Chickens!

For a long time I hated Chickens! A strong word I know but I honestly detested them and they were the one animal I made clear to MrTG that I would never want to have - EVER!
The reason for this goes right back to my teenage years when I had a pony. You see I would spend hours (at least it seemed like hours) scraping that damn stinky cement aka chicken poop off the walls and stable of my beloved pony.
I grew up believing that Chicken could not fly, at least not like their avian cousins do at any rate. So you can imagine the interest when I finally found out that they indeed could fly (to a degree. OK more like flapping until law of gravity says they have to take off) and the subsequent frustration when I discovered they like to roost.....up high.
Even now the smell of chicken poop brings back awful memories!

Anyway a few years back MrTG bought me a "present". Despite all those years of insisting I would never want Chicken and the cement shit that comes with them he bought home 6 chicks of indiscriminate parentage and unknown sex! And guess who got to look after them!
Thankfully my daughters are animal lovers and obviously not as animalist (is that even a word?) as I was and they'd spend as much time with them as they could.
I admit I got intrigued as they grew and I too placed my bets when the sex of the birds was becoming more evident - out of 6 chicks we had 4 bloomin cockerels.
All 6 birds ended up being very friendly and we eventually rehomed all but one of the Cockerels and kept the hens, by which time I have to admit I was becoming more enamoured of Chickens then I ever thought possible, this was bought home to me when I was getting stressed about finding the right loving home for the Cockerels.

Now we have 13 chicken - 12 hens and 1 cockerel. 11 of the hens are heaven knows what breed (I have no idea of these things) and 1 is a White Silkie, the Cockerel is also a Silkie (and as such is pretty darned scared of the big girls which is quite pathetic).
Several of our current hens were rescued from the local battery farm and arrived quite weak, thin and very bald, today they paint a different picture

No longer scrawny and looking the picture of health.
Apparantly they all have names but they all pretty much look alike to me so unless they have an obvious marking to recognise they're all called Hen to me.


This one is called 'Big Momma'. Big Momma has been on probation for the murder of the poor little hen we rescued (you can read her story here) but she shows no remorse for her actions.

This is 'Hen', another rescue that has recovered all her plumage.

Romeo, the Cockerel. He just doesn't have the substance to keep these hens in place.

Finally the nights are getting lighter and we're at the end of the hens lay off for winter - they are back in production.
We've had the odd one or two eggs over the last few weeks but nothing that would feed a family (at least not a family with an appetite like ours anyways) so I didn't bother to check the laying boxes yesterday. Today though MrTG came in with this bounty

 22 eggs!
Funny thing I noticed while I was washing them is that despite them all being of similar breeding (I think) look at the difference in size and shape

The Silkie isn't laying yet - her eggs are tiny White ones - which is unusual for her but she did stop laying the minute we introduced the new rescue hens, hopefully she'll start again soon.

As for that Chicken shit Who'd a thought I'd learn to appreciate it and covet it for the garden!

Killer hens! UPDATE

I've raised killer hens! Well not so much killers at the moment but certainly bullies.
Let me explain: A few weeks ago my husband rescued 10 battery hens, the hens were destined for broken necks simply because the lorry taking them south could only carry a certain amount, this left a surplus that needed homes.
10 was all we dared to take due to room, we have plenty of acreage but nothing big enough to house more than 10 of them.
2 of them died within the day, we think this was due to their appalling body condition as we took the ones that looked the scrawniest and were pretty bald. On picking them up you could tell these were the ones that hadn't the heart to fight for the food but we hoped that plenty of food, water and warmth that they didn't have to fight for would soon see them right.
After the two died the rest of them seemed to settle really well and our original hens and cockerel seemed to take to them fine despite the obvious size difference - ours were 3 times the size.
So all was well, until a couple of days ago when I noticed our hen 'Big Momma' attacking one of the rescues everytime it moved and this poor hen was literally screaming.
I grabbed the rescue hen, let the others outside and then put the tiny hen down outside to have a forage about. I was gobsmacked at what 'Big Momma' did next - she seemed to stand up really tall, looked this little hen square in the eye and ran at it and jumped on her pecking at her head.
That was it I grabbed the little rescue hen and picked her up, it was only then that I noticed she hadn't put on weight like the others and just didn't seem to be doing as well, it was obvious that she was still being bullied at food times and was still very underweight.
I made the decision then to cage the little rescue hen and feed her up before reintroducing her to the others once she has gained strength and feathers - she looks so pathetic bless her!

Killer hen 'Big Momma'

She just has that look doesn't she! She's scary is 'Big Momma'.

Rescue hen:- Bald butt and scrawny but otherwise happy.

These rescue hens are so so bald but they're putting on weight and doing really well.

poor rescue hen that is bullied by 'Big Momma'

We're new to rescue hens so we're not too sure what to expect or how long it will take for them to recover full body condition. They do seem to have an argumentative attitude with each other but I guess that comes form them having to fight one another before.
Also the wattles were bent over on most of them when they arrived, most appear to have recovered to their natural position now except for the poor hen that I've had to move to a protected area, she just hasn't recovered at all.
Still, she has a safe place to hide for a while now and doesn't have to fight for food or water. As she plumps up I will gradually reintroduce her to the others and let her walk around outside with them, but I'll be there the whole time to protect her from Big Momma until she can fend for herself.
I'm actually not a chicken person! I always said I would never ever have one due to childhood memories of them pooping all over my ponies stable door. That stuff would set like cement and stink to high heaven.
But I'm quite attached to the ones we have and I'm amazed that the rescue ones are extremely friendly. They fly onto my arms when I'm watching them, they jump onto my back when I'm cleaning out their water and they follow me everywhere outside - they love being picked up and cuddled.
Plus that cement poop is fabulous for the compost heap!

Cockerel 'Romeo' that is supposed to keep the hens in place...but doesn't.

As cockerels go, we've had better ones lol. Romeo is a Silkie and is only interested in his mate Missy, we have never seen him mount any of the others and he spends his entire time at Missys side or fending off the others if they get too close to her - which is probably a good thing as Missy is so small - actually so is Romeo lol.

'Missy', the only hen that Romeo is actually interested in.

It'll be nice to post pictures in a few months of healthy rescue hens and a perfectly happy, healthy and taekwondo expert little hen :)


UPDATE:
Big Momma is now facing murder charges as poor little hen has gone to the chicken coop in the sky. I've told Big Momma that I won't be accepting a lesser charge of manslaughter either because I witnessed the assault - Big Momma doesn't appear ruffled!