Tales from the Coop

We’ve got chickens! Talk in the Angwin household about taking the plunge had been going on for some time. But a couple of weeks ago we bought and assembled the coop, bought the feed and set about looking for chickens.

We decided on rescue chickens – ex-battery hens which would otherwise have been slaughtered at the end of their most productive period. What we didn’t anticipate was that we would get them quite so quickly. Usually they are rescued from the battery farms, hundreds at a time, every few months. But when we contacted the Swindon and District Animal Haven they had five birds left from their last intake. So Renu popped over and collected three birds.

    Home Tweet Home for our rescue chickens

Now everyone tells you that the birds arrive in an awful state – extremely nervous and missing most of their feathers. But our birds, because they had been in the haven for a month had most of their feathers and seemed to have enjoyed the run of the place while they were there. They didn’t look too pleased to be re-homed despite our best efforts.

Sorry to say one of them died within a couple of days; a common occurrence as these birds are so weak and stressed by their previous treatment. So then there were two. Dotty and Kammi, so called because Dotty has a speckled neck and Kammi – short for Kamikaze. She’s slightly crazy.

     Kammi keeps a wary out for Psychochicken

Despite the best layers mash, oyster shells, corn and various tidbits all is not well in the Coop. Dotty (or Psychochicken) as I prefer to call her rules the roost with a iron fist. Or rather, beek. She’s making poor Kammi’s life hell. Last night Kammi was too scared to go inside to roost and she hunkered down underneath. Blood and feathers have been flying.

         Dotty protects the feed dispenser

So, not surprisingly, the main thing we adopted these chickens for, is missing. Eggs! Not one. Not a sniff. Rest assured, this page will be updated when the first egg appears. And as I’m the one who cleans them out EVERY day, I’ll be the one eating it!

For more on animal rescue in Wiltshire go to www.sdah.co.uk

29th July
Still no eggs! And the in-fighting continues. Well, it’s not really fighting. Dotty just pecks lumps out of Kammy when she feels like it. And it’s not like she’s got nothing else to do. I even hung up one of my wife’s Sonia CDs to give them something else to peck at. Perhaps they don’t like Sonia, but then let’s face it, who does?

And they are still getting the best of everything – fresh feed, clean water every day; handfuls of corn, fruit and veg. And what do we get in return? Poop! Lots of it. I know it’s supposed to be good for the garden, but dammit, I want eggs. Just one would be nice. I used to look for eggs every day. I’ve given up now.

I’m still trying to bond with the birds. Kammy is quite cute. She’s timid but friendly and she lets you stroke her. Dotty is a different story. Everything is pecked at (apart from the Sonia CD). So whenever I put my hand in the coop, she attacks me.

Maybe I should have got a puppy instead.