It’s with a very heavy heart I have to write that I have lost another hen. Hattie, originally known as Ruby, one of my two new ex-battery hens who arrived just three weeks ago, died tonight.

She’s never been so perky as her compatriot, Lottie (originally Nellie), who is very feisty. She has spent a lot of time in the coop ever since she arrived, but I noticed today that she was moving very slowly. I gave her a sugary drink to see if it would perk her up. But, if anything, she seemed worse. When I came in for supper, she had put herself to bed, but I feared she wouldn’t last the night.

Went out to close their pophole a while ago and I found her dead in the run. I am gutted. So sad. I feel guilty that I didn’t pick up on it earlier, but it is so difficult to see changes in an animal’s behaviour when you aren’t familiar with it. Oh dear, I feel as though I have let her down…. *She says with a large lump in her throat*

My one consolation is that she had a couple of months of freedom from her previous life in a battery cage.

Hattie 2nd June rip

The sad demise of Buffy has freed up space in the coop for one or two more hens. I was hoping that Winnie or Dottie would pop their clogs as they really are not very friendly, and haven’t laid for nearly two years. It’s always the way, the nicest hens die first!

Today I picked up two little ex-battery ladies. So tiny compared with my big hens. They’ll stay for a few days in the little ark, then I’ll put the ark inside the hens’ run, then after another few days,  I’ll let them all out together. It worked well when I introduced Buffy and Polly to the flock, let’s hope that it will this time.

They don’t have names and I would be very grateful if you could suggest some please.

Names needed for two little ex-batts

Little did I think when I snapped Buffy having her dust bath in the bonfire ashes on Friday, (see yesterday’s 365 #18 post) that it would be her last performance.

I went out late last night to say goodnight to Max and to close up the hens’ coop, because I had been watching the last in the series of The Village (which I found most disappointing!).  After I had dropped the hens’ pop hole door, I went back to Max to give him a couple of carrots and heard argie bargie in the hen coop. As though they were squabbling about having the best perch on which to roost (though no clucking).  Then there was a ‘thud’, which was strange. I now know that it was Buffy falling off her perch. Whether she had a heart attack and toppled over onto the hen next to her, causing the ‘argie bargie’ sounds or whether somebody pecked her and she fell off the perch and broke her neck, I will never know. But there wasn’t a mark on her. So I suspect the former.

She was the star turn in my post for 365 #18 on Saturday. When responding to one of the comments, I said that I hadn’t bonded with any of the hens that I had left, because none of them would let me touch them, let alone pick them up. This wasn’t, technically, true.

Buffy was my ex partner’s hen. When we went to pick them as point of lay pullets, I chose Polly because Light Sussex hens lay really well. My ex chose Buffy, a Buff Orpington, because she was so pretty, like a ballerina, he said. She had a lovely bussle and skirts and seemed to glide across the ground. Against all the odds, she laid an egg a day practically all year in her first year. Which must be unusual for her breed..

In May, three years ago, Pippa, M’s horse, whom he had owned for nigh on 16 years, had to be put down. It was a Thursday so I took Friday off to be around for him. It was 4.15 in the afternoon and I was washing Max’s tail in front of the stables. I happened to look up and saw Buffy, in the jaws of a fox, being dragged off into the ditch at the bottom of the paddock. I ran down there wailing like a banshee and waving my arms like a helicopter.  The fox, probably wondered what an earth was coming in his direction, dropped her in the ditch and bolted!

Poor Buffy came up out of the ditch rather the worse for wear.  She let me pick her up, wash, dry and treat her wounds. Poor thing was in shock. But she survived and three or four days later was all but back to her normal self.  She was a sweet hen, without an ounce of malice in her.

I’m so glad that she had such a wonderful time in the bonfire ashes the day before she fell off her perch. R.I.P Buffy dear.

Buffy’s bussle

Dear Buffy with ‘orrible Dotty

Buffy enjoying her dust bath on Saturday

Six, or maybe 7, years ago we (my ex partner and I) decided we would like some hens. Well, to be honest, it was probably me who decided and he went along with it!

Dotty, a Cuckoo Maran, Hetty a Speckled Maran, and Aggie and Betty, two Black Rocks were, you  might say, my foundation stock. I bought them from an ol’boy who I thought was a breeder, but who turned out to be a bit of a wheeler dealer, as they say.

All four hens were pretty wild, although Betty did become approachable in time. She used to sit on the spade when my ex was digging-over the veg plot. They were very clever (who says that chickens are dumb?) because whenever they saw the fork or spade they would waddle after you as they knew that worms would be in the offing.

Grumpy Dotty

After a couple of years, we were in the garden one early summer’s day and Hetty (the Alpha hen) hurtled past us. Catching a glimpse of bright red on her breast we thought that she had injured herself. Trying to catch her was out of the question… like her three comrades in arms,  she was unapproachable. After some investigations, trying to look as closely as we could, we came to the conclusion that her flesh wasn’t broken but was livid red and devoid of feathers. We then discovered that the feathers were all in the nest box, and after doing some internet research we came to the conclusion that she was broody, and indeed she was.

We built her a broody coop and bought 6 hatching eggs, including a couple of blue cream legbar eggs, and a Welsummer egg gifted by my neighbour. 22 or 23 traumatic days later, the eggs started to hatch. I say ‘traumatic’ because Hetty was such a good hen she just sat on ‘her’ eggs, refusing all sustinance or inducements to take a walk. After 10 days I was physically pushing her off the eggs (what the experts would have said, god only knows) and covering the eggs with a towel. During those days she hardly ate or drank anything.

The outcome was 4 chicks. The other eggs didn’t hatch. Two Rhode Island Reds, a Cream Legbar and a Welsummer. One Rhode Island Red, Boris, and the Cream Legbar, Ozzie, were obviously cockerals. My neighbour took them, we thought to breed with because they were purebreds, but I have a sneaking suspicion  that they ended up in the pot, which, between  you and me, we were very sad about.

That left Winnie the Welsummer and my lovely Rosie the Rhode Island Red. Sadly Rosie died 2 weeks after getting over an oviduct infection. She had Marek’s disease which paralyses their legs.

We lost the two Black Rocks and, in 2009, we added two more to our dwindling flock. A Buff Orpington, aka Buffy and a Light Sussex we named Polly. Sadly, a couple of years later lovely Hetty, Mother Hen, died. Just leaving Dotty, Winnie, Polly and Buffy.

Hetty hen

Dotty is in her 9th year and although she laid two or three eggs last year, her egg-laying days are over. Her eggs have always been speckled with blood, so had she been in a commercial flock, she would probably would have been culled at the end of her first year. So she has had a good life with me. Winnie is 6 this year, as are the other two.  She has only ever been ‘on the lay’ for 3 months of the year, god knows why. Last year she probably only laid half a dozen eggs.

The difficult decision is what do I do with Dotty and Winnie? I have to say that neither of them are very nice, and neither of them are friendly. Dotty is a bit aggressive with the others and Winnie drives me mad because she won’t come in at the end of the day. I have to get booted and coated up, wooly hat as well, just to go outside to get her in before Charlie fox catches her!

Winnie Welsummer

Last year I felt the time had come to send them to chicken heaven, but I certainly couldn’t despatch them myself. I asked my neighbour if he could do the dastardly deed and he said that he would, just remind him. That was nearly a year ago and I haven’t reminded him. Can’t bring myself to do it. I am finding it difficult to come to terms with actually having an animal’s life terminated. It’s different if they are terminally ill or suffering, then there is no choice, but just because they are too old to lay eggs, and are not very nice characters, is that enough of an excuse to chop off their heads? Am I being too sentimental? Would you be able to do it?