Carol's Chickens

Most of the girls haven’t looked much different while moulting. Gold however looks the most shabby while moulting that she has ever looked.

Gold has one tail feather remaining. She had lost all the tiny feathers around her face and comb which gave her really odd look. She now has pins through around her face and comb.

It won’t be long before Gold looks back to normal. At least some of the girls are getting through the moult before winter. It does seem to have come early this year though.

Before Autumn and then Red I have only previously had two bantam wyandottes. Many years ago I had Sparkle who was silver laced and Topaz who was gold laced. Sparkle was a good layer but didn’t live to much of an age. Topaz laid very few eggs, in fact only thirteen in total. She only laid now and again and then stopped completely.

Autumn started laying last October and laid her last egg on the first of February. Looking back at my egg records I see that there was a slowing down. She started laying every other day but in January she had slowed to laying every fifth day. Autumn laid a total of forty five eggs.

But the thing that is different about Autumn is that she sits in the nest box every day for between fifteen minutes to half an hour. She has a very red comb, face and wattles and she squats if I hold my hand behind her, all things that normally point to a laying girl. She has her daily sit in the nest box and sometimes even gives the shout when she comes out and yet there are no eggs. It’s as if Autumn thinks that she is laying.

Autumn is happy to allow another girl to join her. Storm once again has her beak open as she constantly chats.

I have never come across this before. Usually the girls either lay or they don’t but only occasionally have a false alarm and sit in a nest box without laying. This is usually a day or so before starting to lay or occasionally a day or so after stopping laying. I have never had a girl sit in the nest box every day like clockwork without laying. Autumn has done this since she laid her last egg on the first of February.

Then we have Red who has yet to start laying but I am sure that she will start some time over the next month and it remains to be seen what sort of layer she will turn out to be. I hope she turns out to be a normal layer.

I am assuming that Autumn will resume laying next spring but of course that remains to be seen. I am also assuming that Red will lay through her first winter but after Autumn that also remains to be seen. Only time will tell. We do seem to get the odd anomaly.

We had three days without eggs then Sugar came back into lay. The following day Storm came back into lay. So we now have eggs again.

Red is six months old. Autumn started laying at six and a half months old so Red may start laying in a few weeks time. Her comb is finally growing and is very red.

I think Snow will soon start laying again because she is the least committed broody we have ever had. I only knew she was going broody because like Gold she spent longer in the nest box when laying her last two eggs and would growl at me when I lifted the lid. She also did the bok bok chant when in the run. Once I had closed the nest boxes she completely lost interest.

With a bit of luck by the time Sugar has laid her regulation six eggs another girl may have started laying. It is good to have eggs again and at least the break was only a short one.

For the first time in all our chicken keeping years, we have no girls laying, at this time of year. Snow who was our only girl still laying went broody three days ago.

Snowflake before her hadn’t gone broody so I was hoping Snow wouldn’t but she has! She has laid twenty six eggs in a month and a half. She wasn’t committed though. As no girls are laying it has been easy to just close all the nest boxes and Snow didn’t seem at all bothered. I have now opened them and she hasn’t shown any interest so I think she is through it already. Hopefully this means she will start laying again in a couple of weeks time.

Storm has had a two break from laying and is now being very vocal so I think she may be about to come back into lay. Her moult is very gradual and she never looks much different. Her tail has grown back in but is just a bit shorter than usual at the moment.

Gold is molting more heavily. I am finding lots of her feathers in the chicken shed and the run. She now has only one tail feather left. It is three weeks since she laid which is a week longer than usual so I am not sure if she will come back into lay this year due to her early moult.

Mango and Cloud are getting their feathers back in now. It’s a month since Cloud last laid and two months since Mango laid so I think they are finished for this year.

It is three weeks since Sugar laid so she may come back into lay soon but she only lays for a week before she goes broody again. Sugar is so much better than last year as she is laying good shelled eggs and therefore not looking unwell before laying.

Sugar still sits a lot of the time but it suddenly occurred to me that if I didn’t break her from her broody spells she would spend most of her time sitting in a nest box. I think therefore she is used to sitting a lot and it doesn’t bother her. I feel it’s better for her to sit in the run instead of a nest box. With this in mind I am not going to worry about her. She has obviously adapted and it is just her way of life.

Autumn looks pristine and continues to sit in a nest box or the chicken shed each day without laying.

Red’s comb is still very small and she isn’t squatting so I think it will still be a while yet before she starts to lay.

So there we have it, a lovely flock but no eggs to be had. I am sure we will start to get some eggs again soon. As I always say, as long as the girls are happy and healthy, I am happy.

I gave the girls a yogurt treat today. It’s the first time the new girls have had yogurt, plain probiotic yogurt.

It also gave me the first chance to get a group photo of our current flock of eight.

I love seeing those yogurt beaks. I think the new girls like yogurt just as much as the rest of the flock. It was really nice seeing all eight girls together on the patio area.

The flock have become very close and the new girls are now fully accepted. I often see all eight girls hanging out together in the afternoons. They are a lovely flock.

In all our years of chicken keeping we have never had to buy eggs in the summer before. We have only one girl laying which is the first time during summer. Snow is our only girl laying and she lays the tiniest eggs. She lays four eggs a week and we need to eat them two at a time so she is providing enough for one breakfast a week.

We usually have eggs for our weekend breakfasts and one weekday breakfast. Having lost our lovely Dot we have not only lost a lovely girl but also lost our best egg layer. She never went broody and she laid quite big eggs so we could eat them just one at a time.

Had we not have got new girls this spring we would have no eggs at all.

Red has yet to start laying. Autumn should be laying but stopped on the first of February. Mango and Cloud are moulting and probably won’t lay again this year. Sugar, Gold and Storm have all been broody and should start again in a couple of weeks time.

I thought Storm may have come to the end of her season but realised she had gone broody. It’s more difficult to tell with Storm because she isn’t a committed broody which is a good thing. She spends half her time in the nest box and half her time in the run when broody whereas the other girls want to spend all their time in the nest box when broody. She also gives up after two or three days.

I have always said that eggs are a bonus but I must admit that with a flock of eight girls I would never have thought that we would have only one girl laying.

I am hoping that next year will be better because we should have Autumn and Red laying during the summer. That remains to be seen though.

In no particular order as once again I am going to put them on in the order that I took them.

Snow is so different from Snowflake before her. She is prettier, quieter and friendlier. She also lays tiny eggs compared to Snowflake’s rather large eggs which were probably her downfall. I am so glad I decided to give a chabo another go as Snow is a lovely girl.

Gold looks like this every summer. It is as if she has an explosion of under feathers at the base of her tail but other than that she looks really good.

I have to have two photos of Sugar. When she is up and about she looks the picture of health but she still spends ninety percent of her day just sitting like the first photo. I had to wait for my chance to catch Sugar on the move. But she has been like this for two years now so whatever her problem is she is managing to live to with it. She is now getting her eggs laid easily too and with good shells.

Red is still looking some way off laying yet. Her comb is still small compared to Autumn’s but her face is red. Red is six months old now but she seems to be maturing slowly.

Autumn continues to sit in the nest box each day but without laying. She laid from October until the first of February and hasn’t laid since. We do seem to get the anomaly’s.

Storm continues to lay despite losing a few feathers including some tail feathers. She is looking pretty much back to normal now though.

Mango and Cloud continue to do everything together and that includes molting together. They are full of pins so they will soon look beautiful again.

Both Gold and Sugar are now through their broody spell and at the moment Snow and Storm are our only egg layers.

Gold and Sugar usually start laying again after a two week break and sometime over the next month or two Red should start laying. As I always say eggs are a bonus and as long as the girls stay healthy I am happy.

Sugar is now the only girl in our flock that isn’t a pipinchick girl. So I thought I would just mention that I have added pipinchick to the links on my side bar should any one wish to have a look.

Just over a week ago I did a post about a five egg day. I said that we had six girls laying as Cloud had laid the day before. What I didn’t realise was that we had five girls laying because that egg the day before from Cloud was her last one. She has joined Mango in molting. I doubt we will be getting any more eggs from either of these two this year.

Then we lost our lovely Dot and on the same day Gold went broody. She had laid eight eggs in two weeks. So we were now down to three girls laying.

Then two days later Sugar went broody. She had laid six eggs in eight days. Her last three eggs were laid three days running which is always a sign that she’s about to go broody. So we are now down to two girls laying. Just Storm and Snow. How quickly it all changes.

At least with only two girls laying it is easy to keep everything closed once they have laid. I am lifting Gold and Sugar out in between but I will start Sugar in the broody cage over night for a couple of nights because otherwise she is unbreakable.

The funny thing is how strong chickens’ instincts are for the potential of chicks. The two remaining laying girls choose to their egg next to the broody as they know the broody will then sit on their egg. What they don’t know of course is that without a cockerel it is futile.

I just hope Storm and Snow don’t go broody or we won’t have any egg layers. We could do with Red getting started but her comb doesn’t look anything like Autumn’s comb yet. She doesn’t look ready to start laying any time soon.

Oh well, whatever will be, will be.

Two days ago we lost our beautiful Dot. She was unique with her beautiful comb and her dark eyes and her lovely character. She came in as bottom girl but grew in confidence and worked her way up the pecking order. She also had a lovely melodic voice which was quite unlike the other girls.

She had some funny ways. She would often stand in a corner looking out as if on guard. She was our best egg layer and never went broody. She liked to lay her eggs with another girl so if she wanted to lay and there was already a girl in a nest box she would choose that one. We often found her egg next to another girls’ egg.

Dot was really friendly and easy to pick up. She liked her food and at bedtime would often be lop sided because her crop would be huge. She had the biggest crop of any of our girls. She was such a lovely girl and will be very much missed.

Dot was four years old and came to us when she was a year old. She laid an egg on her first day with us.

Goodbye my lovely girl. Dot is very much missed.

I am heart broken to have lost Dot today. She went very quickly.

Yesterday Dot seemed absolutely fine. This morning when we went out to the girls we knew something was very wrong with Dot. She was sitting in front of the chickens’ patio and looking very poorly. Already her comb had gone pale.

Dot usually lays every other day and hadn’t laid for three days but I didn’t worry because every now and again she misses two or three days. Unlike the rest of the girls Dot has never gone broody so I always felt she needed a short break now and then.

I picked Dot up and checked her vent. She had some yellow egg yolk around her vent. I feared the worst, that an egg must have broken inside her. I didn’t know if this had happened this morning or a day or two ago as with Salmon. I was unsure what to do and left her a little while to see if she could pass it.

I checked back again and there was egg dripping from her vent. I thought this may have meant that it had just happened this morning so I decided to bath her and see if once her vent was relaxed she could expel the egg.

I have never had any luck with bathing a girl to help with an egg stuck or broken but as all the chicken forums suggest this I felt I must try. It seemed the only thing I could do.

I bathed her up to just above her vent in warm water while supporting her and she appeared to doze. I couldn’t see any shell which was the worrying thing. I dried her on my lap with the towel as best I could then I dripped a few drops of sugar water in her beak in the hope of giving her some strength.

I then made her comfortable on the towel.

I checked back on her ten minutes later and she was gone. I knew as soon as I walked into the bathroom because she was facing the other way. I have seen before the last flap before they go. I picked her up and checked her and she was gone.

I just don’t understand why this should happen to Dot as she has always been our best egg layer and never had a problem. Her last eggs we had for breakfast yesterday and they had good shells.

We buried Dot in the chickens’ strip. We dug out some plants, wrapped Dot in tray papers and buried her then put the plants back over her and marked her spot.

Dot’s sibling, Spot, died of suspected heart failure without ever laying an egg. I am wondering if Dot had a weak heart too. Dot was four years old. We have had girls go suddenly over night and then Speckles suddenly on her way into the chicken shed one night. But both Spot and Dot are the only two girls that had a problem and then went so quickly so it makes me wonder.

Dot had laid 75 eggs in four and a half months – March to July. She laid more eggs every month than any of the other girls in our flock.

Dot was beautiful and had a lovely character and was a favourite of mine from the day she came to us. She will be very much missed.

I will do a tribute to Dot over the next day or two when I have gone through my photos. At the moment I feel a bit shell shocked at how quickly she has gone.