Ever seen a cat and a hen together? Do they get on? We're kitten sitting, minding son and fiancée's (yes, they're engaged and marrying in October) two cats, one of whom, Diana, has had a litter of four only a couple of weeks ago and we're minding them for the bank holiday weekend.
I've been brooding on the idea of having hens for some time. I first had the thought put into my head years ago, when daughter's nursery school teacher commented that since we'd extended the garden, we now had enough room to have a few hens. More recently I've been working with a colleague who keeps hens, http://connectedpeasant.blogspot.co.uk/ and recommends them.
After watching this video, I realised I had never held a hen, so I went on a chicken keeping course (a hen party) where I got to see all sorts of breeds of hens, lots of hutches, learned what to feed them, and held hens. Then, I had to get something for them to live in. That took a lot of thought, with people advising me to go for a cheap but less easy to clean option - the wooden hutch. Such people don't realise that we don't have running water and a hose pipe in our garden. We do have a well but it's not usable because the pump handle's broken, and we make do with the modern fad for water barrels, some of which collect old ivy leaves or breed mosquito larva.
I wanted an Omlet Eglu but someone advised us to get a hutch that we didn't have to bend down for. Then Omlet brought out this high rise one. So that's what we got. Here is how you might put it together:
Then we went to a local breeder and selected some chickens. So now we have three young hens, red, white and blue. We'll wait for them to settle and we're told they'll start to lay eggs in a few weeks.
The adventures start. Yesterday evening, I wanted to put them away, and they haven't yet learnt to go up their ladder into their hutch so I have to put them in. I caught the blue and put her in round the back, then the red, and put her in, but before I got the back door shut the blue was out! More adventurous than I'd realised, she was off! I grabbed the white, put her away and closed all doors before I went in chase of Belle the blue. First she went off down the bottom of the garden, which could have been a disaster for catching her, but I managed to head her off again towards the house and the top pond, where I realised was fenced (to stop grandchildren falling in). With husband's help, we chased her into a corner, pulling the fencing round behind her, until she was stuck between a water barrel and a window. On the other side of the window, Diana, the cat was watching. Diana was up on the glass, hen and cat were scared and intrigued by each other. I grabbed the hen. "Squarhelp!" What a squawk!
I guess hens and cats have a mutual agreement - they watch each other, but keep away - that way, they'll get on.
