Our current Ixworth flock is getting on in years, and it seems a good idea to introduce some new blood into the breeding. On the Ixworth Breeders group that we belong to, someone was selling their breeding flock, plus a few not quite so pure bred ones, so we jumped in and bought them.
It took a trip up to North Norfolk to collect them. Nostalgic for us, since we lived in Norwich when our children were very young, and so the trip brought back many good memories.
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged Bantams, integrating flocks of chickens, Ixworth chickens
The weather’s on the turn, although we got a spectacular show of hoar frost again at the allotment.
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged Bantams, frozen chicken drinkers, Ixworth chickens, Light Sussex
It’s not the happiest month for chickens. The plentiful windfalls and surpluses of autumn have gone, and cold winds have started to blow through the run, in spite of the sheltering straw bales. But we’re keeping their spirits up (and, we hope, their health) with cabbages and broccoli to peck at.
The Light Sussex garden hens are still quite shy, although not as scared of the squirrels and local cats as they once were.
We’re still very taken with our new bantams, but just to show that we haven’t lost our affection for the Ixworths, here we are handing out the last of the blackberries to them. Blackberries are one of the very few treats that the cockerel won’t share. They’re just too good …
We’ve been planning to add to our flock for a little while. Much though we love our Ixworths, they’re handsome rather than pretty, and we fancied some, well, fancy fowl. And we thought that a small flock of bantams would have some grandchild appeal. But maybe that was just an excuse.
Anyway, we paid a visit to the very excellent and highly recommended Orchard Poultry. There we asked for advice and picked out a selection of beautiful and healthy bantams.
It’s always great fun to watch to see which one will emerge from the travel crate first …
No, not a recipe!
We’ve inherited a few old fruit bushes on the part of the allotment where we keep the chickens. We kept the bushes because the birds love to shelter under them. They’re lovely and cool and shady in the summer. We don’t give a lot of attention to the bushes, pruning them rather crudely, and let the chickens have the fruit. But this year there were so many redcurrants that we thought we might take a little share for ourselves.
After our brief absence on our Suffolk jaunt, Saturday’s weather remained kind to allow more tilling and planting. The chickens benefited from the uprooted remains of the purple sprouting broccoli:
Today was cleaning out the henhouses day. We use a product called Aubiose for litter. It’s intended as horse bedding, but it’s absolutely brilliant for poultry. With an interim top-up, it means we only have to do a deep clean once a month.
We start by cleaning the house out thoroughly and checking for red mite, especially on the roosting bars. If we find any, the bar ends are dipped in creosote, and we also creosote the entire house every year. No problems today, I’m glad to say. Then the house is given a good scattering of diatomaceous earth, which also acts against mites.
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged Aubiose for poultry, diatomaceous earth, henhouse cleaning, Ixworth chickens, red mite
The manure arrived for Plot 13 this morning as promised. It’s been dumped on our half, and our allotment neighbours will be barrowing their share onto their half shortly. We rather benefit from this, since whatever’s left behind will be on our side!
I took these pictures over the weekend, after the Friday night storms. In common with everybody else in southern England, we’ve had far more than our share of rain in the last few weeks. We’re not flooded, but the water table is right up to surface level. Woe betide any hen that fancies digging a nice dust bath.
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