A bit of a catch-up

As Storm Ali turns my tree into a Whomping Willow, I'm hunkering down inside. The chimney and the window gaps are making spooky noises and the animals are jumpy so I'm banishing the eerie atmosphere with smells of spices and cooking vegetables. I have pans of pulses simmering, batch cooking underway. 

Next Week Me will be very grateful.

The younger two are back at school and thriving. Z is in Sixth Form and absolutely loves his courses. He's so full of enthusiasm, I do love to see that. He's also exhausted - lots of work! Miss B is about to go on one of the highlights of her secondary school experience - the Year 8 trip to Butlins Skegness with the whole year group. 300 kids taking over the place for a week, living in apartments with their friends and having an incredible range of activities and workshops put on for them. I know she'll love it and throw herself into everything.

Familial relations have broken down still further amongst our feline residents.  Ferris Mewller has ceased coming home entirely, even when his adopted family went away. I looked for him and called for him, but he refuses to enter the garden, never mind the house. He hisses at us when we try bring him inside and ignores offers of food. 

I miss my special lad, he was very much My Cat (or I was very much His Person) until I ruined things by bringing Gonzo to live with us.

Poor Isaac Mewton is suffering too. Gonzo's only 2 years old and he's ENORMOUS. He is the alpha cat now; eats all the food, fights with Isaac every time they are together. He's a thug - bites Isaac while he sleeps, claims every sleeping place Isaac prefers. This morning they were fighting on opposite sides of a glass door for heaven's sake - it's madness.  I have to chuck Gonzo outside and feed Isaac separately; they work the house on a timeshare system.

I'm definitely not the cause of any trouble

This autumn I can appreciate the advance planning of Winter and Spring Me, as all those events I booked tickets for are finally coming around. We have a lot of standup comedy to look forward to, some workshops, activism, Yarndale, theatre, music, a meal at a Michelin starred place we've been looking forward to, and of course the mighty Hamilton. It's lovely having all these things on the horizon. I start getting tense about the coming dark months around now, and having so many interesting things to focus on is such a help.

I've not done a great deal of crafting for a long while. This year I have been focusing on cooking new things, expanding our meal choices and overcoming my unease at cooking with meat. I don't eat meat myself much (pastrami and pancetta are my exceptions because they don't have the texture that puts me off) and I've always hated handling it. However, the point of a blog called Fearlessly Attempting is to have a go at stuff that made me nervous.

I've done pulled pork, poached chicken, pork loin steaks, cooking meals with mince, chicken curries, meatballs, fajitas.  I still hate the smell, especially of the fatty meats like the pulled pork, but the successes of getting B to try more food combined with how delighted Z is with the meals makes it worth it.

As well as the many Indian recipes from Meera Sodha's wonderful books, I've done more Mexican influenced food too. (OK, TexMex, and not remotely authentic, but tasty anyway!). There have been  refried beans with additional chillies, spicy tomato and paprika rice with onions and peppers, guacamoles and fresh salsas. Pulled jackfruit was pretty good, although at heart I do prefer a veggie chilli. Miss B and Z like tacos and wraps, Mark prefers a plate, and I don't care as long as I get to eat it.

Of course, having settled down to type what I've been up to,  I've completely lost track of time. I am dragged back to painful reality by the acrid smell of a pan burnt dry.

Aw hell.

That's going to take a lot of scrubbing to make it useable.

No refried beans today. 

Having a quail of a time

For my birthday this year Mark bought me six Cortunix Quail hens - 3 dark Japanese, 3 lighter and larger Italian. We spent much of the two week easter holiday building them a home.
Being a keen fan of Thinking Things Through, I read everything I could find online about quail keeping so we could build them a good environment. This is what I learnt:

Quail are game birds rather than poultry. Their eggs have a higher protein proportion than hen eggs,  and as such require a much higher level of protein in their feed. They are ground-dwelling and they don't need perches, just deep litter/bedding to snuggle down in at night. They are fully grown by 6-9 weeks and will start to lay eggs from that age if conditions are right. They don't usually eggs in a nest box, just wherever they feel sheltered and private. They tend to bury their eggs, so some furtling about is required to find them.

The demanding fluff balls  need an awful lot of light to lay eggs regularly - at least 12 to 14 hours a day.  If kept outside, like mine, they need shelter from rain, places to hide if they feel threatened and most of all protection from predators like rats. Because they are only the size of a handful, that means choosing a very small mesh. I read so many reports of quail decapitated because a predator reached through the bars and grabbed them.

The darker birds are Japanese quail

Quail can fly, unlike chickens.  They stay on the ground normally but like all migratory birds, are capable of flying vast distances when needed. They jump vertically like a crazed mini Harrier Jet when startled, so need a roof over than they won't knock them out if they smack into it.

Our chickens have a lot of freedom, and we've gone to significant trouble to allow them that. The quail? Not quite the same. You can let quail free range if you really want to, but only the once.

Not much is known about quail behaviour, really. I read a study from 1997 that was very interesting, but less academic sources are pretty vague. There's plenty of anecdotal information from people who keep quail but that varies widely, and as far as I can tell that's down to how the quail are housed and the proportion of hens to cockerels.  I have all hens, so that sorts out the noise issue (quail hens make tiny little peeps and chirrups) and the fighting that some breeders reported.

Lots of people asked me if I'd be keeping the quail in with the hens. No, they have different needs, a different diet and the chooks will easily kill the quail if they perceive them as competitors for food or shelter. Some people keep quail in the bottom of aviaries with flying birds like finches or budgies, but not with chickens.

A huge number of people seem to keep them as little egg (or meat) factories, kept on wire mesh cages with no opportunity to engage in natural behaviour like foraging, dust bathing, and generally being messy balls of fluff who love to scratch away on the ground for food and fling dirt and bedding everywhere. Quail can lay from such a young age and reach their full size for meat at the same age, so as a means of producing some of your own meat, I guess they are a pretty easy way to go.  17 days to hatch, 6 weeks to grow, then table-ready.  Not really my style but fair enough.
A number of (mostly US-based) bloggers and forum members have expressed disgust at the concept of putting the quail on anything other than mesh - "They will be standing in their own faeces! That's cruel and disgusting!" I feel this view misunderstands the needs of the animal to behave in a natural way.  When managed well, deep litter systems are clean and environmentally responsible, and even shallow litter isn't mucky if you clean it regularly. It's basic pet care.
I guess that's the main difference - my quail are pets with lovely fringe benefit of eggs, not next month's dinner, so I can afford to get attached.

Our 6 quail hens have over 15 square foot to play in. Recommendations went from half a square foot in a production-based set up, to one square foot per bird. Plenty of hobbyists had larger spaces, naturally, but the guidelines were really quite tiny. We figured if we have the space, why not give it too them?

I couldn't find any plans or blueprints for quail housing that suited my intentions. Those I found were  wire cages or walk-in aviaries. So I thought about what I'd learnt and we started from scratch.

We thought a scrappy bit of border near the house would be an ideal place eventually, but our lovely next door neighbours are having a large extension at the moment on the other side of the fence. That meant we needed something that could be moved to a temporary location.

The frame

Quail don't require a nest nor roosting bars like chickens. They do, however, value a place to retreat to when cold, frightened or in awful weather. we interpreted that as a small version of a nest box with a door we could fully shut if we need to herd the quail in there while clearing the run out.

Gonzo helps Mark measure the shelter

To stop predators digging their way into the quail house, we put a sheet of mesh on the bottom of the frame as well as on the sides. I painted the timber before we assembled it fully because painting through mesh is a pain. I chose a lovely sage green in a wood stain that was pet-safe. It's worth pointing out not all wood treatments are OK for animals, so it's important to check.

Gonzo remained a keen participant

Stapling the mesh to the underside of the frame

Ideally we wanted a clear solid roof (strong enough to cope with a badly behaved cat landing on it) which is able to let light in and sloped to let the rain run off.  We used dual walled polycarbonate sheets, which were very easy to cut to size fit. We have some offcuts as well, which we can slot into the doors to provide additional shelter in winter.

The project took us most of the Easter holidays, with numerous days off for going to the wildlife park, the safari park, generally being out and about and actually celebrating my birthday as well. Rain stopped play on a few occasions and waiting between coats for the paint to dry slowed us down too. Still, in the end we had a luxury dwelling fit for the most discerning of birds.

A 5* dwelling

A Quail Palace

The Versailles des Cailles

Last bits to paint after resolving snagging issues

Ta Da!

To make their habitat more interesting for them they have a dust bath ares, some plant pots, branches, shelter and foliage. They seem very happy, and hop about with excitement when something new arrives.

How many quail can bathe at once?

They had a tendency to spill or lose their food, so holes drilled in a plastic container (and filed to make sure the edges were smooth) allows them access to food without wasting it and without taking up too much space. 

Gonzo is pretty sure we made it for his amusement

Yesterday I got 5 eggs from the 6 of them for the first time, taking me up to a total of 29 eggs so far.  We've had them hard boiled as snacks, marinated in soy sauce and garlic to eat with ramen, soft boiled to eat with the new season's asparagus and today I'm trying them pickled. Local pals, if you fancy trying some, give me a shout. It looks like we'll have plenty!
J x

Meanwhile, back on the ranch...

Hello again!
4 months since my most recent post, so I suspect I'm chatting to myself now. I either had no words, had too many, or just couldn't quite decide how to be sufficiently articulate to put my thoughts down in a coherent - and not too tedious - way.

It's been an eventful few months since I last blogged. We've had some truly marvellous moments as well as some unexpected and more challenging times. I might tell you about it later, if you like.  However, today I'm all about the livestock.

Bight, Aire, Wharfe, Rita and Starling on a bug hunt

It's been 12 years since my first Eglu, with Margot and Dolores as our new hens.  I've had around 50 hens over the years as we upgraded to a big Eglu Cube, suffered predation by foxes and Alsatians, illness, escapees getting stuck in other gardens and other poultry related mishaps, or just old age. Some had individual names for (Sarah, Ruby, Doris, Ronnie, Truffle, Starling), but mostly we named by theme:

• Chicken Supremes (Mary, Flo and Diana)
• Beatles Girls (Rita, Prudence, Eleanor, Lucy, Penny)
• SF/Fantasy TV characters (Buffy, Capricorn 6, Rose, Xena, Chloe)
• Doctor Who Companions (Sarah Jane, Donna, Martha, Ace)
• Shipping Forecast Regions (Viking, the Utsire sisters North and South, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, G Bight, Humber, Wight, Biscay, Finisterre, Fitzroy*, Lundy, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, Faeroes)
•  Rivers (Aire, Wharfe, Nile and Amazon)
• Austen women (Elinor, Marianne, Emma)

My current hen count stands at 8, of whom the most important is Rita. She's a big heavy bird from a mixed use strain (meaning reared for both egg production and meat) and she's 10 years old. That's VERY old for a hen.  She's still a handsome beastie, with her dark grey head fading into a pipe smoke grey on her body. She's a post-menopausal lady who nevertheless is everyone's favourite.  Rita has earnt her retirement and can leave all that egg-laying malarkey to the younger lasses.

Rita's the big grey, second on the left

A word on the eggs - obviously they are delicious and there's something lovely about knowing the name of the hen who laid your brunch. Before I kept hens I didn't know that laying is light-dependent, so from late November to late January everyone downs tools for a bit.  Also, hens lay far more eggs when they are young, but the eggs get larger and larger as they get older.  A young pullet might lay a 45g egg, while a 3 year old will lay a 75g extra large. In addition, like humans being more prone to having twins when they are in their 40s, older hens are more likely to lay double yolkers. You can usually spot a ridge where the egg hasn't narrowed as usual but had to widen again for the second yolk.

Double yolkers can get pretty big

There are certainly disadvantages to keeping hens. They will eat anything they can get in their mouths, and aren't respecters of borders. If they can escape into the neighbour's garden to pinch food from the bird table, they will.  Likewise they'll make short work of my vegetable garden if they can. I've had a polytunnel of seedlings decimated when 2 hens noticed the door was open a crack.

Helpfully emptying the veg bed of greenery

Caprica 6 had a nifty trick of flying to the 6 foot fence, walking along it to the end of the chicken run and hopping down into the raspberry patch to gorge herself.
They also trash any area they are in. Even with 22 square metres to play in, my birds don't leave grass there for long.
A prolonged wet season means the run gets very smelly as the chicken poo and mud form an odiferous mire, but a cold snap or some dry weather sorts that out.

The best part of hen keeping is the liveliness they bring to a garden. They cluck and coo, take fright at a gust of wind or charge down a blackbird who wants to pinch their grain.


Hens can become incredibly tame, and they do have distinct personalities. Dolores was over-confident; when I sat at the table in the garden she'd hop onto my lap in the hopes of pinching some of my lunch. Mary, called Biffer usually, was a "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" bird, smacking down all the feathered visitors to the backyard. Dogger was aptly named because she'd follow me around like a puppy. Rose was Miss B's hen when she was a toddler. Rose was the most patient bird I've ever seen - she'd let B pick her up and cuddle her, carry her around the garden, even put necklaces on her (which I quickly removed so she wouldn't peck them). Hebrides was an escape artist but couldn't get back in the run, so would come and knock on the door when she wanted to go back in. She taught Dogger that trick, who taught it to our cat.

Knock knock

Having hens hasn't lost its attraction at all. If anything, it was a gateway drug - from 2 hens to 3, to a big run with 8, then a larger free range area and up to 12.

Now I've entered a new level of crazy - quail. More about that in a day or so.



*Geeky footnote: Finisterre isn't a shipping region anymore but it is a lovely word. It was too easily confused with a Spanish shipping region called Finisterra, so it was renamed Fitzroy. I liked both, so I had hens called Fin and Fitz)

Cong-rat-ulations

Parenthood leads me in odd directions.  The other week I washed and blow-dried a hen's legs and undercarriage so she wouldn't be too muddy when I took her to visit a class at B's primary school.  (The hen was less than delighted but remained stoical.)  But more surreal than that was primping Zach's pair of rats ready to enter a show.

The Yorkshire Rat Club was having one of its bi-monthly shows in March. This one was held in a church hall very close to us. Zach heard about it and wanted to enter his rats Naruto and Kakashi into the Pet category.

Kakashi

Being a less-than-thorough kind of lad, he didn't read as far as the entry requirement, application deadline and so on.  Being a more-than-thorough type of woman, I did.  I contacted the breeder we got them from to check the details, filled in the forms for him and emailed them off. I reserved show tanks and read up what was expected.  I did not expect what was expected - giving them a bath and trimming their claws, ideally 3 days before the show.

Rats have tiny, tiny hands.  Well, paws, but they look like hands and rats sit up and hold things with them.  Their hind paws are bigger, although still pretty small, but the front have minuscule claws.  And they aren't best pleased at someone holding them and trying to clip the ends of their nails.

They have mixed feelings about baths, too.  Kakashi ran about a bit, clambered over the taps, splashed at the water with his paws and had a good explore.  He tolerated the claw trimming with only a few squeaked protests, but I was glad I was the one holding him not Zach - he was very wriggly. Zach was on towel-drying support.
Naruto was outraged by a bath, scrambling to get away. When I dried him and trimmed his claws he swivelled around and bit me.  He managed to rake a thin strip of skin from my little finger which took ages to stop bleeding. I knew I liked Kakashi best for a reason.
Somewhat unwisely, Zach pointed out I'd got blood on the rat's fur.  When he saw my face, he back-pedalled quickly and said how nice and clean the rats looked.  The damned finger lead for 25 minutes.

I am a wimp

Leaving the Big Lad to sleep as only teenagers can, the rest of us trouped along to Oakwood church hall on Saturday morning for 10:30 to enter the rats in the show.  One of the organisers had suggested putting one rat in Pets and the other in Varieties so they weren't competing against one another.  What the heck, we thought, so entered Kakashi as a Silver Fawn rat in the varieties and his plumper brother in the Pet section.

How long do you think a small local Rat Club show can last?  There are some bits and pieces to buy from a couple of pet stalls, a tea-and-bacon-butty type counter, and there's waiting for the rats to be judged.  I guessed a couple of hours.

I was wrong.

The first 90 minutes were quite fun - lots of people to chat with, animals to play with and so on.  The next 90 minutes were more dull.  The THREE HOURS after that really dragged, particularly as our phone batteries went flat.  Not to mention we were expecting to watch the 6 Nations Wales match that afternoon.

Yes, we were there for over 6 hours.  For 4 hours of that, we kept thinking "Surely they're about finished? Surely it will only be another half hour at most."  The friendly and enthusiastic people of the Yorkshire Rat Club told us later that it had been a pretty quick show; some can last another hour or two!  If we'd any idea we'd have stayed for 45 minutes at the start, left Z with a drink and butty (he was having a lovely time) and bobbed back for the last hour or so to keep him company while he waited for the judging and certificates to be done. It was a looooong and hungry day.

On the plus side we met lots of really lovely people. A family with a girl close to B's age kept us company for most of the time. We chatted about loads of things (although avoiding the topic of rugby in the hopes we could watch it on iPlayer later) and they shared their grapes with the kids.  We praised each other's pets to the skies, and had a good old natter to while the hours away.  Zach also made friends with several breeders and exhibitors. He was interested in all of it.

The pet judges having a play with some of the entrants

The judging was both interesting and funny.  The Pet category was judged on criteria that seemed to be "is this rat cute? is s/he friendly?"  The judges got each rat out several times and played with, cuddled and messed about with him for ages.  They both clearly loved these little whiskery beasties and made a huge fuss of them.  Naruto behaved just as he does at home - was quite friendly but mostly wanted to snuggle inside the judge's cardigan. He's a typical male rat -  preferring a cuddle and a snooze with people to the energetic exploring the female rats favour.  The judge thought he was lovely.

Naruto in the yellow cage, taking yet another nap 

The Varieties category, on the other hand, was like a rodent Crufts.  I kept wanting to laugh - I had no idea it could all get so regimented. The judge had a white jacket and everything. Weight, hair length, bone structure and colouring were closely examined against a National Fancy Rat Society standard, which the judge kept in her head (although I saw her google something once.) There was no nonsense, just a focused scrutiny of each animal. The judge ploughed through far more animals than the pet judge in a fraction of the time, while her assistant took copious notes.

4 hours in and Kakashi wasn't even judged.  The breeder told us he was a Silver Fawn variety but he was declared by everyone at the show as Argente Cream (don't ask me) and therefore disqualified as being misidentified.

It doesn't matter how alert you are, Kash, you're still out

I've included links to Google images. Heaven knows how they tell those colour varieties apart. Some are the same darned photos.

I was rather concerned for Zach. He was massively excited about it all, and I didn't want him to come home without even a certificate.  I'll also admit to feeling slightly aggrieved, about which I am embarrassed. I'm immensely fond of Kakashi, he's a lovely natured beastie and my clear favourite, but he isn't even my pet. He's Zach's. So, feeling defensive when others fail to recognise his aceness is doubly ridiculous.
When we spoke to the judge later she said "even in the correct category he'd not be a good example as he's too light boned and his face is narrow while the guard hairs on his rump are too long." I felt like saying 'Yah boo sucks!" because I think Kash is a poppet.  And that, my friends, is why I shouldn't go to these things. Well, that and the instant coffee.

 At the end of the afternoon the winners were finally announced.  Way to go Naruto! He won best buck in the Juniors category, 2nd best overall, 4th in the "Pet Challenge" (we still aren't clear what that involved) and a special award as the one the assistant judge wanted to keep for herself because he was such a sweetie.  Zach had and armload of rosettes and certificates, and was just over the moon.

Miss B "helping" him with all those rosettes

So it was worth it after all.  Zach was full of all the people he'd met, the rats he'd played with and bursting with pride and happiness at Naruto's rosettes.  It was lovely seeing him so delighted with his day.

There's another show in May and he's already hoping I'll take him.  As long as I have a book, a flask of real coffee and butty, I expect I will.

Because this time Kakashi will win.

J x

Wide Awake

"I am wide awake"

It's 1 am. Mark and the kids are in bed. I'm doing the last round of chores - folding the stuff from the dryer, putting another load in the washer, feeding the pets, loading the dishwasher, locking the doors. You know, the usual night time stuff.

I'd made fish cakes for the kids today. I bought lots of coley and a small piece of smoked haddock, poached them in milk while I peeled, cut and boiled spuds. I mashed the fish and spuds together with an egg to bind it, formed it into patties and dipped them in flour, whisked egg white and matzo meal before frying them. I'd made Grandma Curl's potato salad, complete with finely diced boiled egg, green pepper and onion. Mark and I were having fresh mackerel fillets but, knowing the kids didn't like them, I bought ingredients and made a replacement.

This lead to a total hissy fit from two of my kids.  OK, they didn't like the fishcakes, fair enough. I won't make them for them again. But today it is the dinner. Today it's what they need to eat, even if it's just a very small portion.  Because this isn't a restaurant and you can't order a different meal if you don't like the first one. That's it until breakfast.
(If they have a good go and eat a fair bit, we do offer a piece of toast to fill them up a bit more, but not if they've just had a tantrum. You can judge my parenting if you like.)

Miss B tried to negotiate for a good hour - "I've had a mouthful and that's enough." In the end she was sent to bed after scraping her dinner into the bin.  She'd been really rude to us and we decided it was better she not be with other people for a bit.

This was not the punishment it might otherwise have been. For a week-long trial our guinea pigs, Snowy and Pippin, are moving inside to B's room. The cage is clean, I sewed fleece pads to line it and  B tidied her room ready. I bathed the guinea pigs and treated them for fleas just in case, and filled their dangling feeder ball with fresh veg and fruit. The guinea pigs were running around exploring their new environment. B would have gone up to her room anyway rather than join the rest of us laughing at The Apprentice on iPlayer.

As usual, I popped in to check on her in the evening. She was fast asleep, but as I leant over to turn off her light she muttered "I'm not asleep at all," before drifting back to light snores.

So, at 1 a.m. when I'm finally going to bed I opened her door. It's a bit stiff and made a noise as it opened. (We have to keep it firmly shut or Isaac the cat barges it open, wakes B and generally is disruptive.)

At the sound, Miss B called out "I am wide awake," in the voice of someone very asleep. I put my hand on her hair, which usually settles her right back again.

"I am wide awake," she murmured again. "It's ok, go to sleep, sweetheart."  "Oh, are you wide awake, Mummy?" she asked, rolling further under the duvet, "that's OK then."
And back to sleep.

I have no idea why it was so important B claimed to be awake. Maybe the ignominy of being sent to her room 45 minutes before her actual bedtime made her think she was determined not to go to sleep. Maybe the novelty of guinea pigs in her room made her want to stay up.

Whatever it was, the fact that I was "wide awake" meant she didn't have to be.
Sweet dreams, my stubborn girl.

Bath time for Snowy

Amongst our many pets are three guinea pigs. In inclement weather they live in a 2 storey hutch in the shed. When the ground is dry, they have a moveable playpen on the lawn with a little shelter in it, and a sturdy roof to protect them from predators (or over-friendly small children.)

The guineas are about 2 1/2 year old girls called Snowy, Pippin and Tosh (short for Mackintosh). Their mothers were part of a group of 9 guinea pigs found abandoned under a shed and taken in by the now-defunct Bramley Cavies Rescue. As that was a mixed group, all the females were pregnant. (Rodents; such notorious breeders. What can you do?)  The sows were in a bad way and once their babies were born it took a long time to get them in suitably robust health to be rehomed.

These days those babies are fat healthy guinea pigs. However, a winter more inside than out had left them with long nails in need of trimming. Snowy was not terribly snow-like; she was more the colour of grubby slush. Her habit of flipping the outside shelter upside down, having a wee then flipping it back over herself had done nothing positive to her aroma either. It was definitely time for a bath.

NB - I only bath them on really warm sunny days so they won't catch chills as they dry off. As you can see from the cloudless sky in the photos, we had some truly spectacular weather so I took the opportunity.  I was game but my pets were considerably less so.

Have you ever bathed a small animal that wasn't keen? By which I mean very, very un-keen indeed? It's a wriggly, slippery process that involves nearly as much water on the person as on the pet. Having a number of bath-averse pets, I've learnt to do it on scruffy old clothes with m hair tied back before having a shower myself.

I tend to wash guineas in a very deep bucket (so the pig can't hop out) with only a little water in the bottom. Judging by the fuss they make, my pets prefer water only a little more than lukewarm. This can be a challenge, as I get everything set up outside before catching the bath-bound beastie and if the bath-ee proves elusive, I can end up with water cooler than planned. To offset that I usually have a jug of very hot water I can top up with, but it's still a little hit and miss.

I dilute some small animal shampoo in water and pour it in small amounts over the animal while rubbing it in gently. Then I use an old measuring cup to rinse her in clean water before scooping her up in a scruffy old towel to be dried as thoroughly as I can.

While she's in the towel I bring one foot out at a time and clip the nails carefully. The front nails can grow a bit spirally and it's important to keep them in a decent state.

As pet care goes, guinea pigs are pretty darned easy. You don't have to walk them, their food isn't smelly or disgusting, their run is pretty easy to clean out in about 10 minutes. They make lovely little noises chatting to one another and they are very sweet natured.

The downside is they are very shy and generally prefer to be left alone rather than played with. However, bold Snowy will tussle with a chicken over a dandelion leaf and win. Not one of the three is intimidated by our cats as they pretend to be fierce predators.  Secure in their roofed playground, the guineas know Ferris Mewler and Isaac Mewton are all mouth and no trousers. That metal mesh roof is pretty darned sturdy.

Update - In the gap between writing and posting this blog, Toshi died. I have no idea why. She'd been running about as usual the day before, seemed healthy and was behaving normally. Whether moving the hutch outside for the summer followed by a massive thunderstorm that scared her to heart attack or it was the fox coming to have a look - or some undetected illness - we just don't know.  Poor wee Toshi. Snowy, Pippin and the rest of us will miss her.

Hello Ladies

 Hello webby world,

This one is all about pets. Well, 12 of them. You can meet the others at a later date.

We have quite a number of pets. We've two lovely young cats, two sweet natured rats, three guinea pigs from a rescue centre and 12 chickens.  We had a lizard until very recently but she died, poor thing. We'll have another soon.
Almost all of those pets are totally my fault.

Let's introduce you to the chooks. In April 2004 Mark showed me an article in the Guardian about a cool hen house for keeping chickens in urban back gardens. The eglu looked like an overgrown iMac, all colour and curves. The poor man was expecting me to smile, say something like "neat," and get on with my life. I said "That is SO cool! Let's get one. Chickens in the garden would be fab!" Oh dear.

After a year of reading about them, talking about them, coming up with increasingly desperate excuses for why it would be a good idea ("it will be so good for the kids - like living on a farm without having to actually be on a farm!") I just announced I was buying myself an eglu for my birthday.

Their house and playground

That was just the start. My pair of hens were killed after 3 months by a fox. I replaced them with a trio. A couple of years later my friend Lisa asked where she could get a cheap second hand eglu for her son. He was desperate for a pair of hens for his 9th birthday and wouldn't even be tempted away by the offer of an Xbox from her disgusted husband. I sold my eglu to Lisa and put the money towards a big hen house and went chicken shopping again.

A trio became a half dozen, then 8 sounded such a good number. Aww, but that one is so pretty, and there's barely any difference between 8 and 9, surely...  The numbers ebbed and flowed as some died or were killed by foxes and others joined us. By this spring our flock had reached 12. In my defence, some of those are, erm, in their twilight years and don't lay any more. They have earned their retirement but that still left me short of eggs for breakfast so I had to get new hens.

Mark's initial horror of anything with such dinosaur feet and talons (and my own nervousness of being pecked) lasted less than a week. He even texts me photos of particularly nice breeds at the garden centre he passes when commuting down south. He tolerates my crazy-assed naming themes and has favourite hens himself. In short, he's gone native. Win!

Name themes we've had- 

We started off naming each hen individually but over the years started giving each group that arrived some themed names. Those names in bold are still with us, although some are very advanced in years. The horrid loss of many of the Forecast hens when only a few months old was the result of a daylight fox attack while the chooks were still free-ranging.

The 'Chicken' Supremes: Diana, Mary and Florence

Beatles songs: Lucy, Eleanor, Penny, Rita and Prudence.

Science fiction TV characters: Buffy, Caprica 6, Xena, Chloe (from Smallville - loved her), Sarah Jane

Doctor Who Companions : Rose, Martha, Donna, Ace, Leela and Amy
Shipping forecast regions: Lundy, Rockall, Shannon, Malin, Bailey, Hebrides, Viking, Cromarty, Dogger, Biscay, Fitzroy and Finisterre.

NB: If you don't know what the shipping forecast is, find out here. It is read out over BBC Radio 4 at set times of the day and it's somehow soothing and poetic.
If you are very familiar with it, you'll know that Finisterre is no longer a region; it's been renamed Fitzroy. But it's a lovely name and hell, they are chickens. They don't care.

They all have very distinct personalities, and are a range of different hybrid and pure breed hens. Those whose ear patches are white lay white eggs. The others all lay different shades of brown from very pale to a rich brick colour. Their sizes vary a lot too. Mixed use breeds like Rita (a Bluebelle) are very heavy of body and could be killed when young for their meat. Those like Donna (White Star) are bred as laying birds only. There is no muscle (meat) on them at all. It's all feathers and bones.

Rita - Queen of the flock

Penny - 2nd in command (Cromarty behind her)

Xena and Donna

Martha - a bit of a bully

Biscay - very friendly

Hebrides with Fin behind her

Dogger - follows me like a puppy

Fitzroy - very skittish

Cromarty - a real survivor

Viking - big, very dumb, often broody

Finisterre - sweet tempered

Cromarty was a marvel. She was friends with Malin; they were always together. When the fox attacked I found them huddled against each other by the fence. Malin had died and Crom was so terribly wounded. I was scared I'd have to put her down because her damage was so severe. Her wing was broken, her leg injured so she couldn't stand, the back bald with huge bleeding wounds all across it.  We managed to nurse her back to health, although she pined for Malin dreadfully for a week or so. She kept making the little "where are you" peeps hens do when they are lost. 

She is fine now. Fitzroy  and Fin became her new pals. Her feathers are darker than before and she can't jump very high but she's healthy and is laying eggs again. Go Crom!

Questions everyone asks:

1) Do you hatch chicks?

No, we have only females so the eggs are infertile

2) Is that one with the big comb a cockerel? 

(usually Donna, whose comb flops to the side like an oversized quiff)

No, most chickens have combs. The size of the comb is down to the breed and the sexual maturity of the bird

3) How can you get eggs if you haven't got a cockerel?

Hens lay eggs, like women have periods. They happen regardless of the presence of a male.

4) Are you going to eat them when they die/stop laying?

NO! Ew! For a start if they got ill and died I don't want us eating diseased meat. For another thing they have almost no meat on them. And, being old, what little there is of it would be tough as old boots. And hell, I don't eat meat anyway.
But most importantly, these are my pets. They are pets with the benefit of free eggs, but still pets with names and personalities. The cats don't provide me with breakfast* and I don't eat them. And in their post-menopausal years they deserve a happy retirement.

*In fairness, the cats have tried to bring me breakfast on several occasions. It's not their fault I don't fancy mice or sparrow chicks.

Hens are fantastic pets. They eat slugs, weeds, wilted veg we won't eat. They produce the best fertiliser my garden could have. They are easy to take care of, rarely noisy, easy to tame and make the garden a more fun place to be. And when they do lay eggs, those eggs are the most delicious you've ever tasted.

Hurray for chooks!