What a bunch of bumpkins we are at the building site I'm currently
working on. Every "bait" (breakfast and dinner time to normal people) the conversation normally ends up talking about chickens, shooting, fishing, wild food, pigeons, rabbits, etc. And yesterday the one lad told me he wanted to get rid of his slikie trio as they weren't very good layers.
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| The chickens brought in next to where I eat my "bait". Rustic lunch room eh? |
Well I've never heard of anyone thinking they would be good layers!
But I said I'd take them off his hands and although my policy on the small holding is everything has to earn it's keep, becoming a father has turned me a bit of a soft touch. All I could think was what wonderful pets these will make for my 6 month old daughter, she already gets transfixed by the chickens so these tame little bantams should be ideal. Also I've read that slikies make great broody hens so I might be able to use them for hatching out a few chicks in the future.
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| Nice little trio of bantams |
I've put them in my spare chicken arc for now (you guys in the states call them chicken tractor - thanks to the
lazy farmer for that translation), and hopefully once they're settled in they should be allowed to have a wonder around the garden and just use the arc as base until I can build something bigger.
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| In their chicken arc in the rain |
I built this arc for a broody hen with chicks about 5 years ago, we lived at our old house then and only had a garden which the hens slowly turned into a mud bath, digging a new hole everyday when I moved the pen! In the end it looked like an exploded mine field, still the chickens seemed happy!
