Viva Spring

Yesterday was the vernal equinox, the official start of Spring. Yippie!

Eggs traditionally play a big part in celebrating the vernal equinox. They were often eaten, painted or given as presents. As I’m in the process of recovering from gastroenteritis (happy days) I gave the eating part a miss, but I was very thankful firstly for the arrival of a busy season for the garden and also for the two eggs the girls laid.

On the subject of eggs i'm still none the wiser as to the second layers secret identity. I've formulated a new theory that these eggs could be the result of not one, but two girls efforts. Why? Well, we’ve had a mystery egg for eight straight days now. Chickens take 25.5 hours to make an egg, meaning if it was a single girl she should have had a day off by now (Margot's record is six consecutive days). The plot thickens...

Finally, we appear to have a truce in the hen/cat war as today’s picture demonstrates. Eli’s doing his best to pull off a nonchalant stance, I’m sure he’s secretly terrified. Long may the casual indifference continue.

Right, off to take advantage of the weather and plant some seeds.

P.S – you may have noticed that in today’s Observer there’s is a guide to pets in which some women promoting her soon-to be-published book on chicken-keeping reiterates the nonsense that hens are as easy to keep as goldfish. For the last time people, NO THEY ARE NOT.

“Who laid an egg like this? David, it's over to you.”

Imagine mine and Mr Swift’s excitement on returning home on Thursday evening to find not one but two eggs in the nest box! I’ll give you a hand conjuring up the mental image – picture a man and a women in their late 30s, jumping up and down in the pitch dark, asking a couple of chickens “Which one of you clever girls laid this?”

One egg was definitely Margot’s finest; 65g, mid-brown with slight speckling. Next to it was a small but perfectly formed 50g egg which must have been from one of the new girls (unless they’d shoplifted it from the Spar). Immediately photographed it for posterity then texted everyone with the good news. Dear God, just typing that makes me realise how tragic that was.

Only one problem with this tale of happiness – which girl had laid the egg?

I love a good mystery, so in true Nancy Drew fashion I set about hatching (ha!) a plan to identify the girl responsible. I figured the most obvious route would be to catch the hen in the act – Plan A. This was cruelly thwarted from the offset as only Margot laid on Saturday. Hmm, time for Plan B; analyse the new girls’ appearance and behaviour for any tell-tale signs. Both Barbara and Tomasina are exhibiting different, but equally compelling signs of being in lay. So that was Plan B buggered. Figured I’d start again with Plan A on Sunday.

This morning i let them out at 7am – no egg. Popped back to bed for a couple of hours only to check back to find another perfectly formed 50g egg. Marvellous - I find myself outwitted yet again by a bird with the brain capacity of a cheap digital watch.

Time for Plan C - the webcam.

Give a warm welcome to....

Barbara (top) and Tomasina, my two beautiful new hens. They have been at RCC for three weeks and have settled in nicely. We only had 24 hours of bickering before a new pecking order was established. Naturally, Margot is top hen. Equally unsurprising news; Eli is bottom of the order. He’s so uniformly hated by all three hens that they manage to corner him in the greenhouse and chase him up the tree every time the four of them appear in the garden together.

Max doesn’t fare any better. This afternoon Tomasina gave him a sharp peck (in her defence, he was asking for it), forcing him to retreat to the safety of the command centre (shed roof) to dream up a cruel and unusual act of revenge he’ll never manage to execute.

Gerry, our recently departed hen, may be gone but certainly not forgotten. Mr Swift and I have decided to grow a tree in her honour, so I am currently trying to source a dwarf cherry tree that we can christen Gerry the Cherry. Think she would have appreciated the comedy value.

A sad day at RCC

I am heartbroken to report that Jerry the hen was put to sleep this afternoon. She became ill on Friday with peritonitis and despite mine and Kate the vets best efforts we were unable to save her.

She spent the weekend living in the house, sitting on my lap watching TV. I don't think she cared much for the Joe/Gail storyline in Corrie but seemed to really enjoy Glee.

I now have to put my sadness to one side and start looking for some new companions for poor Margot who is having a thoroughly miserable time as a flock of one.

I'll keep you posted.

The Cove

I'm not one for crying at films; Mr Swift is the sensitive creature in our house. He sobbed for the last 15 minutes of Monsters Inc. - I could have died with shame.

However, yesterday I cried my eyes out for most of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Cove (now out on DVD). I won't spoil it for you but it surrounds the Herculean efforts of a group of filmmakers and activists to expose a horrific dolphin culling practice in a Japanese coastal town. If it doesn’t win the Oscar I will be mightily outraged.

Go watch it now, but remember to have your hankie to hand

Psycho chicken

It’s a milestone birthday for my Mother this year (clue - she’s past 50 and not yet in her 60s....). so in order for her to go away on holiday, safe in the knowledge that all’s well at home, I have agreed to spend the week in Shropshire looking after her six hens – Rose, Petal, Hyacinth, Esmée, Violet and Gertrude.

One small problem – it would appear that Hyacinth has anger management issues. Since coming into lay she will attack anyone who disturbs her during this delicate time. My poor Mother had to fend her off with a bucket as she tried to climb her arm and peck her face off.

Imagine me, alone in this house for a week. How long do you think it would be before anyone found me; lying at the foot of the coop, a veritable chicken buffet?

I’m thinking of investing in a taser.

Operation run improvement – stage one

Never let it be said that i don’t deliver as promised. Here are a few pics of the extended run with its new flooring. Unfortunately not all went to plan due to situations way beyond my control . The ground was far too wet to lay paving slabs underneath the pond liner base so this has been shelved until Spring. The corrugated roofing has yet to materialise so I’ve been keeping the bedding (aubiose – wonderful stuff) dry with an IKEA shower curtain and the Eglu winter shade. Not the most ascetically pleasing set-up but as Pluto said, necessity is the mother of invention.

The girls seem to be enjoying the extra space and have really taken to the perches i've built for them using terracotta window boxes and old brances from our apple tree.

Just in case you were wondering quite how bad the run had got i took this photo just before we got started on the new set-up.  Bearing in mind my chickens get a thorough clean-out every Saturday morning this is still what i ended up with after a few weeks of snow and sub-zero temperatures - a woodchip/mud/newspaper sludge.

Thankfully, with the new system in place the run will be lovely whatever the weather - hurrah!