Carol's Chickens

I have been researching for ages to find somewhere I can get some new girls. I really want to add a couple of girls to our flock. I have exhausted Pippinchick for now. I like “clean” bantams, that is no fancy head dresses, beards or feathered feet and I like to have all different colours in my flock as in no two the same. I know, I am fussy! I have had all the breeds that Pippinchick have to offer for now.

I called the farmer/breeder that I got my game girls from, that is Emerald, Toffee, Flame and Ebony. He no longer breeds game birds since covid. I called the breeder I got my ancona, Speckles and hamburgs, Spot and Dot from amongst other breeds in the past and she has cut right back due to the loss of parents and an impending move and has nothing for me at the moment.

I kept researching bantam breeders within a radius of us and there was nothing I wanted coming up. I then had a light bulb moment and put in to the search bantam breeders that offer a delivery service. Of course Pippinchick comes up first.

I then found Chickens To Your Door. I got quite excited but it turns out they deliver to your door if you have ten or more birds and the delivery service cost is quite high. However they offer a service where they deliver to collection points all over the country for you to pick up from and it’s free. The nearest one to us is Pangbourne, Theal, which is near Reading.

My husband, because of his failing eye sight, is no longer comfortable driving apart from locally and I don’t drive on motorways so with me driving it’s a fifty minute journey but that’s doable.

I picked out four breeds that I would like. When I called them there turned out to be only two breeds available this year. They were two breeds that have been on my wish list for a very long time. Sebright which I have long wanted is available in one colour which is citron and dutch bantam also available in only one colour which they didn’t have a name for but sent me a photo of. The colour is a cross between Cloud and Gold, being the front half of Cloud and the back half of Gold.

An added bonus is that sebrights are non broody.

I have ordered and paid for them. They are currently three weeks old and they deliver them at four months old so they have given me a collection date of 16th August.

I am so excited but it’s a wait yet until I get them. I will have to keep them separated and on growers for two months but that’s something I am used to doing. It is so good to have found a second breeder for the future. I have to be patient for now but can’t wait to pick up my new girls.

They will e-mail me two weeks before the collection date and then again one week before with a pick up time. I now just have to wait. It will be lovely to have new girls again. I am so excited and looking forward to it.

I have taken these two images from google to show what they look like. Beautiful girls.

I knew Cloud was getting ready to come back into lay as she squatted whenever I came up behind her. Today all the nest boxes were occupied. Broody Snow was in one and Red and Gold were getting their eggs laid in the other two.

Broody Storm prefers the chicken shed so I had blocked that off but left the nest boxes open for the girls to lay in. Cloud often lays in the shelter so that’s where she chose to lay her egg.

Cloud soon got her egg laid and Mango squatted when I came up behind so I think she may start laying tomorrow. Mango laid her last egg the day after Cloud so will probably come back in to lay the day after her too. These two are always in sync with each other.

Mango and Cloud have had a three week break since laying their last eggs.

Snow is very determined this time and with hind sight I think when I thought she was broody last time, but she only missed laying for two days, she wasn’t actually broody but just thought she needed to lay. This time round she is straight in a nest box at every opportunity.

We now have three girls laying and I am sure it will be soon four so it’s looking good.

Yesterday Gold came back into lay after a break of nine days. At the same time both Snow and Storm went broody. We seem destined to have only two girls laying which is currently Red and Gold.

Snow had laid seven eggs in twelve days since her last very brief broody spell. The good news is that her last three eggs were completely normal with the shape they used to be and no wobbles in the shell.

For Storm this is her first broody spell this year. She has laid twenty two eggs in two months.

Storm remains where I put her when I lift her from the nest box. Storm isn’t a very committed broody though. When I get her out for a break she will stay out for a while before going back in.

Hopefully the broody girls will come through it soon although no doubt another girl will then go broody.

Autumn came to us on 22nd June 2023 at three months old. Autumn laid her first egg on 3rd October 2023 and her last egg on 1st February 2024. She never laid again. We lost her overnight on 3rd May 2025. She was two years old.

Although we have only dropped from eight girls to seven the flock feels small at the moment. Autumn is missed, two years was too short a time. She was a beautiful girl.

Last night Autumn put herself to bed early. I got her back out for the bedtime sunflower hearts. She had some sunflower hearts and then returned to the perch in the chicken shed. This was about an hour before the pop hole closed. When I perched the girls that don’t go in themselves, Autumn was still perched next to Sugar.

This morning first thing Autumn wasn’t out in the run. I looked in the chicken shed with trepidation. There was Autumn in the middle of the shed. Autumn had gone overnight.

We knew yesterday that something wasn’t right but never expected Autumn to go so quickly. Autumn was exactly two years old.

I think at the back of my mind I had always known that a girl that doesn’t lay eggs must have something adrift. The good thing is that she didn’t have a long spell of going down hill. It was very fast. She had her last sunflower hearts at bedtime last night. There was no agonising decision to make or trip to the vets.

Autumn had laid forty five eggs in four months and then hadn’t laid in the fifteen months since then. After finding the weird string of tiny eggs in the run it seems that she wasn’t destined to ever lay again and in the end it was her downfall.

I will do a tribute to her over the next few days when I have been through my photos. I am feeling a bit shell shocked at the moment as this really wasn’t expected. It is so sad.

Snow had laid two days running. The eggs were the slightly odd shape that they have been since she started laying the odd eggs inside eggs. On the third day the weird three bits joined egg of my last post appeared in the run and I naturally assumed that was from snow too.

But the following day Snow was in the nest box and I really didn’t expect her to lay again. When Snow came out there was her egg and it was perfectly normal like her eggs used to be. It was not only smooth in shape but was the, long, torpedo shape that her eggs used to be.

The egg on the right was from two days ago and is the shape that all her recent eggs have been but with less wobble than they have had. The egg on the left is her most recent egg and is the shape that her eggs always used to be and is also smooth shelled.

We are now thinking that the weird one from a few days ago wasn’t from Snow after all. We are thinking that it was from Autumn. Autumn laid from October until the first of February last year and hasn’t laid since.

Also Autumn is looking a bit off. She has spent the day either standing or sitting. She isn’t active and she has a dead look in her eye. She has lost her sparkle.

Autumn has the look in her eyes that she had when she was stripping off her scales. We know these girls so well that we know something is adrift with her. Time will tell.

Snow had laid two days running so we weren’t expecting her to lay today. Her last three eggs have been almost normal with just a slight wobble in the shell. Her shells have a slight spiral groove in them.

Then this afternoon I saw something strange in the run. It had obviously come from Snow and caught her unaware as it was in the run. This meant it was dirty but I washed it gently to photograph it. It looked like three soft shells joined together, although the end of one felt like a knob of hard compressed shell.

The knob on the left is actually hard. When I pulled them all open the first two had two mini yolks in each of them and the last one, on the right, was just white.

Snow looks fine and normal at the moment. It feels to me as if Snow is producing far too many eggs in quick succession for her system to be able to cope with. This is something I have never come across before and I can’t find anything like this on any of the chicken forums.

I have wondered before where the missing yolks went from the eggs inside eggs that only had a yolk on the inside one. It almost seems as if here they are! It’s all very odd.

It’s frustrating because her last three eggs seemed better. Something has obviously gone adrift inside her with her egg laying machinery. I can’t help thinking that this doesn’t bode well for her future but for now we have to just hope she can keep getting her oddities laid.

Gold has now gone broody but yesterday Red came back into lay after a two week break. Gold has laid eight eggs in two weeks since her last broody spell. It seems this year that every time a girl comes back into lay another one goes broody. This means we have stayed with three out of eight girls laying.

Snow laid her egg two days after the soft shelled one. It was small, hard shelled and with only a very slight wobble on the shell. It is her most normal looking egg since things changed with her egg laying so that’s encouraging.

Red’s egg is on the left, Snow’s egg is in the middle and Storm’s egg is on the right. Snow’s egg is the most normal it’s been for ages.

Meanwhile Mango and Cloud are still broody after two weeks. They have been exhibiting the mother and chick behaviour. Since the first few days of going broody Mango has been sitting on top of Cloud.

This may look quite cute but it drives me nuts. I think it makes them take longer to come out of it while they are behaving like this. It also means the broody crate wouldn’t work unless I just put one of them in it.

It is always this way round with Mango on top. At bedtime I have been splitting them up so that they can’t stay like this overnight. I now put one of them on the back perch and one on the side perch.

It’s been driving me crazy but I think Mango is just beginning to come out of it as when I lift them out she stays out in the run a bit longer than Cloud. I hope this means Cloud will soon follow and they will come out of it soon.

My strategy has been to lift them out every time I go in the run and then when the laying girls have laid I close the nest boxes and the chicken shed. It amazes me how even when they have been out all afternoon as soon as I open up they are straight back in.

I have also been closing the nest boxes before bedtime. This has made Mango and Cloud settle together on top of the nest box rather than inside. I am hopeful that they will come out of this soon. Never a dull moment in our chicken run!

Yesterday Snow laid a hard shelled egg inside a soft shelled egg for the second time but she looked fine. Today she had the humped posture that indicates struggling with egg laying. As she had laid yesterday morning I expected another weird egg tomorrow morning.

By late afternoon Snow looked back to her normal self again. I checked the nest boxes and Snow had laid again. This time it was normal sized but soft shelled. It also had what looked like a mini bit of soft shell with it.

When I opened the soft shell it had a normal egg inside.

It seems as if Snow is laying too many eggs in quick succession. The trouble is there is no way either she or we can slow it down. I am really worried that this will eventually be her down fall but there is nothing that can be done about it.

I wish Snow would take a break but nature will take it’s course and all we can do is hope that she will continue to get her eggs laid.

The annoying thing is, that when Snow started laying she laid tiny torpedo shaped eggs. I was really pleased because I thought this meant she wouldn’t have egg laying problems. Something has obviously changed internally. It’s very frustrating. We can only keep our fingers crossed for her.

Since Snow laid her weird eggs she has laid eight wobbly shaped eggs, one every other day. Yesterday was the day she should have laid her next egg. She spent a couple of hours in a nest box then came out without laying. I wondered if this meant another weird egg was on the way.

This morning there was another weird egg under her roost spot. Snow looked fine and this time hadn’t looked poorly before laying it.

Again it was huge, the size of Red’s egg. I could feel the hard shelled egg inside. It also had a little tail attached to the bottom.

I don’t know why this is happening and I haven’t been able to find any answers on google. Every video I have seen on You Tube shows the outside egg with a yolk so I wonder why Snow’s outside egg has no yolk. The whole thing is a mystery and not something I have come across before.

I worry that there must be something wrong inside for this to be happening but I am relieved that so far Snow is getting the eggs laid. It is fortunate that the outer shell is soft and flexible because being so large it could otherwise get stuck or cause a prolapse.

I can only hope that Snow keeps getting her eggs laid without it causing her any ill effect. It is a worry that sometime in the future it may go wrong for her.

In other news Storm came back into lay after a break of two and a half weeks and has now laid two eggs.

Red came out of her broody spell after a week. Mango and Cloud have now been broody for a week so far and show no sign of coming out of it yet.

We have Gold, Storm and Snow currently laying. I scrambled Snow’s inner egg and fed it back to the girls as we didn’t fancy it. I did the same with her last one too.

We do seem to experience the full range of problems with our small flock. I just hope we can keep them healthy despite the set backs.