Turf update...

I thought I'd take some pictures of our beautiful green grass and then I realised we didn't have any!

The turf looked beautiful in September and now it looks like this!

We have had to section of a smaller part of the garden for the chickens to allow rotation of the grass, this is what the chicken free grass looks like!

I have to say in their defence that the wet weather has not helped at all, and as they like to scratch up the ground for worms its been really hard for the grass to hang in there!

Hopefully as nature takes its course it will reproduce and re-emerge through their poop!

This is what the divide looks like... you can see just how far they manage to get their heads through..

Our lawn has never really been a lawn.. with the dogs the boys , the pool and then the trampoline its always had a real hard life so I am not too bothered.

If you have a bowling green for a lawn don't keep chickens!

Wet Chickens

I was under the impression that although chickens enjoyed the joys of what rain brings - (worms and more worms with puddles of mud to scratch around in)) they didn't really like getting really wet?
Our hens were absolutely soaked yesterday and despite having every opportunity to shelter from the pouring rain they didn't.
I also read that if they were caught out in the rain then it could effect egg production? This doesn't happen with our hens either!
I did however round then up and put them into their covered run because they looked so pathetic and wet.
They protested with quite a lot of noise for the 1st ten minutes and then realised that I wasn't going to come back out in the rain because I DO NOT enjoy getting soaked.
The new turf that I laid at the beginning of September no longer really exists, there is a really funny cropped line about 4 inches from the fence where they can get their heads through and peck the good grass that is left!
I am hoping that once it starts to get a bit dryer and the ground isn't so soggy and scratchable then it may recover to some extent - we can all have dreams!
Eggs production is still 4 a day and I can say that 50% are double yokers' the yokes are so bright even Harrison's cookery teacher commented.
We have regular orders from friends now and I have even started to design our own egg boxes!
When the design is complete I will post the results...

A VISITOR FOR THE HENS....

GREEN GRASS!!!
Today the girls had a visitor - & I would assume that this was their 1st encounter with the small prickly kind? They all took turns in having a peck and following it around the garden and then lost interest really quickly.

It was however really nice to see that hedgehogs are also present in our urban garden.