Anglesey Smallholder

When putting the chickens to bed just now, I looked into the coop and saw one flat on her back. RIP, chicken.

The old chicken coop was beginning to deteriorate – the roofing felt was torn off during a storm and didn’t get replaced.  Now they have a nice new coop to live in!  It’s a bit bigger (it could probably house twice as many chickens as I actually have – they like to sleep all squashed up together in the corner), and has two separate nesting areas.  They were not very keen on going in – chickens aren’t very adventurous at the best of times – so for the last two nights they have had to be carried over to it and put in.  Hopefully tonight they will manage by themselves.

The polytunnel has arrived!  For the benefit of American readers, you would just call it a greenhouse.  It’s a series of metal arches covered with plastic. We have put the frame up, we now need to dig a ditch all the way around and bury the ends of the plastic sheet in it.  Digging the ditch is going to be very hard work, the soil seems to be quite heavy clay.  The good news is that the field has dried out a lot since the ditch was cleared with a digger.

It has been rather a stressful week.  First Victoria the sheep became ill – it turned out that she had a chill after being sheared, and is now fine.  Once again, I sheared her myself with a pair of hand shears.  This is not the 2-minute job you see on TV!  It took me a full 3 hours of cutting, without a break.  Victoria was very good, and didn’t struggle or try to escape while she was being cut.  I cut her closer and more evenly than last year (which was my first time ever), and again got the fleece off in one piece.  My biggest worry is cutting her because the shears are exceptionally sharp and in places where the skin is loose it would be very easy for it to get caught, however I went very carefully and didn’t cut her at all.

Second, one of the chickens died without warning.  On Saturday, I noticed that one of the other chickens was not looking well.  Looking at her closely revealed that not only did she have an egg stuck, but she was crawling with parasites.  The vet next door was away for the weekend so I went to see the Adrian, our next door neighbour on the other side and the chicken farmer that originally gave us the chickens.  He confirmed what I suspected, that the kindest thing to do was to put her down.  He kindly offered to come around and see to it himself, and thus her life was ended.  It wasn’t all bad news, however, as he brought with him three more chickens!  We really are fortunate to have such knowledgeable and generous neighbours here.  The new chickens are setting in well, and seem less shy than the previous ones for some reason.

One of the chickens was found dead yesterday, lying on her back in the coop. She had no signs of illness, she basically just dropped dead. I don’t know how old she was, but we had her for a year. At least she had a good life.