So here's some preliminary photos of the new ladies in my house and Im hoping in a few days when they are a bit more settled I can take some real photos without bars.
First Alcooptraz, this was hand built using all sorts of bits and pieces after reading a lot of articles about making chicken coops.
Lesson 1 - hens fly. Who would have thought this (with its metre high fence) would not be enough to keep hens in? Us, obviously. Even more so as we saw mad hen confronting the fat cat 2 doors down - 2 doors down after flying over 2 walls!
Alcooptraz has since had the perimeter secured and no cats have been harmed in the making of this report (or at least not seriously hurt, maybe slightly mentally scarred). Once the hens have settled in we will probably clip their wings before letting them free range around the garden.Clipping wings is the safe option, its that or putting leads on them.
So let me introduce the ladies:
They are kind of hard to see in there but Im hoping you can get a good enough view to help name them.
The one closest, thats good young hen lady. She's pretty much obedient, not a bit afraid of the dark (in fact tries to sleep with her head out most nights until we close the door), the first to go for new foods we leave out. She has quite a lovely sounding egg laying song, which is mostly drowned out by crazy hens distracting clucking. Im pretty sure she is the younger of our two ladies.
The one further away, thats mad hen. We mostly call her "he" so far as she is the one that flew away, that went for the neighbours fat cat and then landed 3 doors down on a balcony. I like to think that her goal was to reach the shops so she could chastise them about the quality of the eggs they sell. She is so hardcore that I was pretty sure she was going to start making cockerel sounds at some stage. She's a country lass who is very very excited about living near the city. She is also bonkers, totally crazy in the head. She wont eat food until young hen lady has tasted it, bosses young hen around and generally makes a bit of a nuisance of herself.
Im not sure what breed either are, they came from the grandad of a guy at work. I think mad hen might be so crossbred that shes crazy, maybe she is even an ex-competition hen. They are good ladies though, only a few days in and we had eggs and have pretty much had 2 a day since (still not enough to re-pay the neighbours for helping to catch them)
So what I need are names, good crazy hen names.
To help you think here are some of the names Ive got already:
- Houdini (as both of them escaped before we secured the perimeter its too difficult to decide which one gets this name)
- Mildred
- Sage & Onion
- Henny and Penny (my favourites - so much so that Ive resorted to calling them NotHenny and NotPenny since they arrived last week)
- K&FC
- Plucky
- Nugget and Drumstick
- Humpty and Dumpty
As a prize - you get to have named a crazy hen. I may give you eggs (if you live close by) or I may even bake you a cake, like the one that I baked for the guy who got me the hens. Mostly your best prize will be knowing that there is a hen named by you happily digging for worms in my back garden.
