And finally Penny a Coral Nick

This is Harriot a Pied Suffolk

This is Hazel a Black Tail

This is Margot, a Fenning Black

This is Sweetie, she's a BlueBelle

So Lets meet the girlies! This is babette shes and Amber

Their new house!

So, Nick very carefully struggled into the run with each box and opened them up, and they fluttered out VERY quickly!! Think they must have been in a bit of shock as they had been sitting by the side of the run while we put in fresh water, food and stuff.

Initially they all huddled under the cube, and we just stood there like lemons thinking 'What do you do with a chicken?' But we had stocked up on grapes and poked one through the bars and they were more than happy to scoff them up! The brown one Hazel is the most friendly/nosey and was following us about.. We dutifully spent the next hour or so just watching to see what they do.... Soooo we have discovered that they are going to be mamoth time wasters!! Shame....................

The big day!!

So we were up at the crack of dawn, packed and ready to leave at 9am - talk about eager beavers!!! We found it very easily a normal semi detached house with a note on the door saying 'very busy today so come down the garden'. so off we went down the garden, and down, and down and down.... massive man, Ben says he's not sure how big but 7 or 800 feet long!!! Man it was amazing, dotted all the way along were various chickens in wooden houses all looking very happy...

Ours were in a big pen with many others who all looked the same, Ben though knew exactly who was who thankfully..... We put our boxes together and some shredded paper in the bottom and we were ready!!!

So how do you catch a chicken???? Well the brave Ben goes in with a HUGE fishing/butterfly net and charges about trying to net them!! funny thing was we had joked about how they would do it, and never thought it would be true!!! So out he came with either one or 2 chickens and straight into the boxes, he did tell us who was what though which was very helpful, then the lids were on and straight into the car! Aircon on and away we go..... only to realise 200m down the road we had forgotten to get him to clip their wings!!!!!! No returning for that though, we will have to cross that bridge when we come to it, hopefully the man round the corner will help us out with that one.......

The journey went very well, about 90minutes with no clucking in the background, then we unloaded them straight away!

The Great Dilemma

Soooooooooooo, there we were, tucked up in the Whitehouse B&B in Highcliff on sea.... glorious place everyone should spend some time there, good old fashioned seaside. You park on a cliff top and walk down a very steep wiggly path to the beach! Grrrrrrrreat. We spent 2 hours there scoffing a sarnie and managed to burn to a crisp even with cream on! Nick has a very desirable 'man tan', you know the sort, brown from the mid bicep down - nice!!!

Anyway. I'd had a 'feeling' in my water and wanted to call Ben the hen man! 'Have you got my email' he says? We've had no mobile signal all week, let alone internet access, so the answer was no! 'Well' he says, 'there was a mix up, and i've sold all your hens!!!!!!' Well after i'd picked myself up from the floor, and he'd apologised 50 million times, he said he has a lady in the same business who may be able to help us out, and to call back in next evening...

Talk about frantic, we'd arranged our entire holiday around this, so nanny and donna were on case texting me info on other breeders we'd researched - yay a life line.....

But relax.......... the lovely Ben had managed to 'source' all of the hens we wanted, they were from the same 'batch' as his and all would be well..... just turn up at lunchtime the next day, and the family would be complete!

It's complete!!!

The big build is complete!!!! Yay for us.... we are feeling very proud of ourselves... its looks great. We began after i'd come home from work... poor Nick had been digging up a stump in the front garden ALL morning.. I got home and he was up to his chest in a massive hole with an even more massive stump in front of him... it appears that the bugger will not be moved.. so we literally are stumped! Might have to ask the paving man if he can do something with his digger, so the hole is here to stay for a while...

After lunch we tottered off to the back garden and reinstated the big build...Once we got going it didn't take too long, it appeared that we'd done the worst of it yesterday with the leveling of the ground, so we literally had to snap it all together... there was no swearing, stamping or huffing as it was all very smooth.

We've made as much room around it as we can so that we can get to the nesting box for egg collection, and do that without wading through masses of mud. We had to chop a couple of mini trees down to make way for it, but that means we can see it a bit from the house which I quite like!

Nick made use of his new chain saw and lopped a massive branch off of our unwanted elder tree and fashioned it into a perch for them, they can also go over or under it!!!!

Just need to get a bit of trellis for a small piece of fence in case they want to try for the great escape over it!!!

1st Attempt!

Well, we decided to have a go and get some of the cube constructed today as the forcast for the weekend is poo, much like the monsoons we've had this week!

So out there we went tools in hand, got the wheels together, the under side grills on, and the downfall came...... in we ran to check on how the omletteres were getting on who had theirs delivered today - sad ha???

Out we went again, turned it up the right way, got the front on and the ladder, had to move it into place with much tooing and frowing, only to discover our flat patch, was not flat!!! There was an episode of frantic raking and a side panel went on...

THEN THE HEAVENS OPENED!!!

Tarpauling everywhere.... a very wet boyfriend, rain had stopped play in true british fashion......
better luck tomorrow.....

They are ordered!

So again after much trawling of the web, we have decided to get our hens from Hen House Poultry in Teston near Maidstone. That means they will have a much shorter journey home... we have put in a order for 6-7 chooks so that we can decide on the day which ones will be best for us!!!!

But there will definately be a ranger an amber, a black, a blue, we are torn on the speckledy so will have to wait and see....

All very exciting........

It's Here! It's Here

Well it arrived!!! A whole 24hrs early......... I'd been glued to the forum as when I called to check the order they said it could be a day either side! Not good as I'd arranged it for when I was a day off...... Was feeling a bit gloomy about it as we've all had monsoon for the last few days..... So was on the phone to Donna who was explaining that her plants were drowning and she was going to put a brolley over them and a naffing great big lorry appeared outside!!!

Think I took the man by surprise as I was SOOOOOOOOO excited!!! We were both out there getting drenched! There were 5 huge boxes... and they had to come inside as getting up the side of the house in lashing rain is just toooo tricky.... poor coops was a bit put out I can tell you.....

When nick got it we took it all out of the wet boxes and it's now safely stacked in the living room until the big build on the weekend!!

The Plan..... Da Da Daaaaaaaaaa

All Plans as you know should be pretty simple!!! However, you ALL know me and know that absolutely nothing is simple with me!! I think we really have settled with this one though, which is why I am pretty confident with posting it on here!

So July 21st we are trekking off to Dorset to stay 2 nights in a little B&B called the Fox Inn in Antsy, the main reason for this is 100 years ago I caught some program or other about gardening, and they were saying about some Jurassic gardens in Dorset... I really wanted to go and have kept it in my tiny mind all this time.... so off we go to Abbotsbury where they are situated...

http://www.abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/gardens.htm

There is also a swannery there which I'd like to see... Nick assures me he does too and I'm not just dragging him about by the scruff of his coat!!!

From there we are settled to travel the short distance to Highcliff on sea which is near Bournmouth..... Nick has never been to Beaulieu, and with him being a big car person I thought he may enjoy it, plus it may be a minor trade off for the gardens!!! We will also have a look into Bournmouth, and maybe come back for longer another time....

Soooooooooooooo on friday the 25th we will start our trek back..... not that easy though.....

We will have to call 2 breeders to see which one has the most in that we want and then we will hot foot it over there as most appear to shut at 1pm - not that convenient.......

We have tracked down boxes as vets it appears don't sell the cardboard cat carriers any more and pets and home only appear to have them for hamsters!!!

So we are all set, stock allowing........

Wish us luck!

Helping out the neighbours

Well today Nick and Henry put up a willow fence. They braved the gusting winds with a two meter very bendy fence.....

It's going all the way around the back and down one side of where the chooks will be living. It's been well staked with tree posts to keep it up round the back and it nailed to the fence on the other side.....

It's predominately to help out Karen who lives at the end of the garden to help to shield the noise and noise limit to what she can see, although I think she's quite keen to keep her beady eye on them... also to sheild us from next doors very nutty dogs! They are constantly either trying to come under or over the fence and I fear that the chance of a chick will be too much for them to keep their restraint... I'd like to see the bugger pole vault over 2m of fence... maybe we should keep a CCTV cam there just in case!!!

Surprisingly though it really does sheild from the elements.. We were put to a good test up there today as it was gale force at times, and it really does cut it down by at least 50% if not more. I think our chooks will be very warm and cosy in there; it's pretty private for them now, so they should be very content!!!

Hen party

Go on, laugh your heads off!!!!! But a Hen party it is..... all organised by omlet of course to learn how to look after your chooks!

Off we went on a mystery tour to the depths of Rettendon to the lovely Kathryns house..... massive garden... jealous not.. and at least 10 hens, 2 cubes, an eglu and built in run.......... now feeling very inadequate!!!

Honestly though we had a great time.....learn what to feed them, how to clean them, what their 'vent' does! Yukk is a gapping pulsing tunnel looking thing which is multi-purpose for egging, pooing and weeing!!!! Bit of a shock I can tell you!

However a very pleasant 2 hrs it was, 8 prospective parents all staring at chickens wondering what we are going to let ourselves in for....... some obviously had done NO research we on the otherhand new most stuff so no great shocks - thankfully!

We did come away with a very nice Omlet reusable bag though!

completed

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. with the patch complete and much acurate measuring it was decided we had room for a cube!!!! Plus EVERYBODY says you'll up date to a cube within a week as it's addictive, so we decided to jump straight in.....

There was much debate on the omlet forum..... ALL in favor of a cube... but which colour... we had decided upon a green eglu but a purple cube won the day!!!

After almost crying on the phone with the lady she agreed to deliver it on the 10th July - Yay for me... or us I should say...... the chooks however will have to come at a later date after a few days away... no great shakes as I really want a white one!

Patch!

Well, now we had decided where they were going to live the stumps had to go...... a stump grinder was the obvious answer, however, the nice man at the hire shop had other idea, he reckoned that we wouldn't get it in the garden - not a great start.....

So off Nick when with henry for the great excavation..... there was much grunting and grinding, pick axe flinging and sweating and the first one was out!!! The next one wasn't so easy.. that required the most complex of equipement.... a car jack!! An excellent edition to any tool shed! however it did the trick, and thats what's important.....

Nick seemed to come off relatively well, and didn't even ache too much the next day.... take a look yourself!

Omlet

Next... we became glued to the omlet site.. www.omlet.co.uk like strange anorak people... there's nothing we dont know about them!! Plus I discovered the forum!! Man you can't get me away from that.....

Now we needed to decide what colour, there are 7!!! Also what length run for how many chooks? What do they eat? How do they live? Omlet knows everything..... or the thousands of fellow Omletteres always know the answer.....

So after doing many rudimentary calculations we strolled up our small garden and decided there were 2 possible places, both of which were under my neighbours window!!!!

However, since a large tree was in the way on one side the veggie patch and compost area were on borrowed time.......

Then the deed was done! A green eglu, extension and 3 chooks all being delivered on the 29th july!!!!

Looking about

Well................. It was a very dubious place, I can tell you, a well rounded man complete with braces, bald patch and accompanying fag perched precariously on his whiskered chin explains that we can have as many as we like in a teenytiny badly built bedsit for chooks.... best we don't have the cute black ones, nasty eggs apparently.... so we should have the brown ones, which were in a stable with 30 others.... free range? Not!!!!

So we smiled nicely while a very strange couple in dirty Mercedes came and quickly left with 2 peacocks in a small box.... they were housed next to the Llamas!!!

We hastily made our retreat and hot footed it back to the laptop!

Research

So there we were, laptop on lap and warming our knees.... where should we begin?

We started by chance with the local paper, POL chickens for sale!!! Means about to lay eggs apparently...... so we phoned them up and arranged a look about!

Next was the search for appropriate chick mansions, and there are many to choose from, let me tell you, single storey, multi storey, nesting boxes in or outside, mostly made of wood and costing a small fortune........

So of course the next port of call is ebay! How do we ever manage to live without it? I wonderful invention, much information, but not much help.... Much google searching later we came across an 'eglu' from Omlet! What a revelation! The page was book marked tootsuit and off we toddled to the local chick place......

The beginning!

It was a normal weekend here, bit rainy, bit sunny, we had been talking about getting a tortoise!!! There we were wandering around pets at home like complete saddos buying 'dog rocks' to try and stop Coops from killing the grass with EVERY early morning pee!!!

It appears there is not much info on tortoises out there, certainly nothing in the petshop. Lots of lovely bunnies though.....

While out walking the lovely coops, discussing the pros and cons of tortoise keeping there was a very quite 'bok' coming from the fence on the corner! 'Have they got chickens' ? We wondered????

Silence for the next week or so, and then while soliciting by his fence one day the man was in his garden.... 'do you have a chicken in there'? We asked..... 'Actually we have 6!!!' Blimey.... in we went for a look about, and there in the corner were 6 hens wandering about having a whale of a time!!! After much chin wagging we came away with a notion and 6 marvellous home grown eggs!!!!

It was easy to see how much better they were than good ole tesco's free range efforts.

Soooooooo the extensive research began!!!