Keeping chickens – Page 4 – the story of Casa Azul

The Saga of Cheeky Charlie

October 4, 2014 richard Comments 1 comment

…or should I say Cheeky Charlotte. But more of that later. It all started in May. We had bought a dozen roasties which we keep until they are about 11 weeks old, then they are given the chop. Usually they are pretty easy to catch so I end up killing two a day, plucking, hanging and freezing until they are all gone.

Unbeknown to me, Cheeky Charlie had managed to avoid my grasp until the last day and when it was his turn, he escaped. Not just just from me but also out of the chicken run and into a patch of impenetrable brambles.

Jackie thought that would be it, he would either get taken by a fox or by a mongoose. However he managed to survive for many weeks and then he started visiting the runs of the other chickens. Not a good move as they picked on him and viciously pecked him. It then became apparent that the reason for his ventures into the other chicken runs was because he, or rather she, wanted to lay an egg and this is exactly what she did in the nest box of the young hens! She was, after all, now 20 weeks old. Added to that she now wanted to roost on top of the young hens’ run.

I’m afraid that was the last straw and so she went the way of a normal roastie. I’ll spare the details but I was interested to find loads of eggs in varying states of development inside her. Anyway, she’s now in the freezer and we’ll have to look for Coq au Vin recipes as although she’ll be very tasty, she’ll probably need quite some cooking in order to tenderize.

Meanwhile, Jackie has been down the market and rather than coming back with a dozen young roasties, she came home with 9 roasties and 3 ducks! I wasn’t keen on getting ducks as we don’t have a pond but I’m sure they will taste good!

The Great Escape

August 11, 2014 richard Comments 2 comments

Way back in mid May we bought our last crop of roasties. We got 12 of them aged 2 weeks. By mid July they were about 11 weeks old and ready for the chop. They were a bit different from our usual roasties. The big difference was that they were brown rather than white. I’m not sure of their exact breed but the white ones really put on weight fast and when I kill them at about 7 or 8 weeks they can be 3kgs after plucking and dressing. However, they are quite ugly and often can only stagger about because they are so fat. Actually not fat but their legs are just enormous. Therefore this time we decided to go for the more aesthetically appealing brown ones, still heftier than the egg laying chickens but much cleaner and seemingly fitter than the whities. They’re happy to walk and scratch about unlike the white ones who are reluctant to stand, even for a drink. I can also confirm they are just as tasty. As per usual with this latest batch when they were ready for killing, I grabbed two per day, killed, plucked and hung them in the barn. However when it got down to the last few they seemed to know what was coming and were a little bit more difficult to catch. And now we get to the point of this story. The very last chicken, Cheeky Charlie as he has become known, savoured his freedom and life a bit more than the rest and escaped! He managed to get out of the chicken paddock and escaped into the bramble patch. However, that was not the end of it. A few hours later he thought it was safe to come out but he hadn’t reckoned on Betty who lay in wait. With a quick lunge, she had Cheeky Charlie and was soon to be seen strutting through the garden with her prize hanging limp between her jaws. Eventually Betty let go of Charlie who sprang into life and headed back to the safety of the brambles. A few feathers missing but apparently none the worse for the experience. But there’s more! A few days before the Cheeky Charlie incident, we were having breakfast in the garden when we heard a huge furore coming from the laying hens. I ran to their paddock to find a mongoose in the chicken run! It was then a case of the Keystone cops with me chasing the mongoose, the chickens running with feathers flying everywhere, the dogs barking and Jackie yelling on the other side of the fence. Eventually the mongoose managed to escape over the wall. As the hens were unharmed, we thought that the mongoose had only come for their eggs – this time. And that is how we leave it – Cheeky Charlie still ‘free’, Betty on the prowl and a mongoose on the lookout for any opportunity.

Good news and bad news

May 5, 2014 richard Comments 0 Comment

The good news is that our two year old apricot and almond trees produced fruit for the first time. The bad news is that they have all fallen off while still very small. We’ve had this happen with other young fruit trees. The first year we had fruits on the lime tree they fell off, but the following year we got some more and this time they stayed on and turned out really well. So there is hope. Similarly, last year we had loads of figs on a young tree but they all fell off before they matured. This year they are coming on nicely – hang on in there!

apricots - before they fell off — apricots – before they fell off

The other fruit trees have done really well. It looks like being a bumper plum crop. We’ve got about half a dozen trees, young and old and a variety of types, so that will be good. And we’ve never had so much pear blossom so fingers crossed for them. Meanwhile, we only picked the last of the oranges last month and now the two trees in the courtyard are full of blossom and the smell is divine. Added to that, a couple of linnets have decided the big tree is a great place for a nest but more of that later.

The fruit bushes in the veggie patch are also doing well. Hopefully we will have increased crops of gooseberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants.

I mentioned the linnets – I saw 4 little blue eggs in their nest the other day and now they’ve been replaced with 4 hungry mouths. We’ve also already had two baby blackbirds fledge and leave their nest in the garden and we also have a couple of blue tits feeding their young in one of our nest boxes. There’s also been at least one hoopoe hanging around. But the most exciting sighting was a neighbour of ours. We often hear the barn owl which lives in the ruined house next door and we have caught glimpses at night, but only recently have we seen it during the day and I managed to have my camera handy.

We’ve been a bit slack on updates over the last month or so and in that time we bought a dozen baby roasties and I’m already killing them. At least there is now plenty of room for them in the freezer. Slowly but surely we are getting through the two pigs we reared and slaughtered in 2012. I recently found another pork belly at the bottom of a freezer. It was from the so called thin end so wasn’t good for roasting but it was excellent for making bacon. And this is where your supermarket streaky bacon comes from. We just cover the belly in salt, leave it overnight, then drain the liquid that comes off. Reapply the salt over the next 5 days and the result is dry cured streaky bacon. Perfect.

Of course we still take the dogs for a walk every day and Jackie has been keener to do it these days as it’s orchid season. She wrote a post about it recently but since then she has spotted quite a few more. Maybe another orchid post soon and of course May is peak time for the wild flowers so watch this space.

Blossom

February 20, 2014 richard Comments 0 Comment

Despite all the rain (which is showing signs of slackening off), things are finally looking up and spring is round the corner. As well as the daffs which have been with us for quite a while, the yellow crocuses have followed the purple ones and are now in flower.

However, the real harbingers of spring are the fruit blossoms. Like last year the apricot was first followed by the almond. We won’t have any fruit from either again this year because although we did buy another apricot for cross pollination, it is still too young as is the almond.

The plums are showing no sign of flowering, which is not necessarily a bad thing as we hope they flower when there is less chance of the rain knocking the flowers off.

Meanwhile we are back to full egg production. The old hens are still in semi retirement only laying one or two between them per day but the youngsters have filled the void. We get 3 every day, which is a little strange as there are 4 of them. Maybe one is a dud? As you can see the eggs are quite a bit smaller than the ones from the oldies.

The oldies have completely destroyed their run which looks rather devastated but we have adopted a new strategy with the youngsters. As you can see they are constrained in their run. We move this every few days so they get fresh grass and the grass where they have been gets a chance to recuperate. We also did it because they are ‘at that age’ where they want to stretch their wings and can quite easily fly/jump over the fence. It’s a bit of a faff. I wonder how long we will keep it up.

After a number of trips to the vet with the big hairy one, the vet reckons she has got atopy – it’s an allergic skin reaction which makes her lick her paws and is probably the cause of her often infected ears. It’s not too bad at the moment – the scratching and licking is usually just in the mornings for some reason and we are now used to cleaning her ears every day. And she is still full of life and obviously happy so we are not worried that much. The (slightly) smaller hairy one is still up to her tricks and recently she has presented us with a rabbit’s foot (for luck?) and a pig’s trotter (??!).

The birds, the birds… and foxy

January 30, 2014 Jackie Comments 1 comment

The birds 1 First up the chooks. Well, we are really pleased that at least one of the new hens we bought back in September is now laying. Not the biggest of eggs but small and perfectly formed. The remaining hens (now called the old hens) are trying to make amends for their past poor performance and recently we’ve had 3 eggs a day from them.

They’re a little miffed at the mo. The new hens have been taken from their original patch and put in a new one, full of luscious green grass. The old ones are left to dig around in the dirt having eaten every blade and scratched up every root.

The birds 2 January is always a good month for bird watching from our living room windows. It’s not uncommon to see 15 different kinds of birds at one time, mostly the various finches on and under the feeder, but also warblers, pipits and wrens. For some reason the tits have turned their beaks up at the fat balls we put out but the great tits are happy with the seed.

A first for us here at Casa Azul was a short-toed tree creeper doing it’s thing around the olive trunks. And we were really surprised to see a hoopoe preening itself in the plum trees, they’re summer visitors and shouldn’t be here until April.

Foxy We treated ourselves recently to a wildlife camera, one of those that takes photos and videos when something walks past. I’d chosen what I thought was a good spot, opposite some kind of underground nest, but nothing. So after a few weeks chose a different spot where it looked like animals had passed. Success! One night the shot of a passing tail and then a short film of a curious fox. Just keep away from the chooks, foxy!

Bits and bobs

October 24, 2013 Jackie Comments 3 comments

All our visitors have now come and gone, along with the sun. It was on with waterproof hat, coat, trousers and boots for the dogs’ morning walk and a muttering of “it’s good for the garden”. Apparently it’s a mast year in the UK which means that the forest trees are producing a lot more fruits and nuts than usual. Well, I don’t know if it’s the same here but I have noticed an abundance of acorns and berries. The wild boar are here again snuffling for roots and fallen nuts, they’ll be happy.

The olives are plump and plentiful too, a far cry for the pathetic crop last year. Somehow it’s got a lot greener quicker this autumn and (foolishly, I know) I found myself looking for signs of the first orchids only to remember it’s autumn not spring! The mild weather has added to the springlike quality I suppose, and the sheep and goats are back in the meadows.

Meanwhile there’s been (and still are) a hundred and one things to keep us busy here (and my father, too!) Jobs include mending, mulching, harvesting, drying, preserving, pruning and transplanting. Not to mention weeding. One task was preparing the fields and coops for new chooks. We feel more farmlike now with two more sets. Our original three hens (four until the mongoose saga) laid very few eggs over the summer as usual (they really hate the heat) but are now very slow to get back on track. We’ve had them three years now and so decided it was time to get reinforcements. Four new weeny cheepy bundles of fluff and feathers have arrived (and yes you three you have a right to look nervous!) along with 12 ‘roasties’ who are plumping up nicely already, thank you.

Sadly the slugs are in abundance too. Never have I seen so many at night (it’s impossible not to stand on them) and the little beggers are still around during the day. Monty Don writes “In one experiment 27,500 slugs were taken from one small garden without a noticeable difference to slug activity. Densities of 200 slugs per square metre are moderate”. The lettuces are now protected by plastic bottles (although some weren’t rescued in time) but I see they have headed towards the later planting of leeks… Twelve strawberry plants were taken from runners in the summer and planted in new beds. They looked great but now look very sorry for themselves. I thought it was just the transplanting but fear now they have verticillium wilt which means I now have to dig them all up 🙁

One success story has been the kale. A bed was put aside for them outside the watering system just to see “how they got on”. They did look rather sorry for themselves in the summer swelter so were given a watering can or two. But yes, now the rain is here they have picked up and huge leaves have grown seemingly overnight and they are flourishing. Good news for the chickens and perhaps some caldo verde for us for lunch.

The fine weather is set to return. No more barbecues methinks but walks in the autumn woods and puddles is something to look forward to. Fingers crossed.

The killing

June 7, 2013 richard Comments 0 Comment

At the end of April I modified the pig house to take our next intake of roasties. And very cute they looked too. They must have enjoyed their spacious home and the relatively wide open space and fresh grass of their paddock because they have grown enormously and in very quick time – especially the white ones.

you can run but you can't hide — you can run but you can’t hide

So much so that I’ve already given the white ones the chop – at only 8 weeks old. The squeamish better look away now as I photographed the progress of one fortunate soul from freedom to the fridge: Here he is in the ‘mata frango’ ready to get his throat cut.

…and here ready to be plucked. My able assistant ready to spring into action.

And here all plucked and ready to be hung. The lucky birds meet their maker on a cool marble slab – what luxury.

We hang them for a couple of days and then some are popped into the freezer whole for roasting and others I chop up. Here are some prime bits.

With the carcass, I usually make the most delicious soup as there is still plenty of meat on it. For the record, the largest whitey weighed in at a whopping 3.2kg after plucking and cleaning (over 7lbs in old money) – as it happens the same weight as me when I was born! and the other three: 2.5kgs, 2.5kgs and 2kgs. The six brownies are still running round the pen (for now). They are smaller but by all accounts even tastier.

And then there were three…

July 23, 2012 Jackie Comments 3 comments

We bought our chickens almost two years ago for a couple of euros each. We decided that three would be enough but got four because we were sure that they wouldn’t all make it. Since then four healthy chickens have given us 1750 eggs and, of course, we’ve become a little attached to our galinhas (as did my Dad!). We’ve also got used to their clucking after they’ve laid an egg and turned a deaf ear to their complaining from the bramble bushes when it’s been too hot. But yesterday afternoon one of them was making a right racket – not usual at all. She was in the connecting field to the one where their house is and calmed down a bit when I came out; I didn’t worry too much that I could only see three. But when she carried on squawking after I left we decided something was up. Richard went into the field and sadly, under the brambles, he found a headless chicken. No wonder there was so much noise, she hadn’t wanted to pass her sister to get back home. We now noticed the feathers everywhere and I hoped she’d been attacked quickly.

This morning the remaining three were rather reticent to leave their caged run let alone go into the next door field, something they usually do first thing. What to do? We decided that the third field, empty now except for a house and run because the ‘roasties’ had all been dispatched, would be the perfect option. It doesn’t connect to the exterior stone wall, it’s a little nearer the house, and the olive tree gives good shade. So that was all cleaned and re-strawed and the hens found themselves a new home.

So what was it? Not a fox, it would have killed all four and there would’ve been more carnage. Richard reckons an Egyptian mongoose (we’ve seen them here) or some kind of weasel. No doubt it’ll be back for a second helping of hen head but right now they’re locked away (with much complaining) and will be earlier in the day now until, I hope, the enemy gives up. RIP Pecky!

Mil ovos!

December 9, 2011 richard Comments 4 comments

A very short post this but I’ve got big news. In just under a year since they started laying, brownie and her mates – hennies, 2, 3 and 4 (we can still only recognise one of them as being a bit darker than the rest) have laid their 1000th egg. And after their little rest in October, they are back up to speed and laying significantly bigger ones. So good news all round.

We’ve also been busy. We went on a short soap making course last week. We’ll start churning out all sorts of soap from next year made with our own olive oil and assorted extras. So now you know what to expect for future Christmas presents!

And I went into the forest with a group of fungus foragers and came back with a basket full of wild mushrooms. It’s been a couple of days and I’m still alive so I guess they were safe to eat – more to follow but here’s a selection (the big one is a scaly tooth!):

The chop

November 28, 2011 richard Comments 2 comments

Our latest bunch of roasties have now had the chop. We bought them on 1st October, a bit younger than we had originally planned as they were only a couple of weeks old. However, they stuffed themselves silly and when I dispatched them this week (when they were 10 weeks old) they had mushroomed in size to between 3 and 4 kgs (the largest was almost 9lbs in old money, the same size as a turkey!).

No photos of the actual dispatching but here I am plucking one in the ‘death zone’.

In order to make them even more tender and delicious, they need to be hung in a cool place for a few days.

We had the first one roasted last night – with garden fresh swedes, turnips, spuds and French beans. I say we had one, actually we only managed the best part of one breast. I guess it’s chicken sandwiches, cold chicken, chicken curry, chicken soup, chicken stir fry…. for the next week. Of the other four, they’ll be frozen and will no doubt keep us in meat for quite some time.

One group is happy to see the back of the roasties – the layers. We’ve moved them into the roastie quarters so they have some fresh grass to eat. No complaints there.

the story of Casa Azul

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