My Happy Hens

 Having hens is one of the easiest things you can do in a backyard farm. Much easier than I always thought it would be.

I always wanted hens when I was a little girl and would pretend I had my own pet hens. I always desired to live in the countryside with the peace and quiet of nature and space to have animals and grow vegetables. 

However, we live in a city but it is still possible to do these things even in a smaller space.

 In a corner of the garden under the olive trees is where we put all the hay and chicken poop from the henhouse as we are cleaning it out every week. I am trying to compost it down. Recently I decided to clean up the corner and turn it over so the rotting stuff underneath could come up to the top and the fresher hay and poop could go underneath. So far it is composting down quite well and eventually we can use it on our vegetable gardens.

So while I was doing this I let the hens out of the chicken run so they could forage and spread their wings and they quite happily enjoyed this. It took longer to do the job but they were having so much fun exploring and finding bugs to eat so I just left them to it and enjoyed watching them.

I have read about deep litter composting in the chicken run where you just leave the chicken poop to rot down in the ground. It seems to work quite well. Our chicken run is an area built over the garden, under a tree so it has extra shade for the summer and there is an undercover part to keep dry where they can have dust baths. We put extra hay down here in this area over the dirt and they seem to like playing around in there. The henhouse where they sleep and lay their eggs is the old dog kennel which our dogs didn't like to use. Inside is a couple of nesting boxes filled with hay and we clean it all out every week. That is the stuff that goes on the compost pile in the corner.

 This is all in a secure chicken run which is a good size but we still give them as much supervised time out in the rest of the garden as we can. We always make sure our dogs are safely inside the house.

They really are easy to look after and such a joy. The last few days my youngest son has been spending lots of time outside with the hens. He lets them out of the chicken run to spend time in the garden while he has been pottering inside the chicken run, raking the ground and tidying up. I didn't even ask him to do all this, he just decided to do it which is fantastic. 

We do find the backyard birds can be a nuisance sometimes and they try to get in the chicken run and eat the food. So on the weekend my husband did a few repairs to the chickenwire to try and keep them out. We have been putting bird seed in different areas of our garden to try and encourage them away from the chickens.

One of our goals before winter is to put a more solid roof on the chicken run. Currently part of it has a solid roof where it was an old play hut under the tree but the rest of it has sheets of wind protection cloth and when it is pouring down of rain it gets too wet so we want to replace it with a clear plastic sheeting to let in light but keep out the rain. Two of the sides are open so there is plenty of airflow.

There is a great rural farm shop that we have found about 30 minutes away from us where we can buy all our supplies for the hens. Bales of hay, sacks of wood shavings for the ground when it is wet, oyster grit for the food, meal worms and bird sunflower seeds for extra health and nutrition. The lady that runs the shop is very friendly and helpful and it is a nice drive out to where it is, passing by an inlet and is very relaxing. I always feel like a farmer when I come home with bales of hay in the boot of the car!

I hope you find this post inspiring and who knows, maybe you'll decide to get some backyard chickens and discover how lovely and fun they are. Plus you get delicious eggs to enjoy every day! If that isn't an option, maybe you might know of someone in your area who does have chickens and you might be able to visit and take your kids so they can see and enjoy some farm animals. You might even be able to buy some fresh eggs.

Have a wonderful week and I'll see you back here Friday for my weekly frugal post. Thank you for visiting.

Blessings, Fiona 

"This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24