Archive for the ‘Chickens’ Category

(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.

As reported by Exmouth Journal 21 October 2010

Rose Lodge, East Devon’s specialist dementia care home, have a varied activities programme that helps residents stay connected to the wider community. The appreciation of beauty is an important strand of the programme, as research has shown that this ability stays with people as their dementia progresses. Next week, Rose Lodge is exhibiting a series of compelling portraits by artist Anamaria Marzec-Smith, who spent a week at Rose Lodge as ‘artist in residence’, getting to know the residents, sketching, and participating in daily life. She has now worked up her sketches into a series of compelling portraits, beautifully capturing their personalities. Rose Lodge will be exhibiting these portraits in their quiet Lounge, on October 26 and 27, from 2 pm to 4 pm. There will be an opportunity to talk with Ana about ther work at Rose Lodge, and of course to join the residents and staff for a cup of tea. Ana said “This has been the best experience in my life. I have experienced emotions I didn’t know I would feel, and met people I never thought I would meet”.

tucked in for the night......

It wasn’t quite clear what was happening but by the time it was dark they had escaped from their run and were nowhere to be found.

So I spent a couple of hours observing their behaviour this evening. After tempting them into their run with some grain and locking them in, I sat down with a cup of tea and watched. This is what they do:

One or two have a look into the hen house and decide they dont like it (why ?). They ‘fly’ onto the hen house (we haven’t clipped their wings – they are birds so they should fly!) and from there they fly onto the chicken run (it’s about 6 feet high and doesn’t have a roof). Next they hop onto the roof where they spend some time picking at the moss. The next stop is the trailing ash tree which is a short flight from the roof, and then down to ground-level. Finally they make their way into one of the trees where they then roost.

 Help! Any ideas on how to tempt them into their hen house at night ? I don’t mind them sleeping rough but I am concerned that wen they start laying (perhaps they already have!) it will attract undesirables. Foxes have been spotted near Rose Lodge..

What does all of this have to do with dementia care you may wonder ? Well many of our residents kept chickens themselves, and stories like this not only provide interesting and relevant topics of conversation, but they also give our residents an opportunity to recall memories and share their own expertise. Yes looking after hens gives us some more work but it also provides our residents with a much more interesting and stimulating environment to live their lives in.

Pub Quiz at Rose Lodge

Gardening club at Rose Lodge

Music at Rose Lodge

Crafts at Rose Lodge

vegetable growing at Rose Lodge

One of the things that came out of our first resident meeting is that the residents would like to have more opportunity to join in social ‘clubs’. So we have expanded our activities programme to include a wider range of different community activities including music, art, movies, favourite TV programmes, crafts, gardening and cooking.

Smokey, Bright Eyes and Phyllis on the terrace

At the weekend one of our laying hens starting to get aggressive with one of the other hens. When I called the breeder his response was simple: “They are bored in their chicken run – let them free range” So we did, and they are now happily picking and scratching their way through the garden, returning to their chicken run at dusk and bringing much amusement to the residents.

The link between boredom and aggression is an interesting one, and familiar to us in dementia care. If keeping chickens at a care home seems a strange thing to do, then this is the explanation. Boredom is one of the biggest risks for our residents and the more we can do to create interest the better.

For exciting footage (!) click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeODHPXD2hU