It was playing cards that brought me the idea to buy rabbits. I (Mika) will explain...

While playing a "blackjack" card game, I thought that it would be funny to have bets to make the game more interesting, so of course, because we are animals lovers we had this hey, not so crazy idea to have a "couple of rabbits" as the final prize, lol. So the first that would won 50 games would receive them! The game then became REALLY exciting.

When the games were finished, I was the winner and so Adam and I went that day (Sunday) to the famous oh so plentiful street market to get MY own rabbits! When I saw them I just said: "We won't get only 2 but 4 because they're too nice!" so we've bought one more couple (male and female) so we have 2 couples.

The characters are, Ostara, the grey and white one, named after a germanic spring goddess; she seems a bit of a boss type, confident and strong-willed and she often hangs around with Indiana Jones (or Jones for short), the grey one, who's the most active zooming around like I don't know what and we swear he has the theme tune of said movie going through his head! There's also Monty, the black one, named after Monty Python, he's the most curious one, scouting things out and looking at "things". Then last but not least we have Peppermint, a black and white angora, whereas the others are shorthaired. She's the smallest and also the most affectionate one prefering to eat and be held by someone than adventuring around like the other three.

Now the chicken share their home with those tiny furry balls in the same building although separated by a cosy cage for the rabbits and sometimes we even take them upstairs in the patio so they can practice their jumps, run, stretch properly, and exercise other rabbitness-es . They are proud little happy rabbits and they bring a lot of tender feelings to the house.

Wow, life in this valley can be quite adventurous and chicken coop life too.

Let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time, just last week actually, we cleaned the inside chicken coop of dirt and browney-white shit (sorry for the image but that’s country life for you, lol) and replaced it with wood chippings. We added some baskets aswell so that our two chicken can start laying eggs and then, because it felt empty, we decided to get more chicken (plus one randy cockeral is just too much for two hens)

So on Sunday we went to a village where they hold this really big street market once a week with stands selling just about everything to hoards of people. We waded past fruit stands, clothes stands, music stands, shoe stands and lots more stands just to get to the animal stand. There’s plenty of interesting things in that market and the animal stand is no exception. They, rabbits, guinea pigs, chicken, partridge, quail, cockatiels and budgies. They’ve even had a gorgeous white pheasant and some peacocks.

So peering into the cages we chose six chicken, three small ones called quicas and three multicoloured ones which look quite pretty. So with a box full of chicken we headed home to introduce them to where they will stay for the rest of their lives. I say “will” tentatively as you shall see. The three little ones has some difficulty as they weren’t able to use the perches like normal chicken but the other new ones did. The difference between the old ones and the new ones is that the new ones get a bit hysterical around us humans, which doesn’t work in our favour...

The next day after getting these chicken, Mika was letting them out into their enclosure when all of a sudden out flew one of the multicoloureds right over the enclosure fence! Well, we just couldn’t see where it had gone amongst all those trees and bushes. Will it survive? Will we get it back? We hoped so. Well it did come to hang around near the others because it was lonely, but no matter how we tried it could not be coaxed nor caught and we don’t think it will just fly back in, it’s got too feral.

But that’s not the end of it. Another day I (Adam) went into the enclosure and wanted to have a closer look at the new ones and even see if I could pick one up. What a mistake, before I could blink a multicoloured flew up and out! So I ran out through the gate to catch it with a “interested” dog helping me corner it. But it flew away. BUT I decided to follow it anyway where I realised, passing the gate, I’d left it open. Well one of the quicas decided to escape running into some undergrowth. Even with fast legs and two “sniffer” dogs I just couldn’t find them.

Since then I’ve seen the second escapee twice, the first time I almost caught it and the second time I saw it with the first feral one, so at least they have company out in the wild and they’re still looking healthy and well-fed. The lost quica on the other hand has not been seen and we’re not sure if it learnt to perch which it would need with so many hungry ground animals prowling around.

So we’ve done some work to stop this from happening again. Using a net we have covered the enclosure which, we hope, will stop any more flying out and also stop those hungry eagles getting at them aswell. The three remaining new ones have settled in and have found the older ones to be good teachers in the “Chicken Way”, scratching and pecking at the organic left-over food we give them rather than chemical rubbish that they could be fed. The two quicas have also managed to learn to perch above the ground alongside the others.

These chicken can be hard work, with something to do on a daily basis, but their own work, as egg factories and as compost creators, more than makes up for it. Also it’s fun sometimes just to watch them and their curious behaviour. But the best is yet to come, because in mid-spring we hope to have some chicks, which will be another challenge altogether.

(Picture above: The older ones)