#215 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (13th September 2019)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. Please only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes. There may be a few background sounds because I'm recording this at 8.17 in the morning.

Andre is awake and the birds are in the garden singing and I sent them all letters asking them if they could keep it down but they've not responded. I actually had someone, I don't know what it was, it was on iTunes or something, someone complained. I think it was for the Deep Sleep Whisper Hypnosis podcast.

Someone complained because the birds in the background. Because in the summer, especially spring onwards, the birds are up really early and I've been making a recording at maybe three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning and they'd be wide awake out there. So I won't make one of those recordings today, yet anyway.

But, as promised, I'm just sitting in my chair, a big black squeaky chair. As promised, in my last Let Me Bore You to Sleep, I am going to talk about something completely different to what I've ever spoken about before. And you may recall that I've started a little book collection of subjects which may be, or that I can talk about, you know, dip into for these recordings.

And if there's a subject that you'd like me to talk about with stamp collecting or fossils or the history of laboratories, anything like that, just go to my website and you can send me that information. Send me a book and I will read out of it, read bits of it. I'm not actually going to read it verbatim.

But, so I got this book, got it from the charity shop. It should have cost £12.99, or when it was first published. It actually looks brand new.

It doesn't look like it's even been touched. Well not touched, I mean I can't... that's weird. There's no... Oh yeah, it does.

This is from 2006, but reprinted in 2009. So it's basically a book on choosing and keeping chickens, in association with Practical Poultry magazine. By Chris Graham.

And it cost me £2. And have a look. Yeah, it's 200 pages, lots of pictures.

And I thought it would be... I mean there's lots of books I could have chosen from. There's quite a few books, but I didn't want to carry them around. So I had to go into town yesterday, and I went into two or three charity shops, just to have a little look what books were there.

And I found one charity shop, and I just realised, there may be background sounds. When I said there may be background sounds, there may actually be, from the sounds of it, more sounds than I realised. So, damn.

Basically there's garages being rebuilt. And they're not allowed to start work until 8.30. It's 8.23. And unfortunately, these are people that like to make noise. It's there, gets them off, I think.

So they'll be banging away. So, depends what I'll do, even if they are noisy, I'm just going to continue doing this. But, it's not ideal, is it? But, that's why I'm up all night.

That's why I try and do these at night, because during the day, it can be quite soundy. So the contents, hatching and rearing. You know what I've noticed is, I'm looking through this book, there's lots of pictures of chickens.

I didn't realise there were so many different types of chickens. So, there's a chicken here, it's yellow, with a red mohawk. And it's almost like a little red flower with a beak.

But the eyes are really old eyes, if that makes sense. They look almost very bloodshot and kind of almost like I've seen everything, you know. There's nothing I haven't seen.

Do you know how old I am? Oh, there's another chicken here, being held by two. One's being held by, well, I don't know if they're related, but she's holding this kid, looks, I thought she was really short, but she's not, she's kneeling down. So, possibly her grandkid, might not even be related.

And she's got a white coat on, white jacket. And she's holding another one, another chicken, but it's black, but it's got this like mane, big mane of hair, like white, almost like big white hair, coming down. And then the little boy's holding a black chicken, that's completely black apart from the red face.

And there's a picture of a little girl with a dog, but she's looking into the pig, pig, was it a pigeon, chicken coop, but there's nothing there. But then the picture next to the right and says left, looking after chickens is not difficult and can be enormously rewarding. If you can find them, maybe if you're playing hide and seek.

Oh, wow. I didn't know there was so many different designs on chickens. I feel, I feel like I'm almost racist.

I thought chickens all look the same. They really don't. These above, these pictures, a pair of beautiful sea brights, a true phantom with no large fowl counterpart.

And it's, what it looks like, this is what it looks like. They've got a brown, light brown skin or feathers or whatever. It looks like someone's doodled on them, but with a marker pen and made like all these lovely patterns, which might have happened.

It's really intricate. Very beautiful. Wow.

Oh, now we've got this one. This is like a proper, this is on page 11. This is the introduction.

We're talking about chickens in the West. Here's one, it's the Buff Sussex. It's a fine, traditional breed and also a good lay, oh, good layer, sorry.

And it looks like a boy, really confident. You know, sticking his, well it might be a girl, sticking her chest out and bums up in the air. It's really like, look at me everyone.

Wow. There's even more. I didn't know there was different breeds of chickens.

I didn't know this. And there's a picture here and there's four chickens together. And they're all different, all got different colouring.

One's got yellow, one's got blue and yellow, one's got yellow, blue and orange. And one's just got a big orange wig on. It looks like a red wig.

Oh, it's a cute one here. Choose your chickens. It says, first time keepers should, if they are realistic, straight away reject a large proportion of the named breeds that are available simply on the grounds of their unsuitability.

Picking the right breed is more involved than you might think. Hence the title of the book, choosing and keeping chickens. You know, the downside of me doing this is I start to become interested in what I'm reading about.

And now I want to, I want to keep chickens now. There's another one here. Beautiful, beautiful one.

Very multi-coloured. It's like got a red face and then orange and red mane, a little black beard or a brown beard. It's like a little bit of white poo on there as well.

Or maybe it's just crumbles, crumbs from a biscuit. And then the tail is black, but then white, partly white in the middle, then orange, then red, then brown. And it says here, many factors will influence your choice of breed.

This is a colourful Araucana Bantam male. Wow. And there's one here to the right, it's called an Indian game.

And again, the colouring, the patterns with this one, it doesn't look like it's been drawn on. You can see the individual feathers. So what it looks more like is it's been shaved and somebody's glued on nice lots of coloured feather shaped bits of, I don't know, not tarpaulin, but plastic or even maybe silky bit of silk.

It's very nice, very well designed. So there's a list of the Great Lays, the ones that are Great Lays. Bantam versions are just about a quarter the size of their large fowl counterparts, as demonstrated by these two Welsummer V males.

It literally is a quarter of the size, got two together. Now that looks like it's been photoshopped. I'm thinking it's the same bird and they've just copied it, shrunk it down and then just posted it next to the same bird, but a smaller version.

I might be wrong. So there's a picture of a little boy and an adult and they are collecting eggs, either that or they're putting eggs in to the coop, I'm not sure. Oh no, they're collecting.

Collecting fresh eggs is what keeping chickens is all about, but egg production varies from breed to breed. All right, so they're having a, there's a section here called meat or eggs, so I'm going to skip that. So getting started, apparently chickens thrive in good conditions, unlike the rest of us, eh? But conversely, they are intolerant when things aren't right.

Again, kind of like everybody, if you want your birds, if you want to lay your bird, now if you want your birds to lay well and to live full and healthy lives, you must give them the right facilities to do so. So basically treat them well. I want to get some chickens now.

Where would I keep them though? I've got a cupboard in the bathroom. It's not very big, but it's possibly big enough for a coop. You know, I just realized coop runs with soup.

So here's the space and shelter. Although keeping chickens is great fun, it has its serious side too. So anyone who is thinking of getting involved with the hobby must appreciate that it comes hand in hand with a responsibility to the birds.

So it says a picture, yeah, it says here, your chickens will need to be fed and watered every day without fail. And just in case you don't quite get the grasp of that sentence, there's a picture of a chicken eating. And now they're talking about shelters.

I thought they were called coops, chicken coops. Oh no, hen houses. So it says here, hen houses must be sturdy and well made to ensure a dry but well ventilated environment inside.

Wow. This next one, this is choosing a house. So they're going up in size.

I don't know what the next chapter is going to be. A mansion, a yacht, a hen yacht. So it says the golden rule when buying a hen house is to get the largest that your budget and garden will allow.

The overcrowding of chickens is something to be avoided at all costs. So there is a picture of a nice blue thingy, like house but with a ramp so they can walk up. And like again, lots of wiring, not wiring as in plugs, because they don't need television, I guess.

But poultry houses can be simple or ornate. This one features an integral run. That's the ramp, isn't it? And raised roosting compartment.

Ideal for the ceremabentums that live in it. Oh, there's a picture here. It's a big long one.

So it's not as high, but it's long. And mind you, I don't know how high it is, because there's nothing to give it perspective. I mean, it might be 100 foot tall.

There's no way of knowing. Or it might be two inches tall. I don't know.

So it says external access to the nest boxes is a great convenience factor for easy egg collecting. And then on the right hand side, the one that I was talking about. And this house has an external nest box and attached run.

Now here's something that would be quite cool for Andre. I think if I was going to get something for him to be in the garden, something like that, a really big way to play around in it, but still be outside in the fresh air and hope you're enjoying all the background sounds. It's one of those things, you know, it's like 842.

Anyway, so there's a big one here where it's basically so that the, what are they, chickens can all stay inside together. So it says if you can't let your birds out, an integral run, integral run is the next best thing. Assuming, of course, that you don't overcrowd it.

So why is it called an integral run? Instead of internal run. I just realized run rhymes with bum. Oh, squeaky chair time.

So this next chapter is inside the house. Of course you can keep them inside the house. Here's me thinking I was being silly about having it in the bathroom, but I wasn't at all.

I was quite clever. To keep your chickens happy inside the house, you must provide them with somewhere to perch and with sufficient space to move around. Many houses are just too small for the number of hens inside them.

So I suppose really you'd need quite a big room, wouldn't you? But then, because I don't think I'd want chickens indoors because they're an outdoor, you know, being outdoor in nature is what they are supposed to be, isn't it, really? So it would seem a little bit pooey to keep a chicken in indoors all the time. I mean, even Andre, the ferret, gets to go outside perhaps not as often as he would like, but he does have to run the flat as well. Oh, space to move.

I've closed the doors to the kitchen and closed the windows and hopefully there'll be not huge amounts of background sound, but this is the time of the day where the school kids go to school and there's a school nearby and there's a lady, I think it's a lady, or a man, I don't know, I'm not sure, I've never looked, but I think it's a lady that takes a dog or two dogs and they always bark really, really, really high-pitched, high volume. And she's been coming to the school every morning since I've lived here. And I'm beginning to wonder if she's actually got any children at that school.

Because eventually the child is going to have to move to a different school as they grow older. Anyway, I kind of think she just brings the dogs just so they can bark. Perhaps it brightens her day up, I don't know.

Okay, so space to move. Scratching about in a mixture of dirt and vegetation under a canopy of trees is just about as close to heaven as a domesticated chicken can get. Sadly, however, not many of us are able to offer our birds these free-range type conditions, conditions, but we can try.

I do wonder, I think it would be quite nice to live on a farm, but have all the animals running around and doing whatever they want. So no pens, no nothing, just have the horses take shelter in their own place if they want. The pigs can all just hang out together.

Have cows that can just wander around a big area with sheep and dogs and cats and elephants. A couple of crocodiles, you know, just general farm animals. And chickens, of course, of course chickens.

And lots of ferrets. I thought what would be good is if, I don't know, I have to look, but I want to find to see if there's a ferret dating website, app, so you can meet someone, a nice young lady, and they can, you know, perhaps get together and produce lots of little babies, little baby undreys. And they'll be running around and just have to run in a place that just be so cool.

That's what I'd like. Just have a big, big area. You know, I don't know, just a really big, big area of untouched ground where all the animals can just live together and have fun.

Yeah, that'd be nice. Lots of little undreys running around, little cheeky little, little things. And because I think, because they'll be his kids, I think their DNA, they'll just know naturally that I'm their granddad.

So I think they'll just naturally love me. So I'll be a granddad. Yeah.

It says here, chickens need as much space as you can give them to remain healthy and happy. But it's got a picture of two chickens cooped up. That's why it's called a coop.

You know what? I just realized coop also rhymes with hoop. So here's the do it yourself. I know all about that.

Many keepers prefer not to pay the often inflated prices being asked by commercial suppliers of hen houses and shoes instead a more cost effective option. Making your own, adapting a shed or buying second hand are all possibilities. So yeah, I can see the shed aspect, but even sheds, they're not cheap because I was going to buy a shed for my bedroom, which is possibly the weirdest sentence you may hear today.

The reason behind it is simply because of the background sounds that I am people share with me during the day. So like now, but you know, things like yesterday, the lawnmowers were going and, you know, it's always something occurring during daytime. So I thought if I got myself a shed and then put the soundproofing that I've got on the wall, put that in the shed inside, maybe outside as well, then I could have potentially zero background sound.

And I thought that would be particularly groovy. I nearly bought one the other day on the catalog and that means I didn't have to pay for it there and then, but would pay for it, you know, over the next few months. And it was going to cost 250 pounds.

I ordered it, then I cancelled the order. And then yesterday, I think it was, I looked at that shed online and it had been reduced down by about 30 pounds. I couldn't believe it.

I'll just have a look. Caring for chickens. So there's one, two, three, four, five, six, six chickens.

And I'm not being prejudiced, but they do all look the same. All of those six chickens, very, very similar. I'd say they were related.

And maybe twins, all six of them. So caring for chickens in much the same way that children are annoying, I mean, dependent on adults for ensuring that they eat a healthy and nutritious diet. Chickens rely on their keepers to provide an adequate and correct supply of food.

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. So now, so this is food and drink. I don't know what chickens eat.

I'll probably have to come back to that at another time. Feeding is a key aspect of good poultry husbandry. I don't want to marry them.

I like them as friends. That's as far as a relationship goes. Husbandry and whether your birds are to be kept on a free-range basis or live their lives in a small run, you are responsible for striking the right balance with the food that they eat.

Oh, this is interesting. Now this is the weirdest chicken I've seen in my life. Proper punk rocker hairstyle.

You know, I imagine if you could hear it, this is a still picture, you know, but if it could, if it could talk, it would probably sing fire starter. I'm a fire starter. Ooh, fire starter.

Cock-a-doodle-doo. And so, because chickens do not have teeth, they cannot chew their food, which limits what they can eat. Oh yeah, this is, this startling Swiss appenzeller has a horn-type cone and crest.

I don't know about it being startling, it looks startled. Can't have even got a picture of the digestive system of a chicken. There's the oesophagus, there's the crop, there's the gizzard, there's the proventriculus, there's the small intestine, there's the cloaca, and then there's the cloaca.

Ooh, it's still talking about the chickens not having teeth. Leave them alone. You know, it's not their fault.

It says the absence of teeth means that chickens break down their food by a combination of mechanical and chemical actions in their digestive systems. So that's good. A balanced diet.

The domestication of poultry has diminished a chicken's natural instinct to forage. And this, combined with restricted conditions and the laying demands we place on the birds, means that the way we feed them has never been more important. The types of poultry feed, there's three little piles, three little piles.

Well, okay, they're not by piles. I mean, piles of food. It's not that kind of book.

Types of poultry feed from left to right. Chick crumbs, pellets, and mash. Ah, look, it says here, chickens need a regular supply of grit to aid their digestion.

Birds allowed outside will find their own, but it must be provided for all. Birds that are not kept on a free-range basis. Oh, this is almost Christmassy.

Leftovers and treats. Chickens can certainly be fed and will enjoy most natural scraps from the kitchen. Leftover fruit, vegetables, corn cobs, peelings, and so on.

But remember, if you are offering good quality pellets, nothing much else should be necessary. And also, no chicken nuggets. There's a picture.

Oh, look, there's a picture. This is lovely. What a lovely picture.

It's got a corn and a cob. Birds enjoying a balanced pellet-based diet shouldn't need much else. But they do love an occasional treat.

Oh, now it's telling you how to hold the chicken. This is just the headlines. I've not been reading any of the actual text.

Just learning how to handle a bird is one of the essentials of good husbandry. Bit sexist, isn't it? What's wrong with wifery and husbandry, or husbandry or wifery? It is important that both you and the birds get used to it, because regular hands-on inspections are useful for detecting weight loss and the presence of lice, bites, and other parasites. See, I had a similar thing with Andre.

I know, technically, he's not a chicken. But when he was little, he's not technically... I like the word technically. That's my favourite word today.

Yeah. When Andre was tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, he didn't like me very much. When I first got him, he didn't like me holding him.

But I insisted, because it's the only way that he could get used to me. So I kept handling him. He'd never been handled by a human before, because he'd been with his mum, and he'd only just started eating food, you know, solids, I suppose.

And it was often biting me. You know, it didn't last for long, about a week of it. And when I first had him, I could put my hand, my thumb and finger, push him together around his neck, and he'd still have plenty of movement in his neck to move around.

That's how tiny he was. I mean, it's not that just because I can get my thumb and finger around something doesn't mean it's small, I realise that. It could be big, but as far as his neck went, I kind of had to do it so that he couldn't turn his head around and bite me, bite my fingers or anything.

And I realised that he loved me. One night, it was probably a week or two of having him, when I was just sitting back in my chair, watching television. I think it was a Saturday evening.

He climbed up, I think I had my dressing gown on, he climbed up my leg and then he climbed, yeah, he jumped up onto the armrest part where my arm was, and he climbed up my sleeve of my dressing gown, on my left, my left sleeve, and he went to sleep. And I knew from that moment on that we'd bonded, you know, he was happy with me and he felt comfortable and safe to just fall asleep on me. He was happy then, I knew that, and from then onwards, he's been good as gold.

But before that, he was very nippy, biting me, and even after he calmed down a bit after the first few days, he was still a handful. He didn't want to be touched, didn't want to be picked up or anything like that. But once he crawled up my leg and into the sleeve of my dressing gown and just went to sleep, he was happy.

And he was in there for hours. I was going, at one point I had to go to the toilet, so I was trying to hold him so I didn't drop him in the toilet. And which would have been quite funny, but obviously not, but like from a visual perspective.

And after that, we seemed to have bonded. But it took a little while because he wasn't, didn't want to be manhandled by anybody. He wanted to be left alone to, he basically, I sort of picked him up on it.

I had a little chat down, you know, chat down, a little chat with him recently. I said, why is it you just didn't want to be, didn't want me touching you? And he said, he said, look, Daddy, I said, well, when I first moved in here, I said, yeah, well, why was that big long pause? And he said, I forgot what I was talking about. I said, oh, that's weird.

He said, yeah, I know. Tell me about it. I said, well, it just seems a bit weird that you'd be in the middle of a conversation in the middle of a sentence.

You just stop like that. And there'd be a gap for so long. He said, I didn't actually want you to tell me about it.

Just to figure a speech. Have you not heard it before? Heard what? Heard lots of things. Been around a while.

Lots of things have been heard by these big old ears of mine. He said, well, that's not the point of the conversation. I said, okay, what is? He said, well, you started talking about asking me why I didn't give you much time when I first moved in.

I said, yeah, yeah, why is that? He said, well, you see your carpet? I said, yeah. And do you remember how it used to look before I moved in? I said, yeah. He said, well, that destruction and ruination of that carpet doesn't happen by itself.

I said, what do you mean? He said, well, it was a big task to rip up each bit of carpet and everyone near the door and to scratch it and to ruin it and, you know, to ruin every bit of carpet in this flat. I knew it was going to be a momentous task, but one that I took willingly because I've always wanted to accomplish something amazing. I said, do you really think that ruining my carpet is an amazing accomplishment? He said to me something that was quite, I remember he said, well, daddy, do you think that talking about chickens for an hour is a great accomplishment? So I had to kind of agree a stalemate on that one, I think.

And we had a big hug and went ice skating. So that is the end of this recording and I will speak to you again very soon. Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy and lots of love.

Bye.