Archive for the ‘Chickens’ Category

Ruth has been keenly looking after our chickens, collecting their eggs and making sure that they have feed and water. So when Ruth’s grand-daughter visited it was no surprise that she was just as keen on the chickens, and helped Ruth look after our chickens. Ruth hatched a little plan which was to buy Catherine a couple of hens for her birthday. So off we went today to Tiphayes farm where Ruth choose a couple of 12 week old chicks, a partidge wellsummer, and a yellow crested legbar. On the way there we got ourselves lost and a very friendly old lady showed us the way. The drive to Ruth’s grand-daughter took us through some lovely country lanes and just before we got there we had to wait a few minutes for some sheep to pass the road. When we got to Catherine’s farm, Ruth knew immediately where to go and took us in through the back-door.

After a cup of tea we all went back to the car and Ruth gave Catherine her two chickens. She was SO excited! Soon the chickens were settled in their new run, fed and watered. Ruth wanted to collect a few things for her room at Rose Lodge and spent a while going through her things. She selected some of the pictures that she had painted over the years which brought her happy memories and a couple of special books. One of the books was written by one of her sisters, and she brought a cook book (Two dat ladies) back for Chris, one of her friends at Rose Lodge who she cooks with sometimes. On the way back we took the soft-top down and Ruth wore a pair of sunglasses looking very glamorous. Ruth had been talking non-stop on the way up, reminiscing about the various trips that she had made as a child, mother, and grad-mother. She was very quiet on the way back though, and soon dozed off. The following day Phil helped her hang her pictures on the wall and she proudly showed her gallery to people at Rose Lodge. In her words she was ’showing off’ – and why not ? The pictures are amazing, and tell a little story about her life.

How time flies! Today was the last of our regular landshare days when a group of pupils from the Beacon School came to grow vegetables and flowers with the residents. It has been a tremendously enjoyable and beneficial experience for our residents (and i believe for the children!). The residents are taking a great interest in the work of the children and a pattern has emerged where the residents do seeding and potting up, and the pupils do the rest. And what a great job they have done, just have a look!

Today they built a bean-pole ‘wigwam’ and planted bean plants, they raked seedbeds and sowed four vegetables, cleared out the chicken run, harvested the endive in the raised beds and sowed salad vegetables. Ah and they harvested rhubard for the rhubarb crumble, and collected eggs from the hen house.

Did it put smiles on faces ? You bet it did!

Spot the fresh eggs!

The grass will have to come to the chickens. They loved it!

A couple of days ago we put a roof over our hen run so we can stop them from free-ranging all the time and digging up our flower and vegetable beds. And, miracle of miracles – today there were 6 beautifully speckled dark brown eggs! I guess that means that both Phyllis and Bright-eyes have been quite productive over the weekend. Strangely enough, they are laying them behind the actual hen-house, rather than inside the hen-house. But we are one step closer to a pair of well-mannered hens….

Unfortunately the egss got eaten before I could take a picture of them - so here’s a picture of our hens in their newly roofed hen-run:

Free-ranging no more!

(as reported by Exmouth Journal 17 March 2011) 

Roosting in the gardens at Rose Lodge

Cold feet!

The chickens at Rose Lodge, East Devon’s specialist dementia care home,  are being featured in a BBC4 radio programme about the give-and-take relationships between chickens and humans.  The programme’s producer found stories about the chickens on the Dementia Care Devon website and phoned Rose Lodge to understand why they chose to have chickens, and how the chickens benefit the residents. “It is a very interesting fact of dementia that people retain expert skills like singing, gardening, and chicken keeping, well into their dementia. Beyond the pleasure of seeing the chickens around the gardens, they also provide interesting topics for conversation. Some of our residents kept chickens themselves and so this helps them to contribute real knowledge and skills to the life of the community at Rose Lodge” said Peter de Groot, owner of Rose Lodge. The radio programme, called ‘Attila the hen’  will be broadcast on Tuesday 29th March 11.00 am on Radio 4.