I´d be interested if anyone can identify what type of chickens we have, but whatever they are, after only just over a week, they are really starting to develop personalities and are really quite friendly. My grandchildren were over for a visit from the UK this week and we waited until they arrived to give them the honour of giving our girls names. Sylvie, my 8 year old granddaughter decided that the reddest one of our hens reminded her of her best friend, so she´s now Rosie. Louis, the eldest (11) couldn´t think of a girls name, so we mulled it over for a little while and came up with a take of his name and the second one is now Loulou. Finally our youngest grandson, Flinn, who is five is quite blond, so he obviously wanted to name the lightest one. She´s now Flinda.
We cheated and bought a coop from Amazon Germany. Before we had a chance to put it together, I promptly lost the instructions, so my husband patiently put it together using the pictures. He only went wrong once when he didn´t put the ladder in! We were assured that the coop was big enough for four hens, but it became obvously pretty soon in that if we wanted happy hens, they would have to have more space, so my put-upon hubby built an additional run for them. We have a very large tiled terrace so the coop and run are sitting on the tiles, so currently the floor is covered with gritty sand which the girls seem to like. When we develop the garden, we´ll give them some space outside on the earth as well.
I´ve been experimenting with what to feed them and finding out what they like. We bought a bag of chicken feed from the pet shop when we bought the girls and they do seem to like that, but I wanted to give them some variety, so I looked up the list of what to feed on this website and went through the fridge. We´ve got fields of broccoli growing around our house, so I pinched one of those and put it in the run, but they didn´t seem interested. I then gave them a home-grown lettuce, which they were somewhat interested in. But yesterday I hit upon something that really lit them up... I had half a canteloupe melon that I had removed most of the flesh from with a baller, but there was quite a bit of flesh left and I put that in whole. They went pretty ballistic. I also bought some raw sunflower seeds and had scattered them in the run, but they weren´t particularly bothered. I then hit upon the idea of putting the sunflower seeds in the pestle and mortar and giving them a bashing. I mixed some of my oatmeal with the crushed sunflowers and put the mix in the (now empty) half a melon. Again they went ballistic, so that´s two treats I know they like.
They see me coming across the terrace and start to talk to me and dance back and forth (they have learned very quickly that I´m the one that brings the food) and they let me pick them up; in fact they seem to jostle for attention.
So, all in all, I´m liking being a hen-owner very much.
Oh by the way, I was worried about whether or not to put them to bed at night, but they put themselves to bed so they are very good girls. We are lucky that we have no predators here - they are inside a walled garden, we have no cats around and certainly no foxes. The only possible problem will be snakes in the summer, but it´s a bit early yet. The run doesn´t have a roof although it is 2 metres high but they don´t seem to be in a hurry to escape at the moment. I´m debating with myself whether or not to let them lose on the terrace but I´m a bit concerned that they´ll devastate my garden and eat the vegetables in the veggie plot as well as attacking all the potted plants. Also I´m not sure what they´ll make of the pool!
We cheated and bought a coop from Amazon Germany. Before we had a chance to put it together, I promptly lost the instructions, so my husband patiently put it together using the pictures. He only went wrong once when he didn´t put the ladder in! We were assured that the coop was big enough for four hens, but it became obvously pretty soon in that if we wanted happy hens, they would have to have more space, so my put-upon hubby built an additional run for them. We have a very large tiled terrace so the coop and run are sitting on the tiles, so currently the floor is covered with gritty sand which the girls seem to like. When we develop the garden, we´ll give them some space outside on the earth as well.
I´ve been experimenting with what to feed them and finding out what they like. We bought a bag of chicken feed from the pet shop when we bought the girls and they do seem to like that, but I wanted to give them some variety, so I looked up the list of what to feed on this website and went through the fridge. We´ve got fields of broccoli growing around our house, so I pinched one of those and put it in the run, but they didn´t seem interested. I then gave them a home-grown lettuce, which they were somewhat interested in. But yesterday I hit upon something that really lit them up... I had half a canteloupe melon that I had removed most of the flesh from with a baller, but there was quite a bit of flesh left and I put that in whole. They went pretty ballistic. I also bought some raw sunflower seeds and had scattered them in the run, but they weren´t particularly bothered. I then hit upon the idea of putting the sunflower seeds in the pestle and mortar and giving them a bashing. I mixed some of my oatmeal with the crushed sunflowers and put the mix in the (now empty) half a melon. Again they went ballistic, so that´s two treats I know they like.
They see me coming across the terrace and start to talk to me and dance back and forth (they have learned very quickly that I´m the one that brings the food) and they let me pick them up; in fact they seem to jostle for attention.
So, all in all, I´m liking being a hen-owner very much.
Oh by the way, I was worried about whether or not to put them to bed at night, but they put themselves to bed so they are very good girls. We are lucky that we have no predators here - they are inside a walled garden, we have no cats around and certainly no foxes. The only possible problem will be snakes in the summer, but it´s a bit early yet. The run doesn´t have a roof although it is 2 metres high but they don´t seem to be in a hurry to escape at the moment. I´m debating with myself whether or not to let them lose on the terrace but I´m a bit concerned that they´ll devastate my garden and eat the vegetables in the veggie plot as well as attacking all the potted plants. Also I´m not sure what they´ll make of the pool!
