Please meet ...
RazorBeak,
Betty
and Madame Jigglypuff
Bright and early - well, 11.30ish - saw most of us up and about, dressed and raring to go.
Hen Day! At last! Dylan was starting to implode with excitement, and was all set with his wellies on.
So a trip to darkest Coventry, which is about 37 miles south of us, and a very uneventful journey, complete with crate with cardboard lid. This mode of chicken transport had been recommended to us by Maureen, and Connor had diligently prepared it the day before. We had bought a collapsible crate from Homebase, and then cable-tied the side of a very sturdy cardboard box on as a lid. It was the business!
No mishaps on the journey, except that Aaron got an on-call SMS and had to restart a server somewhere in cyber-land. That made him more than a little car sick, and less than stimulating company for the rest of the way down. Poor baby! He tries so hard to be everything at once, and he ends up paying for it most of the time.
We found the place very easily (thank you google maps and Mrs Sat Nav!), and headed through open farm gates, past healthy and happy free-ranging chickens. Into an idyllic stable yard, and there were the rest of the rescuers - all with better chicken boxes than us! Sigh! They had cool and beautiful chicken rescue boxes, but, mneh, ours was made with love.
Straight away we were directed to the small stable where the soon-to-be-ours hens were. Handed over our box, and the lovely gentleman captured 3 birds in short order and popped them into our lovingly made carrier. (Ok, I am a little over-sensitive - my box should have been a startlingly amazing work of art, though!)
Then the paperwork - neither onerous nor too time-consuming. The hens were all safely in the car with the boys, so Aaron and I filled in only 1 form, and handed over a donation. The people there were amazingly friendly, and I thought it was very sweet of them to thank us all for re-homing these birds - when I would have sold Dylan to have them! They also sold small bags of mash, to save having to buy a sack full, and told us to get them onto pellets as soon as possible.
Sane, sensible and lovely people, with lots of good advice and even better will - I was thrilled and delighted to have met them and to have been made to feel like such a good egg! There was an amazing number of hen rescuers there to pick up their own ladies, and it was a while before anyone could get their cars out. So, if and when you decide to take the plunge, be ready for an amazingly fast process, followed by quite a long wait to get out again.
Then a sensible speed home, and there we were, with a box of hens, and a coop all ready for them!
We took video of the de-boxing, and the poor things were pretty much tipped out of the box once the lid was removed. We didn't want them to have to jump, as the chap at the rescue had said they may develop limps due to being pulled about by the legs during the rescue itself. They poured out in a flurry of feathers and beaks, and we got our first look at them.
And they were beautiful!
The latest ones we'd seen at Maureen's had looked very scrawny and had been missing a lot of feathers, especially about the neck. Our three lovely ladies seemed nicely plump, with a few feathers missing at their necks, and their combs are a little pallid, but all in all very pretty and quite healthy looking dames.
They didn't like us though. Two headed up the ramp and into the house, and refused to come out again. They stood in there, banging their beaks against the walls and grumbling in a henny type way at us. The third had missed the ramp and was standing out of easy reach under the coop. Hmm, she didn't like us either. Dylan was crushed, and, in my own way, I was a little saddened too.
They put up with being filmed some more - possibly they realised that this was their chance of internet stardom - and then we left them alone. They had shelter, food, water and grit. Better to let them take stock for a while, and remove the crowing 2-year-old who was trying to befriend them by shouting 'tockadoodle too'.
Here's the video of all that:
Betty
and Madame Jigglypuff
Bright and early - well, 11.30ish - saw most of us up and about, dressed and raring to go.
Hen Day! At last! Dylan was starting to implode with excitement, and was all set with his wellies on.
So a trip to darkest Coventry, which is about 37 miles south of us, and a very uneventful journey, complete with crate with cardboard lid. This mode of chicken transport had been recommended to us by Maureen, and Connor had diligently prepared it the day before. We had bought a collapsible crate from Homebase, and then cable-tied the side of a very sturdy cardboard box on as a lid. It was the business!
No mishaps on the journey, except that Aaron got an on-call SMS and had to restart a server somewhere in cyber-land. That made him more than a little car sick, and less than stimulating company for the rest of the way down. Poor baby! He tries so hard to be everything at once, and he ends up paying for it most of the time.
We found the place very easily (thank you google maps and Mrs Sat Nav!), and headed through open farm gates, past healthy and happy free-ranging chickens. Into an idyllic stable yard, and there were the rest of the rescuers - all with better chicken boxes than us! Sigh! They had cool and beautiful chicken rescue boxes, but, mneh, ours was made with love.
Straight away we were directed to the small stable where the soon-to-be-ours hens were. Handed over our box, and the lovely gentleman captured 3 birds in short order and popped them into our lovingly made carrier. (Ok, I am a little over-sensitive - my box should have been a startlingly amazing work of art, though!)
Then the paperwork - neither onerous nor too time-consuming. The hens were all safely in the car with the boys, so Aaron and I filled in only 1 form, and handed over a donation. The people there were amazingly friendly, and I thought it was very sweet of them to thank us all for re-homing these birds - when I would have sold Dylan to have them! They also sold small bags of mash, to save having to buy a sack full, and told us to get them onto pellets as soon as possible.
Sane, sensible and lovely people, with lots of good advice and even better will - I was thrilled and delighted to have met them and to have been made to feel like such a good egg! There was an amazing number of hen rescuers there to pick up their own ladies, and it was a while before anyone could get their cars out. So, if and when you decide to take the plunge, be ready for an amazingly fast process, followed by quite a long wait to get out again.
Then a sensible speed home, and there we were, with a box of hens, and a coop all ready for them!
We took video of the de-boxing, and the poor things were pretty much tipped out of the box once the lid was removed. We didn't want them to have to jump, as the chap at the rescue had said they may develop limps due to being pulled about by the legs during the rescue itself. They poured out in a flurry of feathers and beaks, and we got our first look at them.
And they were beautiful!
The latest ones we'd seen at Maureen's had looked very scrawny and had been missing a lot of feathers, especially about the neck. Our three lovely ladies seemed nicely plump, with a few feathers missing at their necks, and their combs are a little pallid, but all in all very pretty and quite healthy looking dames.
They didn't like us though. Two headed up the ramp and into the house, and refused to come out again. They stood in there, banging their beaks against the walls and grumbling in a henny type way at us. The third had missed the ramp and was standing out of easy reach under the coop. Hmm, she didn't like us either. Dylan was crushed, and, in my own way, I was a little saddened too.
They put up with being filmed some more - possibly they realised that this was their chance of internet stardom - and then we left them alone. They had shelter, food, water and grit. Better to let them take stock for a while, and remove the crowing 2-year-old who was trying to befriend them by shouting 'tockadoodle too'.
Here's the video of all that:
posted by H | 22:52
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