Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

In the late afternoon light I spotted E & N foraging the cornus kousa fruits

It was slow to flower this year because of the cold wet spring, but it's resulted in a late maturing fruit feast for the birds - the wild ones as well as the chickens. The fruit has to be ripe though for them to enjoy it, and they very obviously limit their consumption

 

[BDutch]

Henry would have quite happily stayed in the coop extension

Can this and the early roosting be because he is getting old?

My Ini mini is often the last one to come out to free range nowadays. And my 3 oldies are often the first to roost around sunset.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

Tea is ready.

Temperature is in the 50s with rip currents.

Have a great day!

 

[Canadian Wind]

Can this and the early roosting be because he is getting old?

My Ini mini is often the last one to come out to free range nowadays. And my 3 oldies are often the first to roost around sunset.

I always have to chase the young ones in but never the older (3+) ones; they are in and roosting when it's time.

 

[BDutch]

cornus kousa

Never seen this type of cornus in my country. But the garden centre does sell them.
We do have the cornus mas in our garden, the one with the yellow flowers in winter. The fruits are not so near to ground and I never noticed the bantams to eat them.

 

[Shadrach]

Can this and the early roosting be because he is getting old?

Yes. I know exactly how he feels.

 

[Shadrach]

One and a half hours today. Dry, chilly and grey.

Had to borrow a cake storage tin for this from the eldest. How was I supposed to know I needed a tin to store it in. This cooking business is getting expensive! Two hundred and fifty milli litres of sngle malt whiskey in the cake. Don't eat and drive!
There was sipposed to be eleven of us for Christmas dinner but this year we decided to keep dinner small and do the relatives and friends who aren't coming to dinner on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. Eldests husband wants me to stay over on Christmas so we can get legless together. I drink at Christmas and I've got a lot of whiskey to get through.

 

[Perris]

Lovely flat top on that cake - I guess the insulated band around the outside worked as advertised! Let's hope it tastes as good as it looks when you come to eat it

 

[Canadian Wind]

So... You're going to get legless on fruit cake? lol

Lovely cake, btw.

 

[Perris]

Eldests husband wants me to stay over on Christmas so we can get legless together. I drink at Christmas and I've got a lot of whiskey to get through.

that would also be very handy for tending the chickens over Christmas, and while the public transport is less frequent than usual (assuming it runs at all of course). And you won't even need to be particularly sober if they're going to be eating leftovers, for the generation of which Christmas is rightly famous

The rest of my flock are partaking of the cornus this morning, though most of the ripe fruits are still higher up the tree than they can reach (and most branches are far too flimsy to bear their weight so that's not a realistic option; it's also pretty dense)