Saturday 3 January 2009

Rudolph 0: Dog 1. But the chicken lives to fight another day.

Poor Jack. Outwitted by the chicken again...

Maybe if you ask her nicely, Jack, she'll let you get to the back door.


Oh, and yes, that is a standard lamp at the bottom of the steps. Doesn't everyone have one of those in the garden?

Considering how hen-pecked and scrawny our bunch of chickens are looking (and we do feed them, honest) I'm amazed that all four chickens have continued to lay throughout Autumn and Winter; we've just come back after 2 days away to find 10 eggs in the coop from 4 chuckies! And no, we don't use any extra lights. I know the farmer said that they were a hardy cross, but they've outperformed anything we've had before. Just hope I can find the scrappy piece of paper that I put his address on. I obviously put it somewhere safe. Yes, that safe.

I've been thinking about getting a couple of ducks, but I need to read up a bit first. As long as we can keep the foxes out I figure they can't be too hard to look after. But what would they do to the garden? Would I have a veg patch left by the time they had paddled all over it?

Oh and here's a very sad announcement.

Jack ate Rudolph on Christmas Day.

And here's what was left after an hour of chewing, tearing and destuffing...


Just a couple of nibbled antlers

That's the last time I bother buying that dog a dog toy.

And here are the kids admiring our fantastic light show on the front of the house...(aren't you impressed?)

Ok, ok. So it's not our house. But it could have been...

...and as they always say: it's the thought that matters.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love reading about your chickens. I really hope to get some one day. And poor Rudolph! :)

Big mamma frog said...

The thing I love about the chickens is that they are productive pets. They're surprisingly easy to look after, especially if you get bog-standard hardy chucks: the fluffy pretty chucks or bantams seem to be far more delicate and fussy. We once looked after a stray bantam which was white and fluffy. By the time we handed it back to its owner it was brown from the mud! The owner wasn't terribly grateful...