Tuesday 24 July 2012

Gored to death by a chicken


What could be less controversial than showing you a picture of how well our night-scented stock is doing, now that the sun has finally come out?  Only a week or two ago, it was about 2 inches high and drowning - now the scent drifts through the window at night - as it says on the wrapper - and they drink about 4 pints of water a day.

That little trough is what constitutes a garden here in our compact but adorable city apartment.  Just as well really, because I don't think the plants would have reached this height if we kept chickens.  We have plenty of free-range pigeons though, which is why I have planted spikes in amongst the foliage - now well hidden.

The reason I have the time to write at this time of day is because I am being forced to wait in (during this fine weather!) for a delivery of materials by ParcelForce, and they refuse to specify morning or afternoon.  I vowed never to use them again, after they took 3 months to send a parcel to Australia - by way of Canada - and broke it in the process, refusing to give me a penny in compensation.  Sadly, my suppliers have made no such vow.

All this recent talk of chickens lead to a comment by me about Cro's ingenious but simply method of protecting his flock by leaving the barn door open, and I said that there are precious few traditional barns left unconverted these days.  That wasn't as snide a comment as it may have sounded.

I don't think it was that long ago when the sound of burbling and clucking chickens permeated almost every farmyard in Britain, but now you only hear that sound everywhere outside of the UK.

Slowly, farms have been forced to become more industrially commercial, and their yards are usually made up of easy-to-clean pads of concrete, covered over with outbuildings made of steel joists and corrugated roofs, when the owner has found him/herself able to afford to do so.

The old barns - some of which dated back to the 17th century or earlier - have suffered from too much care, rather than the traditional neglect which turned them into dusty, cob-webbed treasure-troves, with rusting, vintage cars, often being used to house chickens on the inside.

A dishevelled, old, dusty or muddy (depending on the season) farmyard with a permanently gaping double door leading to big old beams and haylofts was a haven for feral chickens and dogs, but is now almost a thing of the past.

The dirty old dog would take care of the chickens during the day, and they would flap up to the beams at night, so a rogue fox would have to be wily indeed to pick one off.

Farmyards are so sanitised these days, and I miss the old-style ones, messy though they were.

With the yards, gardens and barns tarted up to keep DEFRA and the bank manager happy, there is no room for a scratchy chicken, and I miss them too, despite having been almost gored to death by a big old cockerel on such a farm a few years ago.  I still have the scars - honest!

22 comments:

  1. Its bloody EU legislation that did for traditional farms, traditional cheese, traditional butchers, traditional bananas...

    Spikes in your night scented stock? I hope you conducted an Environmental Impact Study first...

    As for barns, you try renovating one. If it isn't bats, it'll be obscure beetles that stop you.

    I know people still say it would be a waste of a vote, but if I was still on the UK electoral roll, I would vote UKIP and keep voting UKIP until enough had done so that the electorate would start taking them seriously.

    Or maybe I would start my own party; 'Land Rights for Gay Whales'

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    1. The trouble is that UKIP attracts people who are only a little to the left of the EDL, and I really don't like those bastards.

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  2. So while Cro is considering Janism and John is sleeping with turkeys YOu are setting booby traps for :free-range" pigeons. Oh how I love you guys.

    Our farm looks neat on the outside (I have issues) while the inside of the buildings are filled with crap, I mean hubbies inventory, peacocks, spiders, baby pigs...you name it, its stuffed inside our farm buildings.

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    1. John is sleeping with turkeys? Sure you don't mean TurkISH?

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  3. I must say, I really do like many of the old English black-weather-boarded barn conversions. Like you I also like to see them used for what they were originally designed; but with 'diversification' still meaning 'flog off everything possible', barns containing hay will become rarer by the hour.

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    1. True, and a good barn-conversion is so hard to find that I would rather spend the extra million on a moated farmhouse.

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  4. Can chickens really fly as high as the beams in a barn ? I thought that they could only fly up to a couple of feet. Surely they would need a few hay bales to get them up there and then the fox could still get them. Just a thought.
    ........... and, you have a dirty mind Tom ( as if I didn't know that already!) The picture on my blog is of a girl lying in the sun, contemplating and I think that it's supposed to be her heart beating, and nothing else !!

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    1. Yes, they can Jack@.

      That girl on your blog could win the Tour de France with a heartbeat like that - if she got up.

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  5. P.S: your 'socks' are looking lovely ..... I rekon that you could give Diarmuid Gavin a run for his money !

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    1. Apart from an Irish person, who the hell is he?

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    2. He's a gardener who is sometimes on tele and always does a controversial garden at Chelsea. I'll call you Alan Titchmarsh instead ..... you must have heard of him !

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    3. Oh yes, me and Titchmarsh are like that (makes an interlocking finger sign with two index fingers).

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  6. I think that sort of farm yard only exists in jig saw puzzles now Tom.

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    1. That's true, too, Weave - unlike Buckingham Palace or the Reichenbach Falls, or wherever Sherlock Holmes met his end.

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  7. Also Tom - they were pheasants that the cubs took, not hens (apart from two).
    Incidentally your post Tell Laura I love her which shows up on my side bar does not show up on your blog. What has happened to it?

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    1. I decided it sounded too wanky, so I took it down early this morning. My loss, not yours.

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  8. "Bears eating bird-seed? And I thought my neighbour's tits looked a bit peeky. They love my fat balls in the winter, though."

    I cannot believe I am the only one that enjoyed this one

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    1. Neither can I! 'How to win friends and influence people'...

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  9. I had to Google EDL, Tom. I have been away a while. But I had heard of BNP at least and I agree with you, I like neither.

    Well, it is a pity that UKIP is attracting those types and you, living in UK are better placed to know. I read the UKIP manifest and agreed with pretty much everything but I couldn't tolerate xenophobia.

    So basically, there is nobody worth voting for in UK?

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    1. I have never noticed anyone worth voting for, so consequently never have.

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  10. My daughter still has the scar just below her eye from a rooster incident, fifteen years ago. Frightening, it was. The rooster was delicious.

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    1. They have unbelievably powerful - and tasty - legs.

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