The Chicken Diaries - May 2021

 

Three French hens....Little Grey Hen, Chicken and Egg. Dil was away kicking seven bells out of another part of the garden

The arrival of three tea cosies with little fluffy feet….. 

We have kept poultry on a small scale for many years – and some very happy memories are of our children rearing chicks and ducklings of all sorts of shapes and sizes, but consistently my favourite breed of hen has been the Pekin bantam. This little hen is pretty to look at – resembling a tea cosy with fluffy feet, the breed is wonderful, with fiercely protective mothers and a good temperament (although we have had one notably aggressive cockerel who even decided that it was worth picking a fight with a tractor). They are also good news for gardeners – I have found them to be the least destructive hen in the garden. So – it was with absolute delight that, a few days ago, I received an early birthday present; a trio of black mottled Pekin bantams. 

A trio is a very traditional way of buying poultry and at poultry fairs you will frequently find that hens are sold this way. It consists of a cockerel and two hens – of the same breed, obviously. If you are considering starting to rear hens a trio is a good way to begin because it is a manageable number to accommodate, they only need a small hen house and, if you want to take the leap into chick production you have everything you need.  Never be tempted to buy just one hen - they are exceptionally social birds and need friends. 

Our three new bantams cautiously inspecting their new house

An introduction to the egg laying team

We already had four hens – enough to give us plenty of eggs for our own use with some left over to give to friends. Each hen is different, so we can tell them apart and so their eggs also vary and we know who has laid what. The oldest is called Little Grey Hen and she is now about 3 years old – and had just about given up laying eggs until we introduced some new hens into the team last year. With their arrival she took on a new lease of life and lays about one light brown egg every three days or so. 

Last year we bought two hens or pullets (the English name for young hens at “point of lay” (i.e. at the point in their lives when they are old enough to start laying eggs). They are both brown – one a plain brown and the other resembling a Welsummer (another favourite of ours for its temperament and lovely brown eggs). We called them Chicken and Egg – Egg, appropriately enough, started laying eggs first. 

Our children came out to stay in the summer and bought us two more as a surprise – these were grey hens. They resemble Marans, a French breed of hen, with one darker than the other so that we could tell them apart. The children called them Dil and Do (don’t ask – nothing to do with me). Sadly Do, who was the light coloured one, was eaten by a predator after about six months but Dil remains with us and lays enormous eggs. She is huge, a bit bossy towards the others and with a tendancy to fly out of their hen run. 

Best of friends - Dil, once she got over the sad loss of Do became besties with Little Grey Hen

Little Grey Hen, Chicken, Egg and Dil have brought a lot of fun into our lives but have also created havoc in the garden. The potager and soft fruit gardens are fenced off, so they can’t get in there and the orchard is safe but the ornamental flower garden started to resemble a battle ground. They would rush over to where I was working (or had been recently) and attack the earth as though they were taking part in a gold rush. They threw the soil onto the grass, ate all the worms and - quelle horreur – pulled up anything recently planted. Then, in dry weather – to make matters worse, they would settle down into the soil and create great huge hollows where they had given themselves a dust bath. One of us had to go – me or them.

Happily we reached a compromise and the four working girls, as I call them, are now confined to their hen house and run. They have plenty of space to run around in and we make a point of giving them interesting food to eat and stuff to scratch around in. From time to time – when we are around to watch them – we will let them into the garden for a treat. Most importantly, after a few days of confusion, egg laying is back up to its usual quota, so they must be content. 

A birthday treat for me

However – we missed the company of little fluffy friends to talk to as we worked in the garden – and so my birthday present arrived early. We bought our trio, an impulse purchase, at Jardiland near Bergerac where they sell certificated, pure breed hens. We already had a suitable small henhouse (an ark – which is combined house and run) which we brought from the UK years ago and the paraphernalia needed to dispense water and food – plus plenty of straw for bedding, plus the actual food itself, of course. Our trio came home with us in two cardboard boxes – the hens in one and the cockerel in the other. They moved into their new house that evening and immediately all became firm friends. 

At 7am the next morning we were woken up by Bertie Buttons (the cockerel) crowing his heart out – he has made himself at home. 

This is Einstein, named after his hair do. He is part Polish and part we know not what. He left us to live in style at a manoir in the Lot et Garonne. Polish hens have a distinctive top knot and are generally very friendly.

 A short glossary of chicken related terms: 

🐓Hen – La poule 

🐓Cockerel – Le coq 

🐓Laying hen (i.e. one which is old enough to lay eggs) - La poule pondeuse

🐓Hen house – Le poulallier 

🐓Egg – L’œuf (masculine) 

🐓Poultry – La volaille 

🐓Pullet (i.e.  young bird) - La poulette or le poulet 

(Not to be confused with “le froussard” which means “chicken” in the sense of “coward”) 

🐓Point of lay (i.e. just reaching the age at which they will start to lay eggs) – De la ponte