It wasn’t the magpies, it was a crow eating the hen eggs – I found it in the hen house, shut the door so it was trapped – and John came and shot it with the garden gun.  I inherited this garden gun from my Dad, it is ideal for shooting at close range and you can use it in confined spaces as it doesn’t blow a hole in the wall!  You still need a shotgun licence for it.

Anyway, we put the dead crow on the hen-house roof and it does seem to have worked keeping other crows away as I’ve not had any trouble since.  Magpies are still around and I did find a dead one in the duck pond and put that on the roof alongside the crow.  That didn’t however, keep the magpies away.  The crow is still there but the magpie has gone – maybe they are more palatable than crows!  So, fingers crossed our chukkies are safe from egg-thieves.

Hens use the pen for sleeping in and as a nest box for laying their eggs

In the meantime, we have been hen-sitting – some friends have gone to Cuba and we’re looking after their hens for two weeks.  They’ve settled in well in the front garden with Cocky Rocky, they lay lovely big eggs but they have voracious appetites, they eat much more than my smaller hens.  They are also very tame and come when you call them.

Hens on holiday with Cocky Rocky