And so I walk...

...into the chemists, internet list in hand. I hate trawling up and down the aisles trying to find what I want so immediately seek out the first shop assistant I can find.

She's an attractive middle aged woman, dressed very smartly in her white pharmaceutical smock. She is stacking shelves with various medical products. I sidle up to her. I'll have some fun.
"Hi", I say, "I'm looking for some atheletes foot cream".
"Here, on this shelf", she says, pointing up and down at the shelf immediately in front of us. I pick up a tube of the cream.
"Do you have any vaginal - yeast - infection - cream?" I say, as I read each stunted word from the crumpled list.
She looks at me and pauses for a moment before replying. I can actually see her mind whirring, trying to make a connection here between my need for the foot cream and the thrush cream. She looks around quizically whilst she does so.
"My cock", I say, looking her right in the eye, "his head has become very inflamed and sore. I'll need to rub some of this stuff on it to try and cure it. It's starting to look very angry. Do you think this will do the trick?" Her mouth opens a little.
"Oh, and some iodine if you have it!"

Apply liberally...

Yes Jacques, my prized Copper Blue Maran cock (let's say rooster from now on shall we) has developed a rather nasty wound on his comb. He and the other cocks roosters have suffered a fair bit from frostbite over the past couple of winters but always recover. The frost-biten tissue just dies, dries up and falls off, and is a common occurance with both roosters and hens. This time though it looks a bit worse.

I wondered if it was Fowl Pox at first. Jacques does have white powdery spots on his comb occasionally, and a couple of black ones. Fowl pox is carried by biting insects such as mosquitos and there are two types. The first type is untreatable but the bird usually recovers after a few weeks. The legions heal but the infected scabs fall of and can infect other birds so it's quite contagious. The second type, known sometimes as wet fowl pox, is associated with the mouth area and can be fatal. A vaccine is available, to administer to the young chicks, but I didn't vaccinate these birds. Maybe I should have.

Jacques in fine fettle

Anyway, I don't think it is fowl pox. Jacques does like to occasionally fly the dividing fence and have a scrap with Loius the Ist, and what I think has happened is that he's got himself wounded (again) in one of these fights and the wound hasn't healed. When the chooks roost, I suspect the hens sitting in there with him have a bit of a peck at it. I could use gentian violet spray on his comb, that will stop the pecking if there is any. It's also anti-fungal and antibacterial so it's an option, but this product might not be powerful enough to clear the wound up.

He may also have Favus which is a fungal infection. This sounds more likely as the wound has left a bit of a depression in the tissue of his comb which is known as a favus cup. The thrush cream contains Clotrimazole which is an anti-fungal agent, same stuff as the atheletes foot cream, but in a higher dosage. I'll apply some of that to the wound and let you know how it goes.

So tonight I shall get the fishing net out again and chase Jacques around the orchard and give my 'rooster' a damned good creaming!

Competition Time Draw!

What ho, chaps!

Movietone News has just departed...

Congratulations to the winner! I'll drop you a line so you can receive your ration parcel soon.

Cheerio.

Competition Time!

There'll be blue skies over...

All we hear on the news just lately is doom and gloom about the recession, double-dip recession, depression, recession depression etc etc. It's not like people haven't been through all this before in the past and emerged out the other end ok, albeit poorer and battle hardened. It's enough to make you get your gas mask on and hide away in the Anderson shelter!

I was thinking about thrift the other day when I was shelling out for bags of organic chicken feed and corn. Austerity measures begin at home.

So this time around the competition is for a cracking 1949 reprinted austerity Penguin book to read and a mug to drink your cha out of whilst your doing it. More info on the Competition Page...

Good luck!

Chickeny Things...

One of the joys of having a plot of land, rented or owned, is the ability to keep a few livestock. My own modest little beginnings have been the chickens - my chicken gang, who happily (I hope) live in their 'Chicken Villas' in the orchard I planted a couple of years ago.

This time of year, most of them go off the boil a bit and stop laying eggs, start to molt, and generally need a bit of a tonic to keep 'em perky through the tail end of autumn and through the winter.

Hear No, See No & Speak No...

I've recently found a poultry supplier that offers all the chickeny things I might ever need under one roof and is run by a lady who knows her chickeny stuff. No need to wade through anymore dodgy websites or take my chances on ebay - this place has it all and is very competitive pricewise, which is great with a bloomin' worldwide recesion in full swing. The egg money I get from the sale of a few free-range, organic eggs each week buys a big bag of organic layers pellets and mixed corn for the birds to munch on.

My chickens are spoilt. I clean the coops regularly. They have wood shavings laid deep on each coops floor, and have lovely soft paper shreddings in the nest boxes so they're comfy when laying their golden eggs (I'm still working on getting them to actually lay golden eggs).

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I design and build my own coops, but Jacques and his little harem have a bought coop, from ebay, which has served it's purpose but is in need of a replacement now. Plus it has many design defects making it a haven for red mite etc. I haven't seen any, but I'm not so naive to think they are not about.

This stuff is the business...

So today I've been doing a spot of housekeeping for Jacques and his girls by smoking any nasties out of their house, a better way by far of dealing with poultry pests than using chemical sprays. If you keep chickens and like to keep them happy and healthy, check out the Review Shed and see how it's done.

A pack of these babies is also this months Competition Time prize, so check these pages out and keep your chooks happy!

'The Barn'

That last post was a bit grim so here's a more cheery one!

This years chicks have grown into young adults, outgrown the maternity unit, and needed to stretch their legs and feel some fresh green grass under their little feet. This means I've had to spend the last week or so designing and building another coop.

I'm lucky. I have the CAD (computer aided design) skills and workshop kit to work up some designs on the Mac and the tools to cut the timber to the right lengths etc., which makes the whole thing easier to do.

See, that took about 30 seconds!

I like designing and making stuff like this. Much better than buying some of the crappy sheds out there. This one has all the fiddly bits outside the coop so there's no nooks and crannies for the red mite to hide inside - nice and clean for the chooks.

The side doors open both sides to collect the eggs on the right side and clean the coop on the left where they all roost. One trick I learnt whilst designing the previous coop was to use seed trays under the roosting perch to 'collect' the poop. You can just empty these regularly and keep the coop cleaner.

It was a bit tricky to get the little scamps into it the first night (Saturday) but last night they all filed in without any problems.

Bella the Copper Black Maran hen - very dark eyes!

Penny, the Copper Blue Maran hen, always seems to be smiling.

Ronnie and Reggie (aka 'The Cray Twins')

Growing

With all these posts about candlesticks this blog is starting to look like Mr Stephenson's scribbles.

The sun came out yesterday in the typical way we have here in the UK at the moment. One minute it is pissing down with rain and shivery cold, the next it's far too hot and sunny to stay out too long unless you want to be burnt to a crisp.

Anyway it did give me an excuse to stroll around the plot, pottering about (too hot for 'hard landscaping') and take some snaps.

I'm really gonna need those zucchini recipes Lisa...

...ripening nicely...

...lovely pear (Oooo Matron!)...

...the blackbirds have kindly left me 'one' cherry...

The chicks are doing fine and growing into their teenager phase - scrawny, gangly and scruffy. I really need to sort them a new coop but I'm determined to design and build my own again for them. The last one I bought is, frankly, shit, and too small for three birds let alone the eight birds advertised in my opinion.

Penny the hen and the 'Cockerel With No Name'...

John over at Going Gently wanted some pics of my clover patches...

Jacques literally 'in clover'...

...and the bees love it!

I ended up spending most of the morning making furniture in my little workshop but had to stop when I started to melt in the heat. So I went off to the plot to see G and get started with the bees. Have a gander at bees make honey to see how I got on (or not).

Bzzzzzzz.

What ?!

Last year I had so many courgette plants that I gave most of them away. I still ended up with about ten plants (golden and green), all churning out courgettes like there was no tomorrow. Everything we ate had some courgette in it, even cakes.
At the beginning of last week I planted some seeds sparingly so I didn't have glut of courgette plants taking up precious space in the modest greenhouse. A week later and only the cucumbers I planted at the same time have decided to make an appearance - not one courgette. Bloody typical. I tried a variety called Romanesco this time. Maybe they're like me, a bit slow.
Planted some Borlotti's too last week which have also made sporadic progress so I've sowed the whole bloody packet now in the hope that they'll catch up with the ones that have germinated. Again I've tried another variety from last year - these ones are climbers, not the dwarf ones I've had success with. Moral - if it ain't broke don't fix it!

Cute little red 'n white beans

On the chickeny front everything is calming down. Claudia, who's got the 'being a Mum bug' bad, has been sitting on nine eggs in the Maternity Unit for a week now. I'm not sure if they'll hatch though as she decided to teleport herself (don't ask me how) off her nest and back into the big house long enough to let the eggs cool.

I'm really hoping they will hatch as I'm curious about WHAT is going to hatch. Louis I and Jacques have both been 'busy' enjoying themselves with all the girls so some chicks will be throroughbred Marans whilst some will be Heinz 57's.

Time will tell...

Springy

This unseasonable sunshine and warmth has brought all us fair-weather gardeners out in force up at the allotments. Last year most of us were very late in putting seeds into the ground as it was so wet.

The Under-gardener (my Dad) pulling one of 'last years' parsnips (still good eating!)

In fact, this time last year my attentions were mainly on Claudia and her newly hatched chicks. Right on cue, she's gone broody again so I may leave her on a clutch of eggs again and see how she gets on.

Here's another installment from Chickenopolis. This guy is Louis I (Louis the first) and is king of the big house. My wellies bear the scars of many an attack from this chap who is a very 'full-on' rooster, not at all like Jacques who is much more gentlemanly and friendly.

What you lookin' at?

He's a bit blooded again at the moment as Jacques somehow got over the bloody fence again probably after the daily bickering through the gate escalated into a full blown barny. I'm going to have to sort that out.

It's a pity they can't get along so they could all have the run of the orchard instead of having the Berlin wall running across it.

Finally though I'm getting some stuff done on my plot (the one I've kept) and tackling the little areas like the bit bottom left of the picture above, which never got sorted last year. I think I'll put a clump of sunflowers there.

The plot that is now vacant next to me is rapidly reverting back to jungle. Sure hope someone takes it on soon.

Poser!

Back to work!

Blooded

Last night was a bit fraught. As I bounced up the allotment track in my little jeep (which is making an horrendous farty noise at the moment by the way) I noticed that the two Copper Black Marans - Marge and Margo, where strolling about in the top part of the orchard. As I got nearer I saw Jacques the Copper Blue cockerel up there too. The dividing gate was wide open!
Needless to say both Jacques and his Copper Black half brother Louis had been scrapping and were both the worse for wear, covered in gashes and oozing blood.
Now the wind had blown up a bit in the day, but when I re-hooked the gate shut and tried to shake it free again like a hurricane had just hit town, I couldn't make the gate jump open.
Conclusion: Either the chickens have learnt how to stand on eachothers backs and open the latch on the gate. Or. Someone has decided it would be a good idea to watch a cock-fight and has opened the gate.
I get upset at the thought of that so I'm trying not to let my paranoia get the better of me.
As I can't be up there all day (it's 2 miles away from my house) I've decided to get one of those trail cameras. Wildlife photographers, army snipers etc., use them to capture animals and such that trigger the camera on movement. They even have IR lights that illuminate the area and are invisible to the human eye. It's either that or getting a steel pallisade fence around the plot which will make the whole allotment experience like visiting someone in prison.
Who knows maybe I'll be posting a pic of a three chicken trapeze act.

Grab

Thankfully my deadline was met but with some amendments to do next week. This has meant I've been able to finally grab a bit of time to make a start this afternoon on my plot for this year, clearing last years crap off the beds (now covered in clover) and having a ball creating a huge fire at the bottom of the garden. Surprisingly this burnt so hot and fierce that this enormous pile was smoldering ash within minutes. A good tip for getting a reluctant fire going (if you keep chickens) is to use the empty pellet or chicken feed sacks tucked under the other stuff and set light to them. God knows what they're made of but I'm sure NASA used them to light the Saturn V rockets back in the 70's.

After putting the birds to bed tonight I slowly trundled down the track in my jeep and passed by the couple of plots which have the most junk edging the bumpy road. As my lights swept over the mounds of manure and debris I saw the biggest RAT I've ever seen in my life, sat on a rotting fence panel, just watching me drive by. The size of a Jack Russell, this thing was huge. It reminded me of the James Herbert horror books I used to secretly read when my Mum brought some 'light' reading back from the library when I was a kid. Someone told me later that it was probably one of those New Zealand species that have found thier way here (how?) but I'm not sure whether that's just bullshit.

I have a rifle. The very first thing I built when I got the land was a compost heap made from old pallets. This worked really well and all manner of grass cuttings and veg matter was chucked onto it for 6 months. That winter, whilst trying to keep warm, I decided I'd follow Monty Don's obsessive composting instructions and turn the heap over with my shiny new garden fork.
I didn't actually see the rat at first. After the fork plunged into the steaming heap a few times I felt a thump on my chest, then something ran down my leg, over my wellies and off through the fence. I caught a glimpse of the beast shooting through the neighbours overgrown raspberry bushes into the scrub.
The heap had rotted down quite a bit so was about three feet below the top of the pallet sides of the compost bin. So this bloody rat, probably terrified that I'd invaded its cosy little winter shack with a few steel blades plunging into its living room, had leapt three feet onto my chest.

Shaking, I literally ran up the road to a pet shop that also, strangely, sold air rifles, crossbows, knives, (probably tanks and anti-aircraft missiles too if asked for) etc., and bought myself said rifle, telescopic sight and searchlight thing that sits on top.

Every now and again I go up onto the site, tooled up like Arnold Schwarzenegger, looking for this rat which I perhaps rather naively hope is long gone. The locals on the site also all seem to have rifles, even though we all go to do some gardening, sometimes the site resembles a scene from Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Here's my next chook in my little hentourage...Lady. This hen is Jacques sister, a Copper Blue Maran, and probably the prettiest chicken I've ever seen. Lady is also known as Joan, named after my partner's late Mum.

The green paint on her front (mostly washed off at this point) is from the dividing gate which I thought was dry. She'd paint herself up and down against it whilst waiting for her evening corn treat.

I'll keep you posted about Mr Rat.

Sync

I've been working this week on a job that has dwindled in size since it started and now seems to be a lot of work for the fee. To top that, now that this job is finishing (deadline today so I'll crack on in a minute) the weather has turned from relatively sunny to grey, cold and drizzley so I've missed a window for rotorvating the plot. Poo.

What I have been able to do in the evenings though is buy most of the power tools in the Screwfix catalogue (there goes the fee!). As usual I have followed my usual behavioural pattern and made a rod for my own back. I now have so many projects on the go that I am left bewildered by 'what to do next', paralysed by indecision and unable to synchronize my spare time with what I need to get done - in priority order.

I did tell myself that I'd be more decisive this year and get tougher on clients and overdue invoices etc, but that hasn't panned out either! Leopard and spots spring to mind.

Anyway, moan over...here's the next of my chicks, Marge. One of two Copper Black Maran hens, Marge is a bit poorly at the moment so I'm keeping my eye on her. They've all just had a course of Flubenvet which they all get every 3 months or so (I stopped using Verm-X as I didn't think it was working thoroughly enough) so maybe that's had an adverse effect. Her poo's a bit runny and she's a bit out of sorts.

I went to their coop on Tuesday to collect any eggs Marge and her sister Margo had layed to discover three eggs! There's only Marge, Margo and Jacques the rooster in this coop. I can't tell which one of these hens had layed two ( they both lay identical dark, chocolate brown eggs). I suspect it wasn't Marge as she has only just learnt to lay indoors, and only after I'd been leaving a strategically placed rubber egg to give her the general idea.

Deadline calling. If I can get this job done today I'll get onto the plot or something constructive tomorrow. Hopefully.

More chooks...

So here's one of my favorites, Jacques. This guy is one of the chicks hatched under Claudia last May. He's a beautiful Copper Blue Maran and unlike his bro, Louis, is very friendly with me.

When they were scrawny teens and lived with thier siblings in the nursery pen I made at the bottom of the orchard, both Jacques and Louis used to jump on top of the maternity unit to see who could get to the highest spot and then croak out a puny squawk with all thier strength at the setting sun. Jacques here always got the better of Louis by flying onto my head! Why is there never a camera around when you need one. God I wish I had a pic of that. I've been trying to get him to do it ever since so I can get it on film.

Both Jaques and Louis still have 'cock-a-doodle-doo' match daily, probably hourly, much to the joy of the adjoining row of houses.
I've had to divide the orchard into two equal halves and get Jacques his own little house where he lives with Marge and Margo. Somehow though I still find the two roosters in each others territory every now and again ripping the crap out of eachother so they both have battle scars. He's also suffered a bit of frostbite around his comb during the hard winter we've just had, despite the duvet draped over his coop when it got really cold.

Still a beautiful bird.

Trotting

Some of the first things to emerge from my new workshop have been some handmade trotting floats for catching Grayling, the lady of the river. There's something very satisfying in catching fish on tackle you have made yourself. Certainly beats using some of the soul-less plastic rubbish found in most tackle shops these days.

Grayling mostly feed on the bottom of the river preferring gravel bottoms where the current stirs up lovely fresh water shrimps and other aquatic insect life for them to munch on. Usually you can catch these beautiful fish using a fly fishing technique known as Czech Nymph-ing where you basically bounce a fast sinking nymph type fly along the bottom of your chosen swim and feel for the characteristic bite through the line.

Trotting a float down river is so much more relaxing though. The very first time I tried this baby on my local stretch of the River Derwent at Darley Dale in Derbyshire (that's a lot of D's), I chose a relatively slow moving strech of water that dropped off to a deep swim just before a sharp bend. I adjusted the distance of the float from the bait so the two maggots on the hook just grazed the bottom as the rig drifted downstream naturally with the current. They take a lot of shot these floats which helps keep the bait down near the ground. This first batch are made using balsa on cane stems. The next lot will be made from cork I think. More of them in a future post.

The first fish, early that cold February morning, was a Brown Trout, accidently as it's out of season at the moment, but a good size. This was followed steadily through the morning by no less than seven Grayling, all a decent size, one at over a pound and a half. Very pleased with that and my little float.

I didn't have anything to put these Avon style floats in so rather than buy a box I decided to make one and craft a marquetry beech veneer front and plain beech veneer back to spice it up a bit. A few coats of varnish later and it's not turned out too bad. The others will be better though (I'm going to make quite a few).

I'm not usually bothered by the weather but I prefer to go fishing when it's at least not pissing down with rain all day. I'll have to grab an afternoon this week if I can, weather and work permitting.

Anyway, here's the next in the chicken gang line-up, Violet. This hen is probably the friendliest chicken of them all and will regularly jump onto my knee for a chat and some corn.

She was in charge at the start and made no bones about keeping the others in check with a peck or two. She's much more subdued now Louis (official name Louis the First)  is in charge of his hareem on his side of the orchard, but Violet is still the boss of the hens.

Mud and Oomska

So much rain has drenched the plot just lately that I squelch and slip my way to the chickens morning and night in a gloomy mood. This isn't helped by being harassed by the sheep, turkeys and chickens on the plot opposite who baaa, cluck and squawk for at me from behind their fencing. I occasionally catch one of the owners leghorn hens in the orchard looking for my chooks food as it has learnt (very clever those leghorns) how to negotiate the wire fencing that surrounds my birds little garden.

I think the guy who owns this plot has abandoned his livestock. They never seem to have any water or food and generally look neglected. This bothers me so much I've been buying extra corn for his birds and a loaf of bread every other day for the sheep which they greedily devour. I really need to have a word with this chap to see if he's going to let this continue but I know I'll come across as a 'nosy neighbour' and probably offend him.

Anyway the weather is so grim I've dug out some more pics from summer to cheer me up and show what the plot CAN look like in a bit of summer sun...

...when the orchard has more lush grass and clover than the current quagmire of mud.

By the way here's the next profile of the chicken gang - Fran.

Fran was also one of the original four birds. Always the one with the most investigative personality, I knew I'd have my hands full with this one. Before the arrival of the roosters, she was relentlessly picked on by the two red hens and was definately the bottom of the pecking order so I've always been very protective of her. Nowadays she receives 'special' attention from Louis, the cockerel in her coop and has risen in the ranks, picking on the younger bird in this troop. She still gives me the runaround at dusk, always the last one in this bird, eeking every last ounce of light from the day.

Here's some shots of her sister hen, Claudia, shown previously, with her little brood last May. Hard to believe that less than a year on they are fully grown and have characters of their own.

This one is from the very night they were born...

The protective Mum...

Claudia would lure them outside once I'd added the little run I'd built for them...

Little monkeys...

Chicken Gang

So here's an introduction to my chooks. I name all my birds. It's only right that I do since they all have such individual characters and personalities. Since keeping chickens myself I now have a healthy respect for poultry and a genuine concern for how they are kept and their general welfare. So much so that when my partner came home with an Asda chicken for Sunday lunch last week I refused to eat it on the grounds that it wasn't free range or corn fed. I just had the veg. I don't think I missed having a few slices of chicken on my plate. I'd have no pleasure in eating a bird that had no quality of life not now I know how poorly broilers and battery hens are kept. I must point out that my birds are egg layers only, not for the table, no way. That would be like eating a pet or a small child.

Anyway here they are. I'll post one at a time over the next few weeks.

This is Claudia. She is one of the original four birds I bought from a breeder up the road. She's a Maran Hybrid and the largest of the original four. I got four hens to start with (I designed the coop to hold up to ten) to see how we got on. Two Maran Hybrids and two Baker Browns which are your typical red hen. All were POL (point of lay) so were fairly mature and started laying within two days of arriving which was fantastic. Cracking open that first egg and seeing the difference in colour, BRIGHT orange, and the white making a perfect circle in the frying pan. Amazing.

Claudia is the one hen who has managed to actually lay two eggs in one day! She is also the only one of my hens so far to lay a 'double yolker'.

I went for hybrids mainly because they were supposed to have had things like broodyness bred out of them. Claudia was the exception here though as she used to constantly get broody and just sit for days, even weeks on end in the nest box in a catatonic trance.

I eventually gave in to her and managed to get some fertilised Copper Blue and Copper Black Maran eggs from a guy on the plot opposite for her to 'sit on' and satisfy her maternal instincts. I even built her a 'maternity unit' dubbed MASH, where she could raise her brood.

More of that to follow...