Hello the Girls!

[ClareA]

Sorry if this has repeated. Connection went a bit funny.
Went and fetched four hens last night - two big ones, two bantams, so now have six, with the existing two. OH disappointed, as bantams lay tiny eggs ('I suppose it could be worse. They could be quails', he said).
They.re lovely girls, though. A big ginger one, another largely ginger with a black tail, the two tiny bantams are yellowy beige and greyish brown.
Cooped last night and tonight - freedom tomorrow!

[NazNomad]

"OH disappointed, as bantams lay tiny eggs"

.. but much tastier ones, imo.

[starone]

Are they happy together? When I was young we kept hens and there was always one bedraggled hen that the others picked on, or possibly pecked on. That is where the expression 'pecking order' came from. What your OH wants of course is goose eggs or if he really likes eggs how about an ostrich egg? Quails eggs are quite nice if you have about a dozen all at once and I can't think of any way of cooking them except to hard boil them.

[ClareA]

Is that so, Naz? I've had custody of these birds (not the same ones, obviously) for about three years now, but only just got the little bantams.

[ClareA]

Starbuck, the OH is quite happy so long as he doesn't have to have anything to do with their husbandry - that is 'my thing'! He'll make the omelettes when he feels inclined, even if it takes about eight bantam eggs to feed the two of us!

[starone]

I thought you might like to get an ostrich to add to your flock clare.

[ClareA]

Wouldn't that be something, Starbuck? Considering the complaints we had when the recently-departed 'boys' were in residence, I dread to think what the reaction to a great, stomping ostrich would be! In fairness, only one resident complained. I never heard the early morning 'cock-a-doodle-doos', as I sleep like the dead.

[starone]

There used to be a cockerel living in the houses behind mine. Everyone except me complained about it. There are some advantages to being a trifle deaf.

[ClareA]

LOL, Starbuckone! Have you ever been close to them, though, when they're in full voice? Phenomenal noise. Before the cockerels were rehomed (one to a smallholding with his own harem of four hens, the others to the MSPCA), they used to do 'competitive crowing'! And at any time of day or night - 2am, 4am, lunchtime. The neighbour who complained said hed endured it since before Christmas. Our landlord asked why he'd not complained from day 1 - then it'd have been sorted much sooner.

[trt]

Never mind the eggs, what do the hens and bantams taste like when they are cooked with stuffing etc?

[ClareA]

trt, I expect you think I'll be outraged, but in fact my cunning plan is systematically to feed them on Paxo, so they are essentially 'self-stuffing'.

[Jan1957]

What about gravey as well Clare? They'd be nice and moist too.

[trt]

So getting them ready stuffed for the oven for easter ClareA?

[ClareA]

All suggestions gratefully taken on board!

[starone]

Clare - my mother reckoned if you put the rod where they roosted up high they would not be able to stretch their necks and so couldn't crow. I don't know whether it worked. Incidentally, I did wonder if you ever ate any of them. We did, and they were very nice, especially at Christmas. Chicken wasn't so prevalent in my day, we only had it at Christmas and special days.

[ClareA]

What was quite funny was that while I was 'chicken chasing', a phone call came in, in answer to a job enquiry I'd made earlier.I was desperately trying to listen to the bloke's description of the job, while miming and pointing: 'No - that one's a cockerel, look at its spurs!'. Goodness knows what the poor fellow on the end of the phone made of me, what with the inattention and the background sound-effects.

[ClareA]

Starbuck, with due respect to your mother, I can't see how a higher perch would stop them crowing. Ours sought out ever higher places from which to crow in competition with one another, and indeed chickens roost surprisingly high in trees when given the chance. I can believe chicken being a treat for 'high days and holidays'.

[nonomaybe]

I have heard that if you keep the cockerels in the dark they don't crow - until you let the light in. I haven't heard this before, or since.

[ClareA]

'Fraid that's not true, nonomaybe. As we caught each of the three cockerels, they were confined in turn to a closed part of the coop, overnight until arrangements to transport them were made the next day. They crowed from inside there!