Actimel’s #familywellbeingindex us, and some chickens

hetty the chicken
Hetty- she’s the ring leader

Easter got in the way but as I blogged on 26 March, They’re Coming and sure enough, in mid April, they came! Our chickens! To recap, we applied to the Actimel Family Wellbeing Index Fund for some chickens, to help the boy with his fear of animals. He had been jumped by a dog when he was two and has been skittish around anything larger than a hamster ever since.

We’ve had them about 6 weeks now, but it’s been worth the wait to blog about them in detail, just because the change in the boy has been magnificent. At first he was scared to even be out in the garden when Hetty, Amy Rose and Daisy were out and about but with time, he got more comfortable around them and now even sits next to us when we clip their wings (well flight feathers on one side really, just to stop them getting any ideas).

What’s brilliant too is that he’ll often go out first thing in the morning and check for eggs. I’ve even managed to get some video of him doing that, which is towards the end of the video clip below. What I didn’t expect was the impact the chickens would have on us all though. Considering their a bit famous for their avian stupidity, we’ve found our three hens delightful. Each one has her own personality and they’re all inquisitive and quite fun to let out around the garden. The noise when one of the dears lays a double yolker is priceless too- the double yolkers are a bit larger than normal eggs and the high pitched clucking is priceless. They’ll all follow Wifey round the garden and chase Danger until he flees- he’s happiest when pointing at them whilst they’re safely locked up.

The hens gentle clucking is quite a soothing noise to be honest and since they’re all laying, they can carry on clucking as far as I’m concerned. The other day we were sitting on the decking in front of our summer house eating scrambled eggs on toast. The eggs had travelled a total distance of about 15 meters- from the coop to the saucepan in the kitchen to the table on the decking. Marvellous. And the taste- suffice to say I shall be steering well clear of shop bought eggs in the future.

Overall, the Actimel Family Wellbeing Index Fund has done a great job- it has appreciably increased our wellbeing as we simply love our chickens!

If you want to get involved, head over to the  Family Wellbeing Index Fund  and put together a submission. It only has to be 200 words and it could be genuinely life changing like our hens have been. There are three rounds of funding left:

  1. Move Fund Start Date: 01.07.13 (10.00AM) Closing Date: 26.07.13 (10.00PM)
  2. Learn Fund Start Date: 02.09.13 (10.00AM) Closing Date: 27.09.13 (10.00PM)
  3. Give Fund Start Date: 04.11.13 (10.00AM) Closing Date: 29.11.13 (10.00PM)
And you can find out a bit more about them here. Please give it a go, we weren’t expecting it to be as great as it has been!
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