[ANHBUC]

After deciding to reduce the numbers of my poultry and concentrate on breeding Barred Plymouth Rock bantams I have only got as far as taking pictures yesterday.  Then this morning my neighbour calls to ask if I have lost one of my hens as she has found one wandering on our road.  No all mine are where they are supposed to be so I take her some feed and there is a scraggly warren hen looking very underweight.     It is moulting but its comb and wattle are large and bright red which is a good sign.  She has it in a rabbit hutch with run for now until I can sort out some temporary accommodation whilst trying to find the owner.   

[helens-hens]

That's a lucky hen - anything could have happened to her now the nights are drawing in, foxes etc.

Never thought I would be but I am now a huge fan of Barred Plymouth Rocks now that I have one. She is a full size hen (not a bantam) though her eggs are quite small. She's is just a lovely friendly character, when we were got her, she was in a pen with barred rocks and plain black rocks (which apparently are sex linked) and if I'd had room I would have taken the lot of them, they were all so 'chatty' and friendly 

[grinling]

might be an ex chicken shed and quite lucky to escape.

[ANHBUC]

I do love mine helens-hens, they are nice and placid.  I have a couple of Black Rock large fowl and they are quite noisy compared with the BP Rocks.

We are not close enough for it to be from a chicken shed grinling so I think it has probably been discarded if it is not laying or it has managed to escape.  As it has been wing clipped it is more likely to be the former.  I will be collecting it tomorrow as the short days got the better of me today and I want to check it over properly before I bring it near mine.  I will of course quarantine it and start worming straight away but if it has any visitors on it I will see if my neighbour can keep it for a few days while I treat it.

[ANHBUC]

So here is Maude (named by my neighbour), she may be scraggly (totally oven ready underneath) but she has laid an egg a day so has paid for her keep.  I collected her this morning and she is settling in well in her quarantine enclosure.  She is on layers pellets with flubenvet and I have applied Vaseline to her legs as a precaution as they feel a little rough.  She has no signs of unwanted visitors but I will dust her with some diatom tomorrow just in case.  Her breathing did seem a little raspy when I held her to do her legs so I will be keeping a close eye/ear on her.

I did manage to rehome 6 of my young birds and have someone interested in another 6 so if I can not find her original owner she will be joining my flock in three weeks.

[New shoot]

Oh bless her    She is a bit scraggly, but a lucky girl none the less 

[ANHBUC]

I have put her enclosure on a raised veggie bed hubby made for me this year so she is giving it a good dig over, removing any weeds, seeds etc. and of course fertilising as she goes.  I will have to put her on the other one next week as she is making such a good job of it.   

My neighbour does not want me to look for Maude's owner as she was disgusted that both her wings had been clipped very short.  She did laugh that she had still managed to escape though.   

[traacyken]

aw bless her thats two of us the week thats ended up with wandering hens! must be something in the air

[ANHBUC]

She is more like a dog, following you around everywhere given half the chance.  She has also been a brilliant escapologist so I can see how she managed to escape from her original owners (no sign of them looking for her).  She has been laying an egg a day since she arrived, that is until she was put in with the main flock!     She is settling in well so I hope that no egg today was just a glitch rather than she is copying off the rest of the non layers!   

[traacyken]

got my 3 new ones yesterday and the ended up sleeping in the tree the *!. converted the shed to a hen hosue so there in for a few days till the get the drift thats where they should sleep, well thats the plan anyway if it works has to bee seen yet!

[ANHBUC]

They should be fine after a few days they should know where they are meant to sleep.   

[traacyken]

thanks i hope so  we were really stressed in case something happened to them. wasnt swearing sorry just a mild word !