The current status of the flock

I thought I would do an update on how the flock is at the moment and add current portraits of all the girls to demonstrate what I am talking about.

There have been changes in the flock behaviour since the surge of hormones at the beginning of egg laying and yet at the moment there are only two girls actually laying, which this late in the year, is unusual. The weather has been much colder, for longer and later, this year which I think has a lot to do with the delay in egg laying.

When Speckles had her first surge of hormones just before starting to lay she underwent a complete personality transplant. From behaving like a gentle, caring, surrogate mother hen, to the little girls, she changed to being aggressive to them. She chased them away from treats, pinned down Cinnamon on occasions and pecked Dandelion’s comb to the extent that it has left black spots on the tip of her comb.

Freckles was also effected by the onset of hormones preceding starting to lay and proceeded to give Apricot a hair cut in the same way that she had done to Rusty the year before. I absolutely hate plucking so this was upsetting to me but as with Rusty she snipped the feathers rather than pulling them so it isn’t as bad. I hoped that as with Rusty this stage would soon wear off and I am happy to say that it has. We haven’t seen Freckles do this for a while and Apricot isn’t looking any worse so the faze seems to have passed once more.

On to the egg laying. I realise that I was mistaken in thinking that Emerald had laid her first egg. What lead me to believe this was the fact that she appeared to be getting ready to lay as she piled pine shavings on to her back one day. A few days later there was an egg that was slightly smaller than the eggs Speckles had been laying so I thought that this was Emerald’s first egg.

We have never seen Emerald actually go in to the nest box at all and after Speckles had been in the nest box a couple of days later there was another egg of the same size so I realised that all of the eggs must have been Speckles. Emerald has shown no interest in the nest boxes at any time since then. Emerald usually starts laying at the beginning of March so I can only think that the later than usual cold spell we have been having has delayed her starting.

Speckles laid five eggs in ten days at the beginning of March and then stopped completely. She hasn’t laid for ten days now. There are a couple of things that I am putting this down to.

Before the last cold spell I dug the run over and while Speckles was in her new, aggressive role, she got all the worms that I dug up. Usually they would be shared between all six girls but she kept the other girls away and had a feast of worms. This is a new lesson that I have learned from and I won’t allow this to happen again.

Speckles had so many worms that her crop looked unusually full at bedtime. With Cinnamon her crop often looks full but it isn’t usually noticeable with Speckles. After this she started doing sloppy poops. I put it down to the over load of worms.

Next the snow and dreadful weather came and Speckles was obsessed with eating snow. She continued to do sloppy poops. I have read on Terry’s Hen blog in the past that some of her hens were obsessed with eating snow and then had sloppy poops so I wasn’t overly worried.

Once the snow melted Speckles was just as obsessed with drinking the dripping snow melt water giving herself  a wet head in the process. She hasn’t shown any sign of drinking extra water from the water dish though.

By now I was a bit concerned that she was still doing sloppy poops coupled with no longer egg laying. I researched sloppy poops from chickens and what it said was that if a hen is looking healthy and happy whilst doing sloppy poops it’s nothing to worry about. Speckles looks happy and healthy, is eating well and has a huge red comb. It went on to say that too much protein can cause a hen to drink more and therefore produce sloppy poops. Bingo! Overload of protein from too many worms followed by eating snow and drinking snow melt water.

I know that it can take a few weeks for things to work their way through a hens system so I think this is what is happening. I will not allow a bean feast of worms to take place in future.

On to the little girls. Freckles and Cinnamon have been laying since the end of February. Both girls are really good layers and lay every other day and occasionally two days in a row but Dandelion and Apricot have yet to show any sign of wanting to lay. Again I think the late cold weather may be having an effect plus the fact that Dandelion had such hard time with the mycoplasma.

So there we have it, just two out of six girls laying. I don’t mind though as long as they look healthy and so on to the portraits of the girls.

Speckles has a magnificent comb

Her comb is so big that she gets it dirty while pecking around in the run

Emerald

Freckles

Cinnamon

Dandelion has dark spots on her comb

Apricot has a hair cut

Apricot’s feathers have been snipped on her head and the back of her neck.

Apricot

Apricot still looks good though, luckily it only shows at certain angles and she is still fluffy.

Despite the lack of egg laying the flock look happy and healthy and are all eating well and dust bathing and doing all the usual chicken things so I am not going to worry too much.