had gone with my first plan which was to roll it all the way. For some unknown reason, I... Continue Reading →
With the rapidly impending DEFRA deadline for ensuring every coop is secured against wild birds, we dashed down to the allotment armed with a 50m roll of scoffolding netting and a bag of cable ties. Unfortunately, there have been a a number of bird flu cases in Cheshire and across the UK over the past... Continue Reading →
This morning I ambled down to the allotment to check on how our latest arrival was settling in. As I came onto the main path, I found Cliff and Geoff enjoying the fresh air and having a chat. Somehow half an hour passed by as we put the world to rights and caught up on... Continue Reading →
Being a weekend, I spent quite a long time with the chicks. Over the past two weeks, they have grown enormously and their secondary feathers are coming in. Now that they are seven weeks old, I am slowly transitioning them onto grower's pellets. These contain a higher amount of protein than layers pellets, helping them... Continue Reading →
I had a missed call from Geoff this evening. When I called back, it turned out that one of his chickens is being quite severely picked on by the girls higher up in the pecking order. What makes it worse, is the bullied bird is then picking on the two youngest birds. Geoff has run... Continue Reading →
The main challenge we have over winter is trying to keep the chickens off the mud in their coop. Every autumn, we put in a layer of chippings and hope they last the winter. Unfortunately, this year, despite a thick new layer being added in September, the chickens are back on mud again. However, our... Continue Reading →
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