Post by stormy on Mar 5, 2007 21:26:04 GMT
i thought id use this post to talk about chickens.
my chickens.
we have always had chickens, when my mum moved from londen to live with my dad in this house, with his parents.(yes she was a londener thats scary).
the first animal she learnt how to care for was chickens. of course at that point my grandma and grandad had many animals, pigs, moo moos, sheep, geese, goats and at a point a donkey.
like most in the countryside at the time, they didnt have the luxery of supermarkets, all life was countryside based, my nan never ever went into the local town, for one she had no means to (nothing changed there then).
they were lucky then i suppose, the village had enough shops anyway. and you had no reason to go anywhere else.
the garden was smaller then, even when i was young, the main garden was one large vegi patch. our vegi path was an acre. and the rest was field, though nan did like gardening, so we had a cottage garden. but nearly all the plants she had in it, were used as potions, or in food. she would say even plants have to work for their keep.
from an early age i was taught how to weed the garden. yes my first word was chickweed. actually i lie my first word was bum.
they got their water from a well, didnt have any eletricty up to around the mid 1970s, when mum fell pregnant with my sister. they said it wasnt planned ;D.
in our house we still has a downstairs bathroom, seems strange now, but most old houses did, who wanted to freeze to death upstairs, you bathed near the fire. which is what they did, in an old tin bath.
it was dads idea to have a bathroom, thanks for that dad.
its still downstairs.we all grew up in one room and lived with grandma till she died, my grandad died before i was born.
anyway back to the garden.
chickens are the one thing we have always had, all together over the years i would say we have had at a guess about 100 or so chickens, 99 of them have been caught by the fox ;D no ok about 30 have been caught by the fox, 40 have been eaten and the rest have been layers.
NO, im not naming them all. yes they did have names, well mums like me she named them, nan didnt. but then she was old school.
nan used to sell her eggs at market, again these are the days before health and hygine and EEC rules.
most people had chickens, which is why most used to sell them at the market. you couldnt give them away to your neighbour.
the same with the geese, we didnt eat the eggs like the chickens, they were bred for food, of course that didnt stop you falling in love with them when you were young, but i stress i was brought up with the fact they would be killed at the end, and it didnt bother me, i knew they had a good life.
which is why they never had any meat on them, free range dont, whatever they tell you, free range arent pumped with food, so they work off most of the meat.
The chickens and animals were free range to a certain degree, even in their pen, which is the size of a small field, but that didnt stop the fox, a mine field wont stop foxes.
and before anyone says anything about foxes and food, our foxes just kill, they dont come back and get the dead chickens, i wouldnt have a ploblem if they killed for the food.
but when you wake up in the morning to discover all 19 chickens had had their heads ripped off and are left for the flies, you would wonder about foxes too.
a few of my favorites
Cuthburt the 1st the chickken was my favorite ;D he was my childhood mate, he would follow you everywhere, inside. many a time you would come into the kitchen to find him warming his feet on the rayburn.
which is kinda ironic that most of his kids were cooked in it.
;D
he was great at back stratching, see chickens are nosy little buggers, and they have one thing on their mind, that is food.
i used to sit in their pen and they would peck at my clothes, and it was so relaxing.
so i used to have a massage with the chickens ;D
we had the posse, they were let out because they followed you everywhere and the foxes seem to keep away much more at that point (may have been cause dad was gamekeeper at the time)
i stil remember when i first met phil, he decided to stay in a tent that night, it was when his ex first left him so he was a bit of a state. i brought him out a picnic, went back in to get his drink, and came back out to find the chickens scronging, i have a great picture of him sitting on a bench with two chickens sitting on the back on either side, one sitting on the table, and one with its beak in his coffee, oh yeah the chickens at the time likes coffee and tea, with two sugars, it was their tipple.
later on when we went to put them in we found two missing, we looked everywhere, so guessed they were broody somewhere, phil opened his tent and guess who was sitting on his sleeping bag. two chickens and one egg. ;D
Now we had one chicken that was pure evil, he was called RED.
and even now i laugh.
when we let them out in the morning via a little doorway that led from their shed to the run, you had to keep your foot on the run door and with the use of a large stick, knock the hatch and run like buggery, because RED would go for you every time, and he was a big bugger.
and guess who had to get the eggs
with the use of a bloody dustbin lid.
It was around the time of the hurricane and our run was a bit of a mess, the same time mr fosy loxy came a calling, and there was RED cowering in the corner, the first and last time i picked him up, due to the fact he died the following day.
i have one nice memory of RED, the day he escaped, my sister used to wind him up by crowing at him through the fence, so he found a way out and chased her all the way to the house (and guess who had to catch him).
now every chicken and cock i have had has had their own personality, each one differs, dad used to have to ask me which ones he had to kill, because to him they all looked alike.
we had differant chickens in differant pens, at one time we had reds in one area (great layers) and light sussex in another, they were as thick as two short planks which is why we ate them.
anyway im boring you know, i have chickens still, and a few ducks as well.
my chickens.
we have always had chickens, when my mum moved from londen to live with my dad in this house, with his parents.(yes she was a londener thats scary).
the first animal she learnt how to care for was chickens. of course at that point my grandma and grandad had many animals, pigs, moo moos, sheep, geese, goats and at a point a donkey.
like most in the countryside at the time, they didnt have the luxery of supermarkets, all life was countryside based, my nan never ever went into the local town, for one she had no means to (nothing changed there then).
they were lucky then i suppose, the village had enough shops anyway. and you had no reason to go anywhere else.
the garden was smaller then, even when i was young, the main garden was one large vegi patch. our vegi path was an acre. and the rest was field, though nan did like gardening, so we had a cottage garden. but nearly all the plants she had in it, were used as potions, or in food. she would say even plants have to work for their keep.
from an early age i was taught how to weed the garden. yes my first word was chickweed. actually i lie my first word was bum.
they got their water from a well, didnt have any eletricty up to around the mid 1970s, when mum fell pregnant with my sister. they said it wasnt planned ;D.
in our house we still has a downstairs bathroom, seems strange now, but most old houses did, who wanted to freeze to death upstairs, you bathed near the fire. which is what they did, in an old tin bath.
it was dads idea to have a bathroom, thanks for that dad.
its still downstairs.we all grew up in one room and lived with grandma till she died, my grandad died before i was born.
anyway back to the garden.
chickens are the one thing we have always had, all together over the years i would say we have had at a guess about 100 or so chickens, 99 of them have been caught by the fox ;D no ok about 30 have been caught by the fox, 40 have been eaten and the rest have been layers.
NO, im not naming them all. yes they did have names, well mums like me she named them, nan didnt. but then she was old school.
nan used to sell her eggs at market, again these are the days before health and hygine and EEC rules.
most people had chickens, which is why most used to sell them at the market. you couldnt give them away to your neighbour.
the same with the geese, we didnt eat the eggs like the chickens, they were bred for food, of course that didnt stop you falling in love with them when you were young, but i stress i was brought up with the fact they would be killed at the end, and it didnt bother me, i knew they had a good life.
which is why they never had any meat on them, free range dont, whatever they tell you, free range arent pumped with food, so they work off most of the meat.
The chickens and animals were free range to a certain degree, even in their pen, which is the size of a small field, but that didnt stop the fox, a mine field wont stop foxes.
and before anyone says anything about foxes and food, our foxes just kill, they dont come back and get the dead chickens, i wouldnt have a ploblem if they killed for the food.
but when you wake up in the morning to discover all 19 chickens had had their heads ripped off and are left for the flies, you would wonder about foxes too.
a few of my favorites
Cuthburt the 1st the chickken was my favorite ;D he was my childhood mate, he would follow you everywhere, inside. many a time you would come into the kitchen to find him warming his feet on the rayburn.
which is kinda ironic that most of his kids were cooked in it.
;D
he was great at back stratching, see chickens are nosy little buggers, and they have one thing on their mind, that is food.
i used to sit in their pen and they would peck at my clothes, and it was so relaxing.
so i used to have a massage with the chickens ;D
we had the posse, they were let out because they followed you everywhere and the foxes seem to keep away much more at that point (may have been cause dad was gamekeeper at the time)
i stil remember when i first met phil, he decided to stay in a tent that night, it was when his ex first left him so he was a bit of a state. i brought him out a picnic, went back in to get his drink, and came back out to find the chickens scronging, i have a great picture of him sitting on a bench with two chickens sitting on the back on either side, one sitting on the table, and one with its beak in his coffee, oh yeah the chickens at the time likes coffee and tea, with two sugars, it was their tipple.
later on when we went to put them in we found two missing, we looked everywhere, so guessed they were broody somewhere, phil opened his tent and guess who was sitting on his sleeping bag. two chickens and one egg. ;D
Now we had one chicken that was pure evil, he was called RED.
and even now i laugh.
when we let them out in the morning via a little doorway that led from their shed to the run, you had to keep your foot on the run door and with the use of a large stick, knock the hatch and run like buggery, because RED would go for you every time, and he was a big bugger.
and guess who had to get the eggs
with the use of a bloody dustbin lid.It was around the time of the hurricane and our run was a bit of a mess, the same time mr fosy loxy came a calling, and there was RED cowering in the corner, the first and last time i picked him up, due to the fact he died the following day.
i have one nice memory of RED, the day he escaped, my sister used to wind him up by crowing at him through the fence, so he found a way out and chased her all the way to the house (and guess who had to catch him).
now every chicken and cock i have had has had their own personality, each one differs, dad used to have to ask me which ones he had to kill, because to him they all looked alike.
we had differant chickens in differant pens, at one time we had reds in one area (great layers) and light sussex in another, they were as thick as two short planks which is why we ate them.
anyway im boring you know, i have chickens still, and a few ducks as well.
