Pepper lays an egg

Pepper has finally finished her moult. I looked back at my egg records and both Dotty and Pepper stopped laying for two months while moulting. The bantys haven’t laid for four months now and Bluebell continued laying but is just laying less than during the summer.

I knew Pepper was getting ready to lay again as she was going to the grit and would squat down every time I got close to her.

Yesterday morning when I cleaned the coop Pepper came into the coop and sat in the nest box and was gently clucking. I felt certain she was going to lay. As the day went on she would shout for a while, go and sit in the nest box for a while, then come out again. Pepper has always taken ages to lay her eggs and during the heat of summer I used to worry about the length of time she spent in the nest box.

By the end of the day Pepper finally got her egg laid! Hurrah! We have two girls laying again. Dotty laid for a month after her moult then stopped again and hasn’t laid again for two weeks. She looks happy and healthy so I’m not worried.  This is the first big moult the girls have had so it’s all new to us.

I had wondered if hormones on the approach of egg laying again was effecting the girls and could be behind Amber and Honey scrapping. I think there may be something to this because with the approach of and the laying of Pepper’s first egg after her moult she has been more aggressive to the little girls. She is giving them a peck whenever they are near her whereas she is usually tolerant with them.

I have also found some feathers in the run which I think have been plucked. They are dominique feathers, Bluebell’s feathers and banty feathers so all of them have succumbed. I then noticed that Bluebell’s neck, which has been gradually getting more plucked, had some blood spot’s on the feathers.

Bluebell in turn has taken her aggression out on the little girls. When giving the bedtime corn I saw Bluebell grab Honey’s comb and hang on to her. Afterwards I noticed that Honey’s comb was bleeding. In my last post I said as long as there is no harm done I will try not to worry.

I decided that we should spray Bluebell’s neck with the blue spray at bedtime. This is antiseptic and covers any red so that it’s not a target for pecking.

Pepper is through her moult and is all feathered again.

Pepper looks back to her usual fat self. She felt lighter during the moult but is now back to normal and looks fatter than Dotty again. Her wattles are more red than they were but her face and comb are always paler than Dottys.

Dotty has a red comb and wattles but has stopped laying at the moment

Bluebell is looking quite tatty

Whereas the other girls dropped loads of feathers then grew them back, Bluebell has just lost a few at a time and is looking rather tatty.

Honey’s comb has blood on it after Bluebell pecked her

Bluebell’s neck has been plucked a bit more

At bedtime we let the little girls go in to the coop and the big girls line up on the coop roof. I put Pepper and Dotty in then held Bluebell while my husband sprayed her neck with the blue spray. I felt so sorry for her because she was so eager for me to pick her up then didn’t like the spray at all. I wondered if perhaps it stings but my husband said maybe it’s cold. I put her in the coop and felt horrible for doing this to her. If only we could tell them we do these things for their own good.

Hopefully by the morning she will have forgotten about it. Maybe I will take a photo of her blue neck. I only hope it helps her and reduces the pecking a bit.