Sunday 13 November 2011

Cooking for chickens

Hot brekkie, fit for a chicken!
Hmm, so I have to confess this week on my mind very much is the lack of time I've been spending with my chickens. I often worry about the lack of time we have together. I like my chickens, chickens are cool. Don't get me wrong, I'm not ignorning them or anything, we've had the normal house chicken invasion of a morning, when they all try and pelt inside the minute you open the door, trying to get a quick cuppa.....  We also have the normal scramble for food when you get out there - trying not to trip over the enthusiastic little monsters holding a hot bowl of grub in your hand, sleepy, wellies on over pj's is difficult, I can tell you. Whilst they are grateful and very 'flocky' when you're out with them, I'd rather not squish one under a wellie. 
I made it up today when I went out and talked to them this morning to reassure them I've not forgotten them, its just been a bit of a busy week, that's all. And, that I still like them very much. And they rewarded me with a lovely lot of eggs, clever hens! I collected them in my woolly hat! How pretty are they!
One thing I do like about this time of year is I wake up in the morning to an odd (but now familiar) homely smell of the slow cooker making brekkie. Its not for porridge for us dear readers, oh no, its a slow cooker full of yummy scraps and hot grain for the chooks. Yip - I cook for my chickens - what can I say, I'm clearly deranged, the man-child scoffs at this 'cooking for the chookies' malarkey, but I know they enjoy it.  Honest they do! I truly believe they do! Peedie likes it too when the chickens get food in the mornings, he often tries to join them!
The proof of the pudding is that last year they laid all winter long, and this year whilst we've seen a peedie decline in laying from 8 a day to 4-6 a day over the past week or two as the lights reduced. However, they are still laying lovely fresh eggs for me and I'm sure its due to the hot-slobbery-grub in the mornings. Well I guess I don't cook for them in the mornings, that is a bit of a fib - it gets cooked in the the slow cooker over night, which goes on at bedtime, with the previoudayscraps in it. 

The chicken 'slobber' delight is a concoction which changes every day - this generally includes a handful of grain (free from work) put into the slow cooker in the morning with a bit of water to soak and throughout the day scraps are added, and scraps until bed time when itpopped on the lowest setting at bedtime. If the concoction looks particularly revolting - I lob in a teaspoon of cinnamon or cloves or something nice and aromatic to make the house smell nice when I wake up, rather than of chicken slobber. I'm not THAT nice to my chickens by seasoning the scraps, its purely for the kitchen to smell yummy.

The added bonus of a slow cooker on over night is that its on the low electricity cost, it cooks the bits chickens normally won't eat like onions and lemons, or veggie scraps which wouldn't get a second look at raw are scoffed down quite the thing if cooked up into a warm delightful brekkie. The other great thing about a slow cooker chugging away all night is that the kitchen gets a nice warm glow about it and is all cosy when you wake up too.

I'm convinced a hearty warm slobbery breakfast haseen my chickens through last winters cold and helped them  to lay all year round - I wonder how long they'll lay into this winter and will we make it through the darkest months like last year with fresh lovely eggs? 
Fingers crossed we will, I'm happy to keep up my end of the bargain if they will. Chickens are most definitely cool, and worth a bit of effort to keep happy.

18 comments:

  1. I\m sure they very much appreciate you cooking for them! I remember that smell so well... :)

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  2. How thoughtful you are to your chickens. All those gorgeous eggs ready to be eaten or baked into something wonderful. I love your wallpaper.

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  3. This is a very interesting idea and a good way to get rid of kitchen scraps. Right now mine go mostly to the compost pile but sometimes I am too lazy to take them down there, this would work great. It would also be wonderful for things like potato peelings. Thanks!

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  4. Becky, that's dead right - that's exactly it. Tattie peelings and all. They then scoff the lot. I know some folk boil their scraps, I'm too lazy. The slow cooker is doubly handy, no chicken scrap bucket in the kitchen anymore, the scraps all go straight in there. Then the cooking goes on overnight. I don't have a compost heap, the chickens eat everything (except chicken, of course, which the remains of the dog gets and our green come gets the bones). Thank you for popping in, I hope you give it a try!

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  5. FBMKW, hello, I hope you're well. Gorgeous eggs indeed, they are very clever!

    Cheery, it's an odd comforting smell now. Guess it might remind you of here! X

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  6. The smell, the smell.... We always boiled up the mush and I agree, the Chooks do relish the resulting slop, I'm sure. INo doubt it also contributes to their wellbeing and egg-laying through the long, cold winter months. In Sweden, we had eggs being laid (admittedly with a heated, lighted henhoose - not the most economical of affairs) right through, even when our farmer neighbour's Hens had gone off for winter!

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  7. Before my girls left I had a special slowcooker just for them.................spoiled girls!

    Am I right in thinking that pigs could be fed this way too but with garden scraps (as kitchen scraps not allowed)

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  8. Ah, Fay, Just like Tom and Barbara. It all brings a whole new meaning to free range. alistair

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  9. Lucky chickens! And lucky you, with those pretty brown eggs-- I love the image of the nest-full. Makes me think of quiche. You are so good to cook for them. Hot meals in winter, makes perfect sense that they would do better!

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  10. Yer actual - honest mate, if you find yourself in that stinky situation again, cinnamon, one teaspoon, cures all. It won't cure global warming of course, but it does help to make stinky hen food smell like christmas cake.

    squirrel family - I hadn't heard that pigs couldnt' eat scraps (?) I know they can't eat pig - but I didn't know about them not having kitchen scraps, I wonder why, I'll google that in a bit. Ah, ha - you also have fallen for their beaky cuteness needing a hot breakfast.

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  11. Alistair I wish, I think I'm half barbara/half tom - some kind of mutant - I've her practicality with his crazy schemes - I'll take that comment as a compliment.

    And I'll add a 'fit like loon?' I hope you're both keeping well.

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  12. Linnew - they are pretty - funny here in the UK we now covet white eggs. When I was a kid, kinda when dinosaurs roamed the earth - in the UK, or pangea - we preferred white eggs - then changed to brown as they were considered more healthy......

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/13/foodanddrink.features11

    How crazy we are!

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  13. Two out of our three birds stop laying over the winter. They're posh you see. But they are spoilt too as they get the remainder of the porridge with a few seeds most days....but there's a new use for the slow cooker!

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  14. i learn so much from your blog! not having chickens myself, I had no idea what they eat and those brown eggs are just lovely looking. i'm almost inspired to get a couple myself. :)

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  15. Janet thankfully we are very 'coorse' I'm hoping they keep laying. The only posh thing here is Mr F's car and sadly it doesn't lay. Go you with porridge in the mornings, I may well start up again.

    Jts, even when we lived in the big toon we had two chooks, I love them, perefect companions. They eat just about anything and very nicely, if you are lucky give you an egg a day.......even mr f is converted to chicken keeping......

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  16. The piggy thing is to stop cross contamination. I do understand but some of its a bit daft. You can feed pigs potato peelings if you peel them outside the kitchen but not if you peel them in it !(in case they may have come into contact with meat) I think a good dose of common sense is best in these situations ;)

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  17. I love my slow cooker, but using it for chickens?! Well, maybe I will get to try this out for myself some time, we do talk about keeping chickens at the new place. The sight of those eggs makes me really want to, I just need to persuade TNG that it makes financial sense...

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  18. Thank you squirrel! I didn't know that.

    I love my slow cooker too Janet - they only get it when I'm not using it, well which is quite often - I'm too much of a 'love cooking' kinda gal to be robbed of cooking by a machine. Hens - mine don't cost me anything. We are lucky we sell a few extra eggs and that buys any 'posh' food - but even given the cost of the posh food - £8/month for my hens - I'd spend more than that on eggs. We also have no food waste at home, they scoff the lot - they've more than paid off their cost and their upkeep. Clever little monkeys. Guess depends how many eggs you eat, even when we had two chickens only enough eggs for us - they more than paid their own way. Unless you get a whole pile of fancy stuff to house them etc

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