I am always highly amused by the following statement on the Omlet (Eglu makers) website:
If you are looking for a low-maintenance easy-going pet then your search is over - chickens are seriously chilled out! No need to take for walks, chickens quite happily look after themselves and unlike a rabbit or goldfish, Omlet chickens come with a lifetime supply of eggs.
So, ‘seriously chilled out’ chickens are quite happy to look after themselves....hmmmmmm.....now that’s utter nonsense. I know what the wonderful team at Omlet are getting at here; Chickens do happily get on with their lives during the day whilst you’re at work. But they’re far from low maintenance and my ‘lifetime supply of eggs’ has, as expected, dried up for the winter.
As regular readers will know i have both chickens and a goldfish - the much maligned, enigmatic Ron. Here are a few examples of where Ron wins hands down in the maintenance stakes:
1. I have never had to apply Vaseline to any of Ron’s extremities. I have, however, had to commando crawl through a muddy, poo-ridden run at 6.30am in sub-zero temperatures to apply Vaseline to Margot’s comb to protect her from frostbite (Of course, when I say ‘I’ here, I do in fact mean ‘Mr Swift’)
2. Ron has utter respect for hangovers. M and J have to be let out of their run at 7am every day, without fail
3. Ron has never performed a ‘brassica massacre’. M and J stripped my raised beds of every last cabbage and broccoli plant in under ten minutes thanks to Mr Swift’s half-arsed ‘supervised’ free-range session
4. Ron has never caught lice off the filthy local feral bird population resulting in thrice-weekly spraying sessions with Johnson’s anti-mite spray. Mr Swift and i have inhaled so much of that stuff that if we ever had children they'd have three heads and five arms each
5. Ron has never tried to tunnel out of his tank. M and J are digging holes to rival ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’ in The Great Escape.
6. Ron has never wandered into the kitchen and laid an egg on the floor, much to the horror of the onlookng resident cat
Seriously, I love my hens and my Eglu to pieces but any would-be chicken owner should go into this endeavour with their eyes (and their wallets) wide open.
Speaking of the girls’ wellbeing, they have been less than impressed with the snow/ice conditions. My woes have started since the big thaw begun. Thanks to several weeks of frozen conditions rendering cleaning out their run utterly impossible what was once was a lovely, tidy space with plenty of wood chippings is now a muddy, stinking hellhole.
I can’t possibly let my girls live like this so next weekend ‘operation run improvement’ begins (really couldn’t think of anything snappier). This involves myself as chief engineer/site supervisor; Mr Swift (builders mate/chaiwalla); industrial paving slabs; one Eglu classic run extension; corrugated roofing panels; sand; bungee cord; plastic lawn edging; horse bedding; half fence posts; Ikea shower curtain and a pond liner*. Before and after photos to follow.... my DIY-obsessed father will be so proud.
*A prize for the person who produces a detailed expanation of how each of these components will be utilised, the use of diagrams will secure you extra marks.
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