Saturday 8 August 2009

Oh I do love to be beside the...SEASIDE???!!!

Yesterday and today I was woken by seagulls at 5am (actually, to be precise, yesterday it was at 4.30am). Lovely you might think, waking to the sounds of the sea, the crash of the waves on the beach, seagulls welcoming you to the British seaside. Except that we are about 80 miles from the nearest bit of coast, probably as far as you can get from the sea in the whole of Britain!

What are they doing in my back garden?! And at 4.30am?! Go away!

Maybe someone has secretly created a refuse tip behind my house. Oh yeah, that's our garden, I remember. Which reminds me, must have a clearup and take a load of stuff to the tip; we've had a standard lamp in the garden for almost a year now and it's not as if the neighbours think we're normal anyway.

As I was in need of displacement activities (I have lots on my jobs list that really really need doing) I've decided to build a chicken coop. Another chicken coop. The plan is to get some fertile eggs, pop them under our broody hen, and Bingo! have some chicks. Well that's the plan. Except that I can't find anyone with fertile hen's eggs and I've got to put this coop together.

In theory it should look something like this (with doors of course):

With the idea that I will attach a small run to it either at the front (easiest option) or maybe at the side (more difficult because of the sloped roof). The end bit which is open but covered should be good for a bit of shade if I decide to use the coop inside our current run when chucks are bigger. Might even fix a perch in it, but then again, I've never known a chicken use any of the perches we've provided up till now, so that will probably be a pointless bit of engineering.
So, after looking all over for some fertile eggs I've finally conceded and ordered some off Ebay, a mixture of coopper maran and light sussex eggs. I'm assuming these are full size breeds rather than bantams, but I guess we'll see when/if anything hatches.
So I have to get a move on with this coop and rally the troops into assisting me. Of course we all know that home education is a cover for forced child labour, don't we..? (that's a joke by the way, in case any Badman supporters are reading).





And I don't even pay them the minimum wage (but they do get board and lodging for free).

And in case you wondered, yes the lawn is now striped with wood preservative.

3 comments:

Carolyn said...

I could have helped with fertile eggs until about 4 weeks ago....we sadly said goodbye to ours (as a casserole!!) because we have lots of hens, and if we hatch anymore next year it will be something different to what we already have...I like cuckoo marans personally!
Our ducks were hatched from eggs that were posted to us....and I know lots of people who have had plenty of success this way.
Good luck!
We build a new hen house every year in the questfor the perfect hen house...not there yet but they do get better everytime!!

Carolyn said...

BTW why is she wearing a helmet?!!!
Seagull poo protection?

Big mamma frog said...

Yes this hen house is going to be a bit heath robinson (whoever he is), but it's a start. As for the eggs, well we'll see. I'm a bit concerned that they'll arrive as an omlet, and would have prefered to go and get some locally but we'll give it a go anyway. Helmet? Nah that's normal headware when you have two older brothers.