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thought i`d pass these tips on,told recently that human hair attached to the chicken pen deters foxes,so empty your hair brushes ,and putting ash from the fire,(cold of course) gives a alternative dust bath for the chickens,mind you they do change colour
anyone have any tips on stopping the water bowls from freezing up?

vinegar seems to stop it freezing so quickly, is also good for them if you use the cider stuff

Mix the ash with dry soil for the dust bath! Mole hill soil is good, which is another thing that's hard to get rid of (actually I just bung it in the holes that the chooks dig - a never ending job just like painting the golden gate bridge).

any moles we would have would need a snorkel and flippers and at present a pickaxe to dig his way out,seriously last summer the pen was a large puddle,then thick mud ,now its frozen solid,the only funny side too it is seeing the chickens coming out,at first they run then slide on their bottoms,

I read in one of my turn of the century tip books that mole hill soil makes great seed soil because it has already been tilled finely, I tried this in the growing season of 09 and it worked fantastically well

Trouble is if you use it in pots/seed trays it is full of weed seeds which germinate too. In the veg patch it doesn't matter cos that's already full of weed seeds, but I can't hoe pots.

I must have struck lucky then in the particular ones I chose , I certainly couldn't say that I spend time weeding my molehills

Note to self: Never let chickens free range next to your new seedling plot. Babies helped themselves to half my pumpkin seeds!!!

build your hen run so the door opens outwards. easier to clear the snow from the outside rather than trying to push it inwards. we did this by accident, bt have been glad now to be unable to get to the hens!

Hens like things to perch on during the day, partuclary if its snowy