keeping Chickens

The one  thing we have done almost from the beginning is keep  chickens. Up to now they have been mainly  kept for eggs. Some times we buy a few cockerels to fatten up for meat. Sometimes one of the girls ends up in the pot, not often though for two reasons; They are pretty scrawny, and they are funny. Yes I mean funny ha ha, they provide endless entertainment, despite being fairly stupid they often have big personalities and some have huge egos. At the moment they are pretty much free range, having the run of the garden. We keep them out of the orchard and away from my veg patch though, as they happily destroy every thing in sight, and therein lies the problem. Our slightly hippy totally  free range animal policy has proved to be impractical as probably any country dweller will tell you.
We did take on board some things, we generally don´t name our animals, dogs and cats excepted. You have to have certain frame of mind from the outset, generally animals must pay their way.We are not vegan so some will end up as a meal. A small holding, however small, is a farm, animals all have a job to do, sentimentality has to be kept to a minimum.
So back to chickens, the long term plan is to try and find duel purpose birds meat and eggs. This is a little out of sinc with our neighbours, all of whom eat chickens raised at home but tend to raise two varietities of bird and only eat cockerels (They do use old hens who no longer lay for making chicken stock.) Buying hens for eggs or cockerels for fattening up is easy here, There are plenty of shops selling young chickens and there is a livestock market 3 times a month.
Our current girls are a little long in thebeak and now lay infrequently so we have just bought three more who will join them shortly. In the spring we will add a new cockerel and start looking for a larger breed of bird. Steve has named the new chicken run Stonehenge and has it well under way.

 This is Stonehenge under way, not a great photo,but its gives the idea.

These are the new girls, living in the broody coop for the time being.

Three important rules for introducing new chickens into the flock.

1. Always introduce more than one at a time. A single bird will get badly bullied and may never integrate.

2. Always keep them separate for a few weeks, they may be ill(you don´t want your current flock infected) and they need time get used to you and their new environment. We gradually let them spend time with the other chickens in the daytime before putting them in the same coop.

3.Put them in with  the others in the dark, and try and make other changes at the same time, clean the coop, introduce new toys, rocks, and a big bowl green veg to the run. This distracts the current flock and means than they have other things to focus on.

Remember chickens can be really mean.

I will let you know how it all goes.

Sign of the times

My blogging activity for the last few years has been much reduced. The reason for this is that the days had acquired a kind of rhythm , nothing remarkable seemed to happen. I seemed to blog more and more about the weather, I have felt guilty because we apparently have made little progress toward anything. Of course I could go on, but best to skip to what has changed.
I feel that the world around me has changed. We have had Brexit, we will soon have Donald Trump every day I read new stories that scare me, or make me feel ashamed, or angry or upset. Though actually nothing much has changed yet for me there is now the potential for change, over which I will have little or no control. Then one day I woke and realized that somehow, I had changed, finishing the house is no longer a priority, though I hope that we will. But making our lifestyle more self sufficient, reducing our dependence on actual money (rather than finding ways to make more) has moved up the list. As before nothing is going to physically change straight away, it can't. One of us needs to work outside the home to pay the bills, At least at the moment that is possible. we have too little prepared growing space, and too few animals for the garden to become a small holding over night. Steve doesn't altogether share my certainty about our direction, although he does share my alarm about world around us.
So this blog will change, imperceptibly at first I am sure. Darker perhaps, more frequent perhaps, but I know I want to record the change and my reactions when and indeed if they happen. How we cope with the new uncertainty, whether we can make sufficient money to pay the bills. Our pension prospects, never good, have never looked worse, but you never know. If anything forces us to live in the moment it is the lack of knowledge about what faces expats in a post Brexit Europe.

 For the time being, at least, lets glory in a little triviality. The picture above was taken from my bedroom window. Galicia in her Autumn wardrobe. Stunning! My favourite time of year and the sun is shining I am surrounded by the most beautiful scenery, the air is fresh, life is indeed good. Below are couple of photos taken on Friday night at a couple of bars in town. Yes it,s the annual tapas contest once again, two euros a plate, one euro for a glass of wine to wash it down.