Freddy & Solitary Lady Friend

Freddy chilling with lady friend

No eggs since the last chicken got taken and killed by a dog, and we only have Freddy now with his single companion.  He has been very quiet lately, spending a lot of time in the very spacious chicken coop.  He seems to be very fearful of any little thing nowadays, and so is The Only Hen Left Standing.  In the image above taken today, you can see Freddy sunning himself.  

Below Freddy having a quiet moment.  All his moments are quiet nowadays, and he only crows in the morning, but not as vociferously as he used to, pre all his beloved chickens disappearing....

Freddy having a quiet moment

We intend to get some new companions for him soon....then hopefully he will cheer up a bit!

A Sad Day - One more chicken killed, by a dog

Just a short while ago, a local farmer's dog came and grabbed one of  the Last Three Chickens Standing and it is now well and truly dead in the field.  I heard a great commotion and saw a huge black dog go flying past the kitchen with what looked like a chicken in its mouth. We rushed out but the dog had disappeared round the corner.  The master came up and immediately apologised profusely and offered to pay for another chicken. He was picking olives in the field opposite our house. He then put a lead on his dog and left again very apologetic.

Upon a quick inspection of the land, I saw the poor deceased chicken in the field below, with its legs in the air, head tucked under its body.  I got closer and pronounced it dead, feeling very sad as she was a nice gentle creature, and a very good layer.

Sadly no more freshly laid eggs in the near future.  I feel very upset indeed.  From Freddy + 6 chickens, we now only have Freddy + 1 chicken!!!!

I just found poor Freddy and his +1 cowering in fear behind the barn. 

These tragic incidences have all happened in the space of a couple of weeks.

2 More Chickens Gone!

Freddy and his deplenshed retinue of followers having fun amongst all the chopped wood....

We have not been having much luck recently with the number of chickens simply disappearing into thin air.  Two more have vanished in the past few days, and no feathers or anything this time to give us a clue as to what happened to them.

Freddy now only has a very small number of chickens following him around - down to two, from the six he had only a little while back.

We plan to replenish our stock of chickens in a few weeks' time. We only get one egg a day now, which is not good....

Below you can see Mini Me contemplating life in Abruzzo..

A lot of work recently cutting wood for winter time.

Two Chickens Down!

Sadly two of our chickens have lost their lives recently.  A pile of feathers scattered around the olive trees was all that was left of them.  Who knows what creature had got hold of them unexpectedly?  We are now reduced to 4 hens and Freddy. 

None of the eggs produced any baby chicks recently and we have learned from this experience!  Next time we will place the broody hen in a separate area, away from the other hens.  We live and learn!

News Flash: Chickens Run Amok!

Repost from March 2010 below

Yes, this past week I admit has been a bit of a learning curve while I've been "Home Alone" again. Nobody but dogs, cats, chickens, a kestrel, my computer and fantastic PLN for company. Last time I lost a chicken, this time, I'm running around like a headless chicken! Why? Well the following newspaper article has just appeared in the local news. It contains some rather disturbing details.


It is even being reported on the Abruzzo Channel 5 Live news as I am writing!

As you can see, Norris is getting rather rotund. The plus side is that she has been dutifully laying an egg a day in my plant pot, would you believe. She is providing the necessary main ingredients for fresh omelettes, pancakes, fresh pasta and tonight, a very fine cake, so I shouldn't really complain. With Easter coming up soon, I certainly won't go short of easter eggs!



Lesson Ideas
Fodey.com is a great resource for using with students of any age. In this post, I have demonstrated 3 of the different features available on www.fodey.com. The Newspaper Generator, Create a Newscast picture and the Ninja Text. I certainly had a lot of fun playing around with them! I am sure students would enjoy exploring them, too. These features could be easily embedded in a class blog for projects and assignments.
What do you reckon? If you have used fodey.com in any projects with your students, I would love to hear from you.

Eggstra Lesson Ideas
Sean Banville from Breaking News English has an excellent idiomatic lesson on Chickens.
Sue Lyon-Jones from Esol Courses has a whole selection of lovely lessons to do with Easter eggs and the theme of Easter
Ana Maria Menezes from Life Feast blog has some great Easter projects using web 2.0 tools for you to try out.
No need for me to "egg" you on! Have a look through these fabulous ideas and be eggceptionally inspired!

Post Scriptum Please do excuse my eggstraordinary use of one word in particular.News

Chickens Loupe Collage

To take my mind off the current state of eggs incubating I experimented with a new collage making tool called Loupe Collage.  It's quick and easy to create collages of photos and you can choose from a lot of different shapes.  I chose an egg shaped collage of recent photos.

Update
23 eggs in the chicken pen this morning, one egg broken with nothing in it. I then later spotted the broody hen pick one of the eggs lying in the nesting box with her beak and then she proceeded to break it, but it looked as if nothing was inside. 

Still no more chicks hatching....  They have 3 more days and then we will have to take action .......

Chikita

Chikita was one of the first chickens we ever had when we moved to Abruzzo.

She was a very happy bird.  Below you can hear her proudly showing off the fact that she'd just laid an egg!

21 Eggs and No More Chick

Sadly, the excitement of yesterday's lovely event turned to great disappointment this morning when the newborn chick was found dead.  We presume it had somehow escaped the safety and comfort of its mother's wings and then during the night, had been pecked by the other members of the coop.

So all we have left now, is a clutch of 21 eggs in the nesting box, 3 more than yesterday. Photo below taken today while the chicken had gone off for her usual walk. Knowing which of these eggs might contain a chick waiting to hatch is difficult to predict. Maybe we will have no more chicks....

The old adage of 'Don't count your chickens before they are hatched' makes a lot of sense right now. We learn from experience!!

I am seriously beginning to think that something is not quite right with this particular hen..... If no more chicks are hatched by the weekend, we will sadly have to throw the eggs away, as they will have gone way over the usual hatching period of 21-23 days. We will then have to make sure that this chicken does not sit on any more eggs for the time being....