Chickenfeed

Before moving to Bahrain, we kept chickens. Yes, that’s right, chickens. No, we weren’t chicken farmers, we just had four of the feathered friends roaming our back garden. Now I have to confess, when we decided we would keep them, I, like many other people, imagined them to be overgrown sparrows, indistinguishable from each other, and of very little interest apart from providing fresh eggs every day. How little did I know.

You see, chickens are the delinquents, lovable rogues, cheeky chappies (well chapesses) of the bird world. They have personalities by the bucket full, and what’s more they are curious beyond belief.

My first priority was to ensure Mr Fox would not be able to get to them, so I set about building a chicken run to rival Colditz. Eight foot high fence, that would keep them in and Mr Fox out wouldn’t it? Wrong.

Day 1 and the head chicken (where did you think the term pecking order came from?) escaped over the top. No chickens generally can’t fly over eight foot fences, but they can if they fly on top of the chicken house first. Chickens: 1, Humans: 0. So I put a roof on the enclosure, now they couldn’t get out. Wrong.

You see, you have to go in to feed and water them, as well as collect the eggs. Chickens apparently understand teamwork. Whilst one distracts, three escape through the door before you have time to close it. Twenty minutes of exercise and much clucking, the chickens are once again safe from Mr Fox.

One week later, we had devised a way to collect the eggs from outside (as long as they laid them where they should, which wasn’t always the case), created a tube to add food to the feeding trough from outside, and bought a water butt, which we attached to the outside of the fence. That would mean only entering once a week to clean them out. Wrong.

This is where we learned something else about chickens. Just because you feed them, it doesn’t mean they don’t look for their own food. The enclosure was looking like a scene from All Quiet on the Western Front. We had to devise a way of stopping them from getting foot rot. As I didn’t see them wearing wellies, the only solution would be to let them out into the garden. During the day this wasn’t such a problem, Mr Fox didn’t come near in daylight. At night was another prospect. So we had to make sure they were safely tucked up in the hen house at night and shut the door. This meant an early start every morning to let them out again. This wears a bit thin after a while (I’m not good in the morning. Not that brilliant before 5pm if it comes to that). Then I saw it. Automatic door opener. Light activated, or on a timer. My saviour.

The big day came when I was to fit this mechanical marvel. Good instructions, all the right tools. Easy enough to do. Wrong.

As part of the process to fit the device, I had to take the roof off the hen house. This done I set about fitting the door opener. To do this I had to squat down at the front of the house. Remember the team work? Chicken no 2 was away up the garden with my screwdriver, chicken number 3 had her head in the pocket of my fleece looking for heaven knows what, chicken number 4 was attempting to remove the instructions from the back pocket of my jeans. Chicken number 1 meanwhile was attempting to get on my head from the gable end of the hen house.

I finally got the job done. It only took twice as long as it should have.

And you know what? As soon as we get the chance, we’re going to keep chickens again. They are such fun.