Managing hens and new blooms

This week’s post is brought to you by “Surprising but ultimately irrelevant facts about hens”. A few weeks ago before spring began, I fenced off certain areas of the garden to keep the hens under control. Although our 12 birds have their own enclosed area, we like to let them out into the garden for a few hours a day. The problem with that, of course, is that they trash everything. No plant is safe from their relentless pecking, and these birds poo wherever they stand (although chicken poo does wonders for the raspberries!). So, I got some wire and posts, and fenced off a couple of areas where we wanted to grow fruit and veg. What I didn’t expect, however, was to see just how much the hens do to the lawn. In the shot below, to the right of the fence is where the hens can go; to the left is where they can’t. And on the left of that fence, the grass is 5cm higher. It doesn’t really matter because as soon as I eat one of their delicious eggs, whether soft boiled, hard boiled, fried, scrambled or poached, I forgive them all they’ve destroyed and all of the poo. Oh, and the rhododendrons are just coming into bloom, too!