I'd been thinking about chickens for a long time and thought I'd done lots of research.
I managed to persuade my lovely Hubbly and I had him captive during a 24 hour flight to NZ and Fiji
Here he is on the plane, reading all the information I'd gathered!
So our girls were our 2nd Wedding Anniversary present and cotton being traditional, we chose the names Cottie, Dottie and Lottie.
Here the little ladies are in their pink hen-partment
Just looking back at this picture now, I don't think that Lottie looks right at all there - this was on September 2nd. Sadly she passed away on the 18th after nursing her for a week with Baytril/etc.
They enjoyed times playing (demolishing) the garden
Love this one of Dottie and Cottie dustbathing in the sunshine
Then very sadly, we lost our little Cottie suddenly. She'd passed away in her sleep overnight on the 10th October - what a very sad start to chicken keeping we had.
We were devastated as you'd imagine. We took Cottie to our vet and also Dottie and Benny for a checkover as well - we had no idea what had happened as she was totally fine the day previous.
Our vet said that Dottie (and Benny) was fine and to get some new friends for Dottie as soon as possible.
We didn't go back to the same place and tried another supplier for our new ladies.
Home we came with Hilda and Elsie - we decided names on the journey, after Hilda and Elsie from Coronation Street.
Here they are, enjoying their dust bath
Hilda
Elsie
All seemed fine, the introductions weren't too bad at all really. That was the winter we had the very heavy snow but still both Hilda and Elsie made their first eggs!
So we managed with the extended run, moving it around the garden (not so easy!) but like many others, we found the omletttteee run to be woefully inadequate! Honestly I believed all those lovely images of the set up on lovely green grass!!!!
With our garden looking like a site of devastation, we decided to have a big walk in run made, so the girls could have their own little section of the garden. This was my birthday pressy last year from my lovely kind and generous Hubbly
Work commenced in March 2012
And the girls moved into their new Mansion!
I got their Mansion looking quite nice over the summer, grew sweet peas all up the sides of the run. Oh and our grass came back too!
They settled in just fine and here they are devouring a sunflower
Then one Sunday morning in September we were getting ready to take Benny out, when I noticed Elsie all curled up in the egloooo. Oh no, here we go again
I nursed her, with Hubbly and Benny also on Elsie watch for hours until she slipped away.
As we were about to go on holiday, I held off getting some new friends for Dottie and Hilda.
November 2012, Benny and I took the trip to the poultry place and home we came with Nita (white) and Betty (Bluebelle)
During the introductions, our little Hilda earn't the new name of Hilda-Scrum-Half-Rugby-Tackling-Hen!!! I'd never seen anything like the way she puffed up and took a swipe at the newbies with her wing!!!! Think it took about two weeks and they were all quite calm in together
Then on Christmas day, I noticed our little Dottie wasn't looking good at all. Initially she looked quite comfortable and peaceful, laying on the floor of the run in the straw, but when the others were getting a little too close, I decided to bring her in.
She remained in the warm kitchen, with a special concoction I made for her and she seemed to perk up a little bit, but on the morning of 27th she deteriorated and went very very weak and pale so we took her to the vet sadly
So now we're back to three little ladies once again. At the moment we are getting two eggs a day from Nita and Betty. Hilda hasn't laid an egg since early October, just after Elsie died.
In terms of personalities, they're all very very different. Hilda is probably top hen still, I did wonder if Nita would've taken that spot, as she's very forward and vocal. Little Betty is so very sweet and good natured, indeed she and Nita are extremely friendly little ones.
I do hope to get some more little ladies and some ex-batty ladies at some point. But we'll let things settle for a while first.
