A grave problem with gravel
Image via Wikipedia
Tomorrow night sees the BBC broadcast the first episode of its re-imagining of the late, great Terry Nation’s 70s cult sci-fi classic Survivors, which tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world where the majority of humans have succumbed to plague, and died. If any of our neighbours saw me in the back garden today, wearing a surgical mask soaked in CK Summer cologne while I cleared away one of my biggest garden disasters ever, they might have thought I was performing an homage to the show; that, or they might have got hysterical about bird flu. If you have hens, take it from me—never, ever use gravel as a flooring for their run. It doesn’t work, and it ends up stinking to high heaven no matter what you try.
tags: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, bark chippings, BBC, bird flu, chickens, gardening, gravel, hens, livestock, mud, pets, plague, poultry, self-sufficiency, Skull and crossbones, smell, stink, Survivors, telly, wood chipMud not so glorious mud… for hens, or the garden…
Pictured above are two of our three Light Sussex hens (with Billy the cat, just about discernible in the background). I found out recently that bark chippings are not good for hens as they contain aspergillus fungal spores that can cause respiratory infections, and so the chippings have gone to the compost heap for the very last time. There’s no way of knowing if the mycoplasma the hens got this summer was in any way connected to the bark chippings; certainly it was the constant heavy rain going on for months that would ultimately have finished them, and made for perfect growing conditions for the mycoplasma to wreak havoc, if I hadn’t identified the breathing problems, and sought out the antibiotic cure, in time.
tags: bark chippings, chickens, ex-battery hens, fungal spores, gravel, hens, mycoplasma, poultry
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