A tomato treat and updates

I thought a tomato treat would be a good chance to photograph the girls. The new girls have now cottoned on to all the treats. They love spinach, sunflower hearts and tomato.

I took the photos of the new girls through the wire because they would move away if I went in plus holding a camera while opening their gate and trying to keep the main flock out is a tricky business.

The new girls are now used to their bigger space and have settled in well. They are dust bathing, sitting in the sun and eating and drinking well plus they love the treats.

Sugar hasn’t laid since the tiny egg in my last post five days ago. I am quite pleased she is taking a break because she usually lays six or seven eggs then goes broody. I am hopeful that she may continue not to lay but we will have to wait and see.

It has been good not having Sugar broody. I had been undecided what to do if she went broody because left alone she has in the past sat for up to a month before I broke her out of it. This was why I didn’t like to leave her broody. It takes three weeks to hatch chicks and I think Sugar would continue to sit for as long as I let her.

I feel that sitting in a nest box all the time is worse than sitting in the run. I had decided that I might leave her to sit for two weeks and then try to break her out of it. So now she has stopped laying before going broody I don’t need to do anything. I hope the tiny egg was her last one.

Cloud came back into lay again ten days ago after a two week break after going broody. Mango came back into lay again four days ago after a three week break after going broody.

I think Gold is going broody again because she is spending a lot of time in the nest box but she is still laying at the moment. She has laid fourteen eggs since her last break.

We are still getting plenty of eggs from Dot, the three game girls and at the moment Gold although maybe not for much longer.

Next year we should potentially have three more egg layers those being Autumn, Red and Snow. You never quite know though. Autumn laid in October, November, December and January then laid her last egg on the first of February and hasn’t laid since.

The weird thing is that Autumn still goes and sits in the chicken shed or a nest box every day but doesn’t lay. We haven’t come across this before although we did have Topaz (bantam gold laced wyandotte) who only ever laid an ocasional egg despite the fact that wyandottes are supposed to be good layers. I did mention to Suzanna at pipinchick that Autumn had stopped laying and she was surprised.

We always seem to get girls that are a law unto themselves so we will just have to wait and see how Red lays and if Autumn starts laying next spring. Either way we have enough girls to give us plenty of eggs.

Before putting this post out I decided to check on Gold to see if she has laid an egg today. She hasn’t as yet but cloud was in the nest box with her. I thought they looked so cute together that I decided to add a photo of them.

I love seeing the different sized girls sharing a nest box. At the end of the day Gold hadn’t laid so I think she is definitely broody.