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On My Oasis – New Hens!
I’m ecstatic – I have hens again! Having lost all faith in humanity after someone snuck into my garden and pinched Charlotte – presumably for the pot – I was a little worried about bolstering my flock again. I love having hens, I love eggs, and I love being able to feed the slugs to my feathered warriors, but was I ready for more heartache? Well, it seems as if I was because I headed to Great Totham yesterday to pick up four new ladies from the Battery Hen Welfare Trust.
Over the past few weeks we’ve secured the garden a little more, putting up padlocks, motion sensor lights and barricades. We’ve added some rather wonky trellising (the more wonky, the better – if anyone tries to get over, it’ll break and they’ll hurt themselves), and, yes, there’s even a trip wire of sorts at the bottom. If someone comes in I hope they’ll smash themselves on the way to the ground. I’ve also planted two pyracantha bushes and some very thorny blackberries with the idea that the brambles will take over quickly and then, over the years, I can train the pyracantha into a perimeter fence. So, with all that – and FOUR padlocks added to the coop itself – I hope I’ve done everything I can. It might seem like overkill to see padlocks and bolts everywhere, but these new hens barely escaped slaughter – I’m not having some bastard come and take them for his own pot!
The BHWT do an amazing job saving as many of these hens as possible. There were an astounding number of people picking up their new feathered family members, and I was over the moon to see happy hens (well, actually bedraggled and starving hens as the farmer hadn’t fed them and it was pouring down) going to new homes. My four have settled in extremely well and though they’ve spent almost all the past day, this evening the first two ventured outside. It’ll have been the first time they’ve felt grass beneath their feet, and probably the first time they’ve ever tasted anything green too! Can you imagine?! These hens are around 18 months old which is deemed end-of-life because their egg laying potential begins to drop. Seriously?! The world is *ucked. Especially as, even in their apparent OAP state, I got four eggs today.
So, now I am with hens again. I have quails too, and those trio of chicks are growing rapidly. Food (onions, beans, tomatoes, spinach and an assortment of other things) are all in the ground. I’m really starting to enjoy this little smallholding again….what next? A milking goat, perhaps?
I jest…..kind of…..there’s the perfect goat-house at the bottom of the garden……..
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