Donating a chicken

A while ago I was talking to my friend Becky about the chickens that we have in our back garden.

We were speaking about how much they cost and how much it costs for us to feed them, which led to her talking about something that Oxfam offer.

Oxfam have this new gift idea, that if you don't have an idea of what to buy someone for their birthday or Christmas, you can donate money to give someone who is worse off some books or in this case a chicken.

By paying £11 you are giving a family all of this:

"Give a chicken and you’re giving a family a little egg factory that will also produce chicks for rearing into other chickens or trading to pay for school fees and health care. Low-maintenance and high-yielding, these little cluckers are going to help a local family feed, thrive and survive. " From the Oxfam website - click writing to see link.

I think personally that is such a good idea, seeing as how many eggs chickens lay and Oxfam also help with maintenance costs.

The brilliant idea...

My mom came up with a brilliant idea over the weekend when she was feeding her chickens.

She decided that she would create a sand bath for the chickens to go in.



All this really consisted off was a plastic tub with a bit of sand from my nephew's sand box.

At first when the chickens saw the new sand bath in their pen they have no idea what it actually was and began pecking at the sand.



Later on when we looked outside we saw that Ronnie had decided to step into the bath and move around inside.



Seems a success but I still don't think that the chickens have the right idea.

Life guard really does work....

As you know from my past post about Life Guard we bought it to put in the chickens water, as the ex battery chickens were having trouble laying eggs.

And now less than a month on we are now getting five or six eggs a day!!!!




It really does prove that life guard is a miracle product that does its job well, and it has made a difference to the amount of eggs we are laying.

We are all very happy!

Bertie thinks he's a chicken

Somehow our dog Bertie is getting into the pen where the chickens are.

We still don't know how he is getting in but we know how is getting out. He is head butting the joint where my mom gets in to give the chickens their food.

To be fair though once he is in there he isn't hurting the chickens they just seem to walk around him and he just tries to eat their food.

He is just a greedy dog but at least he is friendly.

What has Sabrina ever done to you?

On my return home I went into the back garden to check out the chickens, and to my horror have noticed that my chicken Sabrina is being picked on.

As Sabrina was an ex battery chicken she is not as strong, and because she was the most weakest when we had her she still hasn't got the courage to fight back.

The free range chickens - THE MOB (as we call them seeing as they stick together) have been pecking at Sabrina's back whenever she goes near them, and because this is the way nature works we can't get involved.

However there is a solution......my mom is going to go to her chicken shop in Shenstone, Lichfield and pick up a solution called anti peck which hopefully will save Sabrina and teach THE MOB not to mess with her.

Oh the embarrassment

Recently it was my sister's birthday so we all went out together for a meal.

After we all finished eating my Mom asked my Grandma for the lettuce and she began wrapping it up in a napkin. Later on I caught her wrapping up tomatoes.

And then chips.

We all looked confused and when we asked: "err what are you doing?"

My Mom replied: "It's for my girls."

Now I think I have mentioned this many times in my blog, this is what my Mom calls her chickens. The girls. Even though she has 5 daughters.

It's fair to say that the chickens (her girls) did enjoy the food that 'their Mommy' bought back but still we all thought it was crazy.

Chickens do eat a lot of left overs, potatoes and pasta being their favourite (obviously it has to be cooked first).

To be honest though my Mom does love her chickens.

I am being made a fool of

So everyone in my family knows that I am afraid of the chickens and my older sisters are also a bit wary of them. But there are a couple of people who are making me look like a fool.

My three year old nephew, six year old niece and ten year old sister.

These three people over the last couple of months have become extremely brave with the chickens and now actually enjoy when they come out of the pen so they can pick them up and put them back in.

My three old nephew, Adam is fearless.





I now have insults shouted at me from these little kids saying "don't be afraid they aren't going to hurt you."

And another one of their favourite phrases "Come here Auntie Faye, let me show you how it's done!"

I am sure more pictures of my sister and niece will follow just so they can show that they are not afraid of holding the chickens.