It then took us til this long to sort out buying some sort of house for them and build a run.
Finally though, two Warrens (Beatty and Cicero), a black star (Pam) and a Columbine (Oona) arrived in our garden. We bought the Warrens first and after a couple of days went to collect the other two. The two Warrens are in the picture on the left. The other two are in the photos below.
I thought it would all be straight forward from then on. Feeding, cleaning out, and collecting eggs. Oh, no! The Warrens are about 6 months older than the other two and chased them onto the roof of the hen house, where they stayed for a couple of days - I did grab them and put them into the house at night. Gradually they began to get braver, and hungrier but were still chased about by Beatty. Me and Matt decided to intervene, and extended the run and put more feed bowls around, so that the bullying Warrens couldn't guard all the food. It seems to have helped, and they are getting along a bit better now. Next problem - no eggs. The two Warrens are moulting, and chickens don't lay when in moult. The other two are a little too young to be laying yet.
On a brighter note, our cat Smiley got bored of them after one evening, and has wondered past them in the garden without raising a claw! Out Staffy Beth is a little more excited by them, but has figured out that she can't get to them when they are in the run and leaves them alone. However, if the chickens are loose in the garden, Beth is not!
They are also very relaxing to watch, scratching about on the ground. And they are every allotmenteers dream, I threw a slug in front on one the other day and it was gobbled up straight away!
I might try them on sticky weed tonight, even if they don't eat it, it will be funny to see them wandering around with sticky weed on them!
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