13 - High-tech chicken coops

In the most recent edition of his monthly column CHICKEN CORNER, Paul Lay looks back on a year of columns and gets tempted by technology.

Can you believe that this is already the first anniversary of my little column?! I’m sure my editor will have mentioned elsewhere in the paper that it is also coincidentally the first anniversary of The Bugle, so I will not bang on about it, but it has given me occasion to return to my piece from this time last year to see what I was writing about way back then. It appears I made a rather bold promise to acquire a turkey, bestow upon him the name Noel and cook him for this year’s Christmas dinner!
Whilst I still wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of that first column – that if we are prepared to eat meat, we should be aware of exactly where it comes from and get to grips with how it ends up on our plates – I am afraid I never got round to buying that young turkey. Maybe next year…?
A lot can change in 12 months: chickens have come and gone; a rabbit has arrived and stayed; I have had chicken-based joy and heartbreak in equal measure; and if you believe what you read in the papers, I have eaten in the vicinity of 1,095 of the world’s most delicious free range eggs (see last month’s column). It has been a tough year in the yard, however… I believe that only 2 of the chickens I had at this time last year are still with me. And then there was the disappointment of the chicks that never hatched (see September’s edition). However, the pleasure and enjoyment I get out of looking after my chickens has not waned in the slightest.
As the first gentle frosts have started to arrive, the logistics of keeping chickens over a harsh Limousin winter are slowly coming back to me. During the summer months, my girls spend the vast majority of their days outside and their food and water dispensers tend to follow them… it’s just easier. But they are already spending nearly 12 hours of each day in their coop and the first thing they do of a morning is run for a drink. I have now moved the dispensers into the coop, the first of the winter tasks. Soon we will face the daily battle against frozen water. I have heard of all sorts of crazy solutions but the reality is that if it is anything like last year, all liquids left outside will freeze overnight into a brick, often cracking whatever receptacle is trying to withhold them. The only solution is to bring the water in at night and put it back out in the morning – not the hardest job in the world but surprisingly onerous.
One other solution that was presented to me by a fellow enthusiast a few years ago, and one that I am afraid I gave serious consideration to, was a heated plate onto which a metal water dispenser could be placed. The product in question could be either battery or mains operated and promised to prevent a moderate amount of liquid from freezing in even the harshest of winter conditions.
It was my wife that questioned whether it was really worth the money (I remember it not being an insignificant amount) to not have to carry a small bowl of water less than 50 metres once every day; after all, I do make the trip at least once a day anyway to collect my morning eggs! I did have to think about it for a while before agreeing with her. Like I said, it is a surprisingly onerous task.
Now that I think about it, the same person also sent me a link to a website where you could buy a sunlight-operated automatic chicken door. The theory was that you would open the chicken-sized ‘cat flap’ of a morning and when the light dipped below a certain level, it would automatically close, shutting the ladies in for the night (assuming they had already taken themselves to bed). I am a sucker for a gadget at the best of times and I had already removed my credit card from my wallet before common sense thankfully prevailed.
You’ll be happy to know that I continue to eschew these modern-day gimmicks and I am keeping it old-school in the yard. The water is room temperature and refreshed every morning and the door to the coop is still operated by nothing more than a touch of evening elbow grease. Long may it continue!

Until next time! ■