Wow its been a grisly month here on the mountain.  We’ve had two hen deaths followed by rapid replacement.  The local ‘hen guy’ came through for us, getting us some replacements within a week.  This is a minor miracle in these parts.  Normally ordering poultry involves the following:

• driving 40 mins to request the hens
• driving 40 mins to collect the hens on the day two weeks later that ‘hen guy’ told me to come back
• driving 40 mins home in a strop because hen guy says come back next week
• driving 40 mins the next week and yey getting given a very small cardboard box which ‘hen guy’ has squished too many pullets into
• watching ‘hen guy’ seeing if he can stab the poultry by making carry handle / air vents with a huge knife while the box is full – this bit freaks me out and now I just don’t look

Not this time though.  Big D requested the pullets and two days later ‘hen guy’ called us to say they were there now and could we collect them please.  Hurrah.  Although ‘hen guy’ has said he’ll call us on many occasions he never actually has!  I think after a few years of buying poultry and food ‘hen guy’ has upgraded us from ‘English people who need to be repeatedly tested to see just how much they want the poultry’ to ‘regular poultry keepers who will come back’.  I feel at home!

Well thankfully all seems relatively peaceful in the hen house.  The new girls are a bit quiet and are getting bossed about a bit – particularly if they try to get near any greens before the older girls.  But on the whole, they’re eating, drinking and still alive so I’ve grateful.  It’s such a worry as poultry really don’t like their pecking order changing so I have been a bit neurotic about the newbies but so far so good.  The older girls have both laid every day since the death of their coop mates so they can’t be too stressed about the change in company.

If you’re keeping poultry anywhere you should be vigilant about security (I speak from experience).  Out here their main compound needs to be roofed as vultures and eagles have been known to steal a hen.  The compound walls should extend underground for a foot or so to prevent foxes and dogs digging their way in, under the walls.  Most importantly any hatches you’ve put into the walls should be windproof.  The compound door should be lockable.  Ours is fixed securely shut using a mixture of carabiners and string.  Faye our largest dog can undo latches but is unable to tackle knotty string yet.

It pays to be very careful about poultry and pets too.  Cats have an inbuilt knowledge that poultry is just too damned big and tend to ignore them but I wouldn’t trust ours with any chicks.  Dogs can be very unreliable.  Our first batch of hens were pretty much free-range.  Our dog at the time was ancient and just quite liked watching them.  When the pups came along they would get chased by the hens and bossed around by them.  We trusted them left with wandering hens for around a year.  But as the pups grew, their realisation that hens might be edible dawned.  ‘Brave chicken’ the only hen I ever named because yes, she was nosy and fearless, pushed the issue too far and now pets and poultry lead a very segregated life.

Now my only concern is that one of our dogs seems to have a ‘boyfriend’ dog who visits every few days.  This dog is resident at a newly built finca down the mountain which some people from Barcelona use as a weekend holiday home occasionally.  Miraculously they’ve managed to get this dog to guard their cottage even though they’re hardly every there.  Recently he seems to have matured a bit (he was only a pup when first left at the house) and realised he doesn’t need to sit outside their door shaking all the time, but can in fact go off exploring – he lives on a very sparsely mountain for goodness sake!  We think someone from the village comes to feed him once or twice a week and I admit he’s rough around the edges but not particularly thin or unhealthy looking.  Still though, I guess he would enjoy more chicken in his diet so we are being very paranoid about shutting them up securely.  I’ve never left the hen compound door open but now I have to keep double checking it – daft I know.

Now this kind of dog ownership is not something I like, but it is the way things are done in these parts so I try to be tough and be glad he’s not chained up or kept in a tiny compound like some of the hunting dogs.  A month ago the shepherd mislaid one of his sheep (we heard it tinkling round the valley all evening) and a few days later Mr Boyfriend Dog was very perky and even shared a little mutton with our Faye.  I know this may seem a bit gruesome but its just the way things are on a mountain.  There are always new piles of bones in the woods for our girls to find and fight over.  And, there are always gangs of vultures flying around on the lookout for new dead things.

Back in my old life of commutes and general greyness I would have been horrified by how unperturbed I am by all this death.  Hell I would stress out about whether to kill slugs and I really hated slugs!  I like that I’m a bit more realistic about life and death in the animal world.  I still would rather everything live in harmony and survive on tofu.  But I see the beauty in the whole arrangement and love the days when up to fifty vultures are circling the house.  Even though it means something has certainly gone to fluffy bunny heaven!

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