Chickens and seedlings don't mix!

As much as we've loved having the hens loose in the garden, we do have one complaint. They seem completely incapable of distinguishing between an empty vegetable plot, and one covered in new plants. They scratch and dig their way through both, and given the time would happily dust bath in either. We've lost a few plants to their worm-hunting efforts, and have got rather fed up with chasing them away from certain areas of the garden. Unfortunately where one goes the rest promptly follow and the four of them can do a lot of damage in a remarkably short period of time!

Since we're starting to plant out salad crops we decided that this needing dealing with - and quickly. So I built a fence. The vegetable plots are now a completely separate, (hopefully) chicken proof part of the garden.

BST and a new sort of freedom

Three cheers for British Summer Time!

It may not have got much above freezing yet, but the hour of extra sunlight in the evenings is still very much appreciated. It makes such a difference to the feel of the day to get home from work and have a few hours of sunlight still left to enjoy - even if I need a hat and scarf to do so!

For the hens this means a change of routine too. Giving them the freedom of the garden under close supervision at the weekends has given us the confidence to decide that we will do so more often. It gets them out of the mud bath that is their run and gives them access to greens, bugs, dry soil and a bit of space to run and flap.

We'd also noticed that the last few times we'd released them that they would happily wander back into the run to get to water, or to the nest boxes which convinced us that they were settled and that they knew where home was which makes the whole thing a lot easier.

So, from now on the plan is to let them out when we get home from work until they decide that it's bed time. We've done this each night this week and it's worked like a treat. We let them out at about six, they enjoy themselves greatly and then at about eight go back to their coop and settle down for the night. Bingo.

Checking out the odds I have corn hidden behind my camera...

Everyone enjoying preening in the late evening sun

Just one more minute. Please?

Checking that Joe's new vegetable plot is
in the right place before he starts to dig.

It's becoming a bit of a habit to let the hens loose in the garden for some time each weekend. It's great fun to see them enjoying freedom from their muddy enclosure. The first time we tried it, they barely took in how much garden was available to them but now they're much more familiar with the space and tend to go straight for the grass under the bird feeders which gets covered with seed. Yum yum yum.

Getting the girls back into their run after such an excursion isn't as hard as you'd think due to their great weakness for corn. They're well trained to come running at the rattle of the corn tin and so we can lead them across the garden like the pied piper. A few handfuls of corn thrown into the run area and they're straight inside to get their beaks on such goodies. Easy.

This Saturday however I had no such luck. They'd been loose all morning, but we wanted to go out for the afternoon. I went out armed with the tin of corn and gave it a good shake. Three chickens came running. I led them across the garden planning to round up the stray later and threw a handful of corn into the run. Two chickens went in to investigate. Typical.

So, with Lemon and Pepper busy stuffing their faces, I turned my attention to Frog. Frog seemed to have twigged that this whole corn malarkey was a trick, and much as she wanted to have her share there was no way she was going through the door to get at it! We're starting to get well practised at herding hens and the trick is to keep your arms outstretched - they will run away from both hands at once and so by bringing one hand or the other closer in you can direct them where you want to go. A couple of runs back and forth with little Frog and I finally persuaded her to join the larger two. Now, where had Fizzy got to?

Fizzy was having a bath - a dust bath to be precise - and wanted to finish it before going home if I didn't mind. I did mind. I wanted my lunch and I wasn't going to wait around for Fizzy to finish her bath. Knowing that Fizzy can be the most flighty of the flock I started to move slowly towards her hoping she'd get up and start to run away from me and towards the coop. She ignored me completely.

I got a little closer. She gave me a reproachful look and then continued her bath. This must be a really good bit of dust I thought as I took another step closer. Still she just watched me. So I picked her up to a very disgruntled squawk, carried her across the garden, popped her into the run, and shut the door quickly before they got any clever ideas of escaping again.

And they're out....

I don't know about you, but this weekend we had a lovely sunny (if a little chilly) Saturday - perfect for doing all sorts of jobs in the garden. As the hens currently have no greenery in their run we made a little door in the side of the mesh and let them loose to free-range for the morning.

Pepper, in her wisdom and boldness, decided that pecking at everything that came her way was a plan - whether it be wire cutters as we created a door, or the string we used to lace it back up again. Clearly poking edible things through the bars of their run has been bad training!

Once the door was open they needed no persuasion at all. Off they went across the lawn to sample the delights of fresh grass, leaves, berries, dropped bird food and any thing else they could find. They supervised Joe turning the compost heap and tried to sneak a nibble on the new vegetable shoots while he wasn't looking.

Fizzy particularly enjoyed the autumn berries left on a few shrubs round the garden. We were worried that they might not do her any good, and kept trying to persuade her away from them, but she is a determined little hen. We even pruned away all the branches at pecking height, but she was still jumping to reach berries on higher branches. We still seem to have four healthy chickens however, so perhaps she knew what she was doing. I certainly shan't worry so much next time.

(A few pictures of the dust bath - but I'm afraid its hard to capture anything more than "bundle of feathers" in such scenarios!)

Their favourite pastime during the course of the morning was a dust bath. After months of wallowing in mud they found themselves a nice dry dusty piece of earth under our large hedge and dug themselves in for about an hour. Well, Pepper, Lemon and Frog did anyway, Fizzy mostly seemed to hover nervously round the edge and watch the other three bathe themselves. Since Pepper and Frog have started laying they have gained in confidence - and in pecking order position. Poor Fizzy has been seriously demoted and no longer pushes her way to the front of every queue. I'm sure she'll be back to herself when she starts laying eggs of her own though.