revival of an old boiler

This lovely old brown leghorn is six years old and when she arrived a year ago she already had a wheezy chest. Yesterday she looked so unwell, after a week of hanging around looking a bit down in the beak, that I brought her into the kitchen and she ate a bit, drank out of the dog water bowl and stood in her nest box. Her breathing was dreadful all night and she coughed quite a bit but slept with her head under her wing. This morning I expected to find she had died, but not at all. She woke up when I put the light on at 6am and ate a bit more. Before lunch I left the front door open and after a bit of wandering in the hall she went outside and joined the other hens under the yew tree. So a proper resurrection and on Christmas Day! Hooray!

they've gone and I miss them

I met a retired chief constable in a layby and handed over the two tiny call ducks. They were so noisy when I caught them and put them in their cardboard box. Shutting the box in the understairs cupboard only magnified their noise (or was it my guilt that did that?) so I put them in the car and an hour later drove to the assignation. It looked like a drugs drop - me in a dog-collar and him in a big 4x4 and a box with slits for air holes... but they went off with him without a backward quack and all seems to be well with them in their new place. But now it's quiet - lovely but somehow a bit sad - like when relatives finally go home and you've the house all to yourself but after a brief ten minutes of euphoria you can't remember what you were going to do with all the space and sit there instead missing the racket (for a bit). So the garden is a sadder wiser place.

call ducks off elsewhere

The two white call ducks are going tomorrow - hooray! They look sweet and harmless but their constant high pitched calling quack has been the cause of my despair so often that they need to go now, or even sooner. I was given them by a friend who thought they were just small and girlie. Well they are small and they may be girlie but they are LOUD!!!! They are also the reason that the other ducks don't go to bed at dusk but loiter on the path in the dark playing at being fox food. So I can hardly wait - as I type they are not yet in bed... but hanging around the front door trying to make me a duck murderer - well don't push it girls!

Poultry politics

The release of the new black hens into the melee
of front garden life has been really interesting. They are not intimidated by Bill the dog, or by me, but the bantam babies (the cockerel nearest the camera being one) are fierce in their rejection of newcomers and take every opportunity to peck and subdue. The ducks don't seem to notice hens anyway except to chase them halfheartedly away from the food if they get there first and the big hens don't mind the new black hens at all. It's the bantams where all the issues about territory lie!

The young moorhen has continues to spend much of the early morning in the garden whether the poultry are out or not. I see her going about her business eating pellets or grain or

whatever she finds and not bothering about other birds or they about her. She is, however, very timid around me and with Bill, scooting off into the bushes if we even look out the window or go out the front door. I hope she'll begin to tame up so that in the spring if she produces babies we may get visited by the whole family.

No panic yet about bird flu this year - I wonder when it will start?

all's well

These two little beauties are pekin bantams - the buff one (toffee coloured!) hatched chicks in the summer, all of whom live up a tree at night and must have clung on tight in the gales of the last couple of nights! She took to sitting on two eggs a month ago but nothing hatched, the eggs weren't fertile. This is really just as well since the wet and cold would see off all but the most hardy chicks at this time of year.

The moorhens have returned about a month ago and the one i see most regularly is quite small so maybe this year's baby.

The new black hens went out for the first time today and had immediately to establish their place in the pecking order - they rank above these two pekins but below the fairly assertive young bantam cockerels hatched this summer! The black hens ranged all round the garden on their first day - quite surprising - and found their way back to their own coop tonight. Brilliant birds.

new girls

went to buy a bale of woodshavings for bedding for assorted poultry and came home with 2 black hens in addition. Well they were returned by a previous buyer who can't keep them any more because of relationship trauma (hers not theirs!) and they looked so sad... They are black old cotswold legbars so we should get blue or white eggs when they get over the rejection and the move (in a very small box for 4 miles). Now they're in a pen waiting till they acclimatise and get set free to roam.

back at last

After months away from blogging about the birds I can report no new fatalities. Some noisy additions over the summer - 2 white female call ducks given by a friend (thanks Gill, but soooooooooo noisy), and 5 bantam chicks, now full grown. The chicks live up a tree at night which works well in the winter but will not work in summer when they get up too early and drop straight into a fox maw. Of course the law of the universe ran true - 2 hens and 3 cockerels! As Ellie would say "how useless is that!" Now while I was away for a few days the buff pekin who hatched the last clutch has decided this is the perfect time for brooding more eggs - she stole 2 from the splash bantam I think, and is now tight to the nest and has done 13 days so far. I'll keep you all posted!

sussex star

The white hen had her life ended by the vet yesterday. She looked egg-bound and despite vegetable oil and steam she didn't get any better. So the vet felt inside her - no egg but instead a soft fibrous growth - so I held her while he injected the heart stopper. She just collapsed gently and then died after a few minutes. She's been a good layer and a great character. Perhaps the most friendly of them all since the black one disappeared last summer. I'm not as sad as I might have been having this week buried a baby of 16 months - a little girl called Hallie. That kind of puts everything in perspective.

moorhens again

moorhens last seen ages ago have 4 babies on the pond a hundred yards away. We have 5 bantam chicks too. I think the depression over the loss of the ducks in Holy Week has lasted much longer than I expected and I've not wanted to blog about them at all till now. We've also 'hatched' our deacon into a priest today and that feels pretty fulfilling as a protective training-incumbent-bird.

news and a joke

The ducks that were injured have recovered from their various damage and are fine again but going to bed earlier - which is a blessing for them and me. But it has made me unwilling to be away from home at dusk. One of the moorhens was back in the garden yesterday - several weeks after I thought they must have been eaten by the fox. The mallard duck on the local pond has lost her brood of 7 ducklings but she or another duck is now laying in the school playground opposite, much to the delight of the local kids. So mixed fortunes here.

Two of the original hens are trying to widen their horizons - the white and the brown hens are both found daily on the road pecking at food. I've brought the brown hen back from the park behind my house twice today already, and I was greeted in church by two of the older women gleefully telling me how they had stopped on their way to escort the white hen back into the garden through the gate. It has become a Matson sport - all sorts of locals old and young tell me how they rounded up a chicken earlier in the day. Outreach evangelism? Well an opportunity for lots of poultry jokes anyway, including one from a very small boy who asked me in his high little voice "Why did the chicken cross the road?" I said - like you should - "I don't know. Why did the chicken cross the road?" To which he replied looking worried, "I don't know either but it's dangerous 'cos it will get runned over." Is there a future here...??

Holy Week

Today I buried four of my beautiful ducks killed by the fox on Tuesday. Well, to be precise, 2 were dead when I found them, one was so injured I had to kill her there and then but found it so very hard to achieve and one (twelve year old Donald) died of his injuries the following day. Two others were injured but so far have survived. Ellie was fabulous as we had to inject the survivors with antibiotics. The garden is so empty without those particular birds. I hoped the fox would return to take the bodies but no luck - I contemplated leaving them on Painswick Beacon for it there but realised that the bird flu fanatics would have a fit and the world would end!
So Holy Week has been more emotional than usual for this ENTP (Myers Briggs for a person who thinks rather than feels as a first resort... and a second resort too.)

One Swan

This beautiful image is part of the BBC reporting frenzy on bird flu today. The local paper has a huge splash on the front page about 4 dead seagulls being found, and sent for tests, in Gloucester. Radio 4's Today Programme ran long items this morning. It's all to much about not much information. I'm sick of it already. Today I've been very depressed... and while it's not all about bird flu coverage, it certainly doesn't help to get a proper perspective on the day.

My birds are fine of course. I found a secret nest under the pampass grass with lots of bantam eggs in it and a few hens' eggs too. Lots to give away this weekend.

So it's here at last

A mute swan in Fife is found to have died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Of course it was coming but now it seems different. Lots of stuff on the radio advising people to go on eating eggs and poultry - I suppose people need to be told the bleeding obvious! But after hearing how some people in the last few months have stopped feeding garden birds and instead are driving them away and destroying their nests, I suppose the bleeding obvious isn't that obvious to some people!

No sign of the moorhens over the last few days but then I've not been at home to look out the window much. The park next door is getting a spring tidy-up so the ground cover on which they rely has gone temporarily so maybe they're just hiding somewhere else for a bit. Shame.

Donald's eye is good enough now for me to stop persecuting him with the ointment. He's a real sweetie and I'm looking forward to Ellie getting home and meeting him.

magic ointment

Went to the vet locally and explained about 'foamy eye'. So now I've got some cream to put on it (how British!) - twice a day in both eyes! First catch your drake; then find very small tube in pocket; then catch drake again; then get top off tube; re-catch drake; apply ointment; lose top of tube in mud; lose drake; lose cool; slip in mud; swear and stomp indoors to change trousers; read duck recipes while drinking large glass of red wine. And then it was lunchtime! So by the end of the week of such activity I'll have contributed to global warming through repeated use of the washing machine, out-cussed my neighbours, rotted my liver, and grown even more fond of Donald than I was at the beginning because I have to look him in the eye(s) each time I do it - twice a day.

foamy eye

The oldest duck in the garden is about 12. I've had him (Donald) for a couple of months I guess and he was passed on with another white drake to me by Gill who lives a few streets away. She named him! He's very big, very arthritic and because he's white I can see that the feathers around his eyes are slightly discoloured. He has a large white patch in the corner of one eye - do ducks have third eyelids? I've no idea at present. My duck management books aren't that detailed. So the book mentions foamy eye which can be brought on by a bump or similar injury and often happen when drakes fight over females. I've tried to buy something to soothe it over the counter in an agricultural merchants but they're not allowed to sell stuff like that any more. Taking him to the vets is out of the question - he'd find it very stressful, and because of the panic about birdflu so would the others in the waiting room. It may mean vet consultation or it may just subside over the weekend on its own. Any advice welcome... and yes I have thought about putting a camomile tea bag (cooled) on it but cathching him is part of the trauma for us both!

stuff I also care about

my true personality will out!

You Are Miss Piggy

A total princess and diva, you're totally in charge - even if people don't know it.You want to be loved, adored, and worshiped. And you won't settle for anything less.You're going to be a total star, and you won't let any of the "little people" get in your way.Just remember, piggy, never eat more than you can lift!

The Muppet Personality Test http://www.blogthings.com/themuppetpersonalitytest/

I took the Muppet test - she's my favourite and probably my alter ego - or should that be 'altar ego'? I think it shows I lie in tests!

retreat at home

I'm lucky to live alone and have the opportunity to take retreat time at home. Not only could I watch the moorhens but there has been space for all the parts of a retreat that I needed: time for reading and thinking as broadly as possible, this time accompanied by Walter Brueggemann's new book (he's my all-time hero) The Word that redescribes the World, Fortress 2006 – how up-to-the-minute is that! I feel so energized for preaching and living when I read his stuff, and normally I don’t find time because it needs slow-cooking in my brain and parish life doesn’t accommodate that too well. And so good to be at home with my moorhens and others! I've also spent time praying, cooking, sleeping and walking. Those are the usual components for me when I go away on retreat but this time I've also had the internet to blog and keep in touch non-verbally with the world. I need to know what's happening in order to pray well. I've also had my neighbours in the hostel for people who find themselves homeless popping in for extra equipment donated by other parishes and kept here, and for food from Elijah's cupboard. E's cupboard is a special space in my kitchen kept filled with food and drink by people from St Katharine's Matson. It never runs out - just like E's cruse of oil and jar of meal which he left with the widow and her son. God's abundance in tins!

more moorhens

The moorhen didn't show up yesterday and I wondered if it had gone for good. But today it's back bringing another one with it. The two are sticking close together and are only venturing into the edge of the garden as yet. One is more adventurous but the other hangs back. It would be so brilliant to see them with chicks later on. I'll try to find a large shallow tray for water that I can leave on the margin of the garden so that they might feel more at home.

additional critters

Bill has been mentioned in another blog http://sugarspicemice.blogspot.com/and now needs his picture posted. A greyhound (lurcher??) of distinction - he killed 5 bantams when he was a pup by playing with them but now appears to accept birds in the garden including the moorhen which still visits daily.

The news today is that the N5H1 virus has divided into two types. The cold spring seems to be delaying migrating birds from arriving but I guess it's still only a matter of time before it arrives and some action has to be taken. There are a few wild mallards on the fishing pond next door today but they keep themselves to themselves.

visitor update

The moorhen is still in the garden each day - eating the food I put down for the poultry and bathing in the duck's pool. She is seemingly unworried by any bird but shy of humans. I am so thrilled that she's stuck around. I get a huge buzz out of seeing her each time, so that I don't want to go on retreat next week because I'll miss the opportunity to watch her progress with the others!

I've done more thinking about the issue of the outsider who might pose a threat: The story of the plague in Eyam in Derbyshire and the way the villagers selflessly quarantined themselves to prevent it from spreading to outlying districts is well known. The Plague ended in October 1666. In 14 months it had claimed 260 lives out of a total of around 800 in the village (ref: http://www.peakdistrictonline.co.uk). That they cut themselves off rather than infect others is a story of goodness. They could have run away and thereby spread the illness further but chose to stay and wait it out even though the plague was in their midst. In their case the outsiders were kept safe.

Human responses to outsiders are often full of fear or anxiety. British attitudes to asylum seekers and refugees is mixed but often shows rejection - "in case there's not enough for us". I think it is Walter Brueggemann who has written about our culture of scarcity being confronted by a gospel of plenty. The God whom Jesus enacts is one who gives abundance - 5000 were fed and 12 baskets left over. We have enough and to spare and yet our lives are lived in an anxiety that there is not sufficient for us let alone anyone else and so strangers are not welcomed. The gospel of welcome, of sharing food and drink, the best there is, is one that is so precious to me. Trying to live it out in a poor community, first in Worcester and then in Gloucester makes me realise that firstly it is true - God does give abundantly to those who give away what they have. Secondly, those who are poor know the value of such sharing better than those who have little material shortage.

visitor

http://www.moorhen.demon.co.uk

Today a moorhen has moved into the garden and began eating the duck pellets. It's a beautiful bird and much more tame than I'm used to with wild birds. The ducks chase it away but the hens and bantams seem much more philosophical and accept its presence. I guess it comes from the nearby angling pool. I suppose the question is: "Is this wild bird a carrier of disease and how should we react to its presence?" DEFRA recommends keeping poultry in a covered place so that no wild birds come into contact with them. I can't do that practically. But having had this wonderful visitor today and watched it interact with the others I don't want to keep it out. Even if it brings disease it is worth it.

It seems to me that sometimes the risk of the outside is outweighed by the beauty of what is from elsewhere. I would be the poorer if this moorhen hadn't arrived. When bird flu comes it won't make any distinctions between my birds and wild birds. They will share the same experience and we will lose them all.

I think I'll research some attitudes to the Black Death in history when certain communities cut themselves off so as not to infect their neighbours. We always assume that 'we' are the pure ones and that 'others' will infect us. That wasn't the way of it for some farsighted people - nor is it the way of it for people living with HIV and AIDS.

the poultry keeper 

current good sites;
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/

http://www.generous.org.uk/news/

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/

http://www.operationnoah.org/

http://www.theorganicfarmshop.co.uk/

http://www.glasshouse-orchard.org.uk/

http://goodinparts.blogspot.com/

http://sugarspicemice.blogspot.com/

http://www.tikkun.org/community

signing up with DEFRA

A few days ago I signed up with DEFRA so that they know how many hens, ducks and bantams I've got in case of bird flu. It seemed sensible to tell but only if we are going to be given information about bird flu that makes sense to us backyard poultry keepers. I can't keep them indoors - there's no 'indoors' to keep them in unless I put them in the bathroom! The point about signing up, I think, is that if there's a possibility of vaccination for the birds to prevent them from getting bird flu then at least I should know by being known to DEFRA. One of the questions I had to answer was 'is there a pond or reservoir within 5oom of the birds?' There is the fishing pond next door of course. I heard wild ducks on it this morning early. So when bird flu comes to this part of Gloucestershire - and it's surely only a matter of time - then we're not safe at all really.

These are the girls!

Been keeping hens for about eleven years now as a parish priest. They make wonderful, moving garden sculpture, produce eggs for giving away, something for neighbours and local kids to enjoy, and mean that the first thing I know about a day is the temperature as I let them out each morning. The first three, bought as a celbration of being made priest in 1995, were called Hildegard, Marjorie and Julian - named for three medieval mystics, wonderful women who in their separate ways showed new ideas, new ways of seeing God. H,M and J the hens spoke softly to eachother and to me and helped get this godspoultry thing going. Marjorie, a buff cochin, took to doing assemblies at schools very quickly.

Soon, the three were joined by bantams, silkies and secondhand enormous hens called Brahmas - huge birds with feathery legs and a tweed coat appearance to their feathers. In all there were eighteen till Bill the rescue lurcher pup played with some till they died of fright. I gave the rest away in the hope of keeping them alive but despite a country residence they were soon eaten by a fox - seems rather natural really!

I gave up for a while till the lurcher was older and have, for the last two years have gradually built up a flock again - no names this time, it's too sad when they die! I've had Old Cotswold Legbars with their blue eggs, a white Sussex Star, a Warren (the battery hen sort of bird - scruffy, bad-tempered and a layer of wonderful eggs), Pekin bantams including a cockerel, an Araucana bantam who also lays blue eggs and then some ducks.
The first lot were stolen but now we seem to have settled. Last summer a hen and two bantams hatched out four ducklings. The lodger named the first one 'Steve' after himself! Two of the ducklings went in the theft but two remain, including Steve - both drakes - and are getting into the swing of spring!

Here's a picture of the tiny 'Steve' on his first picture shoot. Yes, ducklings really do look just like Disney said they did.

This year though it's not predators I'm so concerned about but the hype around Bird Flu. The virus is worrying in itself - I don't want the birds to get sick and I don't want them to be culled. Getting the flu myself seems so far away as a concern that i can't even consider it at the moment. I don't have space to put the birds indoors unless I keep them in the garage - they go mad anyway. So we are just waiting to see. Slimbridge isn't far away so if wild swans get it then there is a likelihood of it moving through Gloucestershire quite easily. But who knows? The media and the government seem to be very interested in promoting anxiety - I wonder why?