Timothy was fascinated – he could barely contain his excitement but was VERY good and didn’t jump. He was shivering because it was so cold, but he sat still so that he could keep watching her. I got him his jumper for the second and third videos.

This is the first time Juanita had been in the nestbox in its new position – mounted on the wall in the new coop. She lays blue eggs – the egg in the nestbox is hers from yesterday.

He got bored watching her at the end of this video, but he had studied her for over 15 minutes by then.

During the summer months they’ve been with us so far, we haven’t had a lot of rain, so their living in the enclosure has been fairly comfortable… but as autumn and winter draw closer they will have much more rain and mud to contend with.  We decided that the best thing to do would be to have a second enclosure on a hard surface, and ordered a walk-in enclosure from Garden Life.

Second enclosure construction

Baby hens - July 2011

Juanita, Annette's Columbine hen	Black and white Magpie... Whitepie
Whitepie with Tiffany (the black hen with gold necklace)	Whitepie (with Tiffany in front)
Blackpie and Tiffany	Tiffany and Blackpie
All four hens	Blackpie (and Juanita)
Timothy before seeing the hens	Timothy after seeing the hens

The hens are now called Juanita, Tiffany, Blackpie and Whitepie.  You can see these photos in our Picasa album.

Chelle and Penny in particular left us terribly disappointed because they did not welcome the new hens at all; instead they were positively hostile to the newbies.  Each of the four arrived with innocence intact and after a month had developed the attitude associated with adolescents.  The first two nights were fraught with nervous uncertainty and undisclosed terror.  Penny demonstrated a resentful strop of a hen high on indignation and pecked and bullied all of the new ones relentlessly.

On the third day we kept Penny and Chelle outside the enclosure for a whole week, giving them the caravan to sleep in, while the four new hens remained within the enclosure with the henhouse to sleep in.  This seemed to do the trick, and after a week, we took down the barriers and allowed both parties to mix.  There were about another four weeks of ducking and diving for survival by the young hens who, by now, had established themselves as faithful layers, and were able to hold up their heads proudly as having a legitimate claim to the garden.

Now, eight weeks since their arrival, there is peace in the camp once more, with a surprise “top hen” from the four, and a killer instinct demonstrated in daylight.

We don’t know very much about the condition, but understand that it is due mainly to a lack of calcium in their diet. This may be part of the reason, but all of our four hens enjoy the same access to the same food, so there has got to be some other factor as well.

About once a month this past year, poor old Penny is the one who suffers from this condition. The way we have dealt with this is to bring her indoors and get her warm and quiet. Daniel has made up a portable nest box which we bring in from the caravan in case she wants to use it in a hurry while indoors. When she is warm, we let her return to the hen house to use their familiar nest box. We are careful not to handle her unnecessarily, and are very aware that we could accidentally break the unlaid egg. In fact, this has sometimes happened, but luckily, the shell is not hard but simply a membrane, thus making itself difficult to lay, but also resulting in nothing sharp to cause any damage. The broken expelled egg is quickly eaten up by the other hens. Soon after, everything seems to return to normal.

We have increased the amount of calcium in their diet – most winter mornings Daniel would prepare four bowls of cereal with warm milk, adding to this crushed cuttlefish bone, commercial minerals and Citricidal. The hens gulp this down, but we feel that with Penny’s beak being compromised by de-beaking as a chick, she perhaps does not get as much as the others, though under our supervision, the difference is minimal.

One morning in February 2006, we had brought in all the eggs from the nest box and a little later happened to be near the enclosure when Penny emerged from the hen house squawking loudly to announce the fact that she had just laid her egg. We picked up the egg and could barely believe our eyes: it looked enormous, so we simply had to weigh it.

The average old fashioned size 3 egg weighs between 45 and 55 grammes. The eggs available in the supermarket labelled extra large weighs between 65 and 75 grammes. Penny’s egg weighed in at a whopping 95 grammes: what a whopper! We were so impressed that we simply had to take some photos of them.

And all along we thought that she was one of the weaker hens. Poor Penny! That’s like laying 2 eggs in the same day at the same time. No wonder she was always the one getting egg bound!

Once a week now we give them sardines mixed with boiled rice. Since then, the shell of their eggs has become noticeably thicker and harder, and happily, Penny has not had any more episodes of being egg bound, though she continues to lay eggs in excess of 84 grammes in weight. . But think about it. Her body weight is around a kilo and a half. 94 grammes is around 5% of that. 5% of your own body weight – every day!

We had found a few mice in the garden as well, during this time. There was a nest of them long before the hens arrived, so it has nothing to do with food and grain being left out in the garden which might attract rodents. We used safe and humane traps to rid our garden of these mice, but of course, there are always more.

One day, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a small movement inside the enclosure, close to the hen house. Penny, who was also inside the enclosure, noticed the same small movement. My eyesight is not as good as it used to be, so I looked more closely at what it was, in case it would harm Penny. I need not have worried.

The movement was made by a little mouse. Just as I had identified it, Penny in one deft swoop struck at its head with her beak, picked it up by its spine and held it up towards the sky, then parted her beak to let it drop into her mouth and gullet, moving her head backwards and forwards to aid its deathly descent, then pulled her head back with beak facing the ground in a satisfied nod. The mouse was no more.

I could barely take in what I had seen. The whole scenario had the drama of a fragile young woman who had been so terribly hurt by a useless selfish bounder and, having lain in wait for him, had pounced, piercing his heart with the stiletto heel of her shoe in one swift blow, then standing over him to watch the life drain from his wretched body as he – as is the fashion of cowards – pleads with her to save him, only to see the curl on her full red lips twist from disdain to satisfaction, revenge being sweet.

I looked at Penny in awe. Still wide-eyed, I called over to Daniel who was by the pond. He had missed it all, but Penny didn’t help him in any way. She just picked up from where she had left off before the mouse, and continued in the most nonchalant manner to eat the grass around her, while the world continued to turn.

Over the next few days I looked for remains of the mouse but found none – no sign of teeth, tail, skull or fur anywhere either in the droppings or anywhere else in the garden. I suppose if a whole walnut can be digested by a hen, then a mouse would have no chance. Penny enjoys a deep-seated and well-earned respect from us. Underestimate the inner strength of a woman at your own cost!

Why did the chicken cross the road? It’s an often-asked question!

If you have a possible answer, drop us an email!

No, none of our eggs could ever possibly hatch!
If you know your birds from your bees, you’ll know that to create offspring, you need a boy and a girl to meet up. Our four hens are all girls: they all lay eggs. It’s what they do.

We have no rooster: we don’t want babies and we certainly don’t want the noise that a boy hen would create.

While we have only girls, the eggs cannot have been fertilised, so they can never hatch