Fowl not Foul Flock Diary

January / February 2008

In January 2008 we decided to embark on keeping chickens again. My aim for this flock was to create blue/green egg laying fowl, a few meat birds for the table, and more feathers for Broody Designs Ltd. To go about this, I would require a cockeral with the blue egg gene (egg colour is inherited from the father), and hens which lay a good quantity of tinted or white eggs. The meat birds would be bred from Indian Game birds.

So, on Saturday 26th January we collected an Araucana cockeral. He was a Gold Duckwing, and very beautiful indeed.

He lived in a box in the studio during the night, and was let out into a run during the day. However, on the second day of havng him, he escaped as I was catching him to put him back to bed. We followed him over several gardens, and eventually caught Sopwith as he perched in a tree to roost. Unfortunately on 28th January, Sopwith escaped again, making his way through three neighbours gardens, and into the big garden at the back. As I found a way to get over the overgrown fence to get to him, I heard a dog bark, Sopwith screech, and I feared the worst. I went to look for him, it was getting dark so I hoped that he would have perched somewhere to roost, and would therefore be easy to find. But I couldn't find a trace of him, not even with a torch. I feared the worst. In the morning we got up early to look for him again - and to my delight we heard him crow - the dog hadn't killed him after all. After a while of following the sound of his crow, we spotted him, and eventually caught him round the side of next door's shed. He had lost his tail in the encounted with the dog, but was otherwise unarmed.

Above: Sopwith without most of his tail, enjoying some food.

He needed a hen for company, otherwise he would continue to try to escape. So, I made arrangements and on Tuesday 29th January I collected an ex-battery hen, who would be Sopwith's companion for the time being. I named her Dunnie, after the person who gave her to me.

Above: Dunnie in amongst some dead nettle stalks

Sopwith and Dunnie first met each other on the Wednesday morning. Sopwith tried a mating dance around Dunnie, but this was to no avail, and even worse for Sopwith, Dunnie gave him a good pecking and drove him away. By the end of the day both birds had accepted each other, although Dunnie would still not accept Sopwith's invitations to mate.

By Sunday 16th February Dunnie had laid nine eggs, but she was still refusing Sopwith's advances.

The birds have been eating layer's pellets and corn, with sunflower hearts. This is mixed with boiled potato, boiled mung beans and lentils, raw spring onion tops, garlic and marjoram. The garlic and onion is said to fend off worms, and the marjoram is to aid digestion.

The birds seem to love this mix - Dunnie just digs in, not minding that her beak gets covered in potato, but Sopwith is a more careful eater. He will take a piece of the potato mix out of the trough, and carry it a few feet away, where he pecks at it delicately. He then wipes all the excess potato off his beak, and then goes in for another chunk of the mix.

I wanted to get more hens for Sopwith, so in early March we picked up two point of lay barn birds. At first Dunnie bullied the two newcomers, but within 2 weeks they had worked out a pecking order.

.......

April 2008

On 22nd April I put some eggs from Dunnie and her colleagues in the incubator.

Unfortunately on the morning of Sunday 29th April there was a fox attack. I had let the birds out at 0610 and left, and unfortunately the fox attacked soon after that. By the looks of things he had taken all four birds, and we were very disappointed.

I picked up the feathers from the garden on Monday morning, and amazingly heard Sopwith crowing! He was in next door's garden, watching me. He seemed unharmed except for a bald patch on his bottom and only 4 tail feathers. An attempt to catch him failed, but we tried again later and got him, returning him to his run which had been strengthened since the fox attack.

On Monday afternoon we picked up two new hens for Sopwith, a Black Rock and a Columbian Blacktail. I decided to call the Black Rock Damaris and the Columbian Blacktail Carmen.

Below: Damaris

Below: Carmen

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