Carol's Chickens

This morning when I checked the nest boxes Emerald was sharing with broody Butterscotch. Toffee and Barley had already laid and the other big nest box was empty.

Emerald shares a nest box with Butterscotch

Emerald laid her egg and Butterscotch rolled it underneath herself. I wonder if Butterscotch is somehow communicating that she needs the eggs.

I lifted Butterscotch and retrieved the egg. We have decided to store the little, wine box, nest boxes away for now. We will keep them in case we ever need them in future but at the moment two big nest boxes are enough and the little ones are not being used.

The girls seem more happy to share these days. It is quite cute to see them sharing.

I found a huge dandelion in the garden today that had somehow hidden itself until fully grown. I knew the girls would love this.

Emerald now jumps on the inner, child gate, every time I go in the run.

This trick is now firmly a habit

I swing the gate open with Emerald on it and let her jump down when she is ready.

Butterscotch isn’t in the dandelion photos because she has gone broody again. She usually goes three weeks between going broody but this time went just over a month which is her longest yet.

Butterscotch is broody again

A dandelion for the girls

They love dandelions

They have so much fun with a dandelion and when I go back later there will be no trace of it. I think it’s their favourite green stuff of all.

Last night I took a photo of the bedtime line up.

The current bedtime line up

Since Honey and Topaz have gone Speckles and Butterscotch have paired up. Speckles often used to dust bath with Honey and seemed to have a bit of an alliance with her. Speckles now seems to have formed an alliance with Butterscotch.

I have seen Speckles and Butterscotch dust bathing together almost on top of one another and they are often perched together. It is quite sweet to see this little friendship forming. Peaches and Barley are as inseparable as ever and Toffee and Emerald don’t much bother with each other.

Butterscotch easily shows she is top girl without any fuss. Toffee often has a go at Emerald to keep her below her and Emerald passes it down by then having a go at Speckles. The rest of the girls don’t bother much and seem to accept their place without any fuss.

The flock seem very settled now and I am enjoying the good feeling of the girls getting along together without any fuss.

Butterscotch has also gone the longest stretch between going broody which I am also enjoying but I don’t know how long it will last. She has been laying for just over a month now. Maybe this is to do with her getting her feathers in.

I have just been looking at my egg records and Toffee is laying the best with five or six eggs a week followed by Emerald and Butterscotch in joint second place with four or five eggs a week. Peaches is next with three or four eggs a week and Barley and Speckles are in joint place with two eggs a week. This is giving us a total of between twenty one and twenty four eggs a week.

I am surprised at how well the game girls (Toffee and Emerald) are laying. I am really enjoying the abundance of eggs at the moment and enjoying the harmony in my flock.

Yesterday I thought I would take a close up of each of the girls.

Speckles

She has an amazing comb.

Toffee

Emerald

She has a white strip on her neck but luckily it’s not too bad.

Butterscotch

She is getting her feathers back to normal.

Peaches and Barley

I love the way Barley’s comb flies upwards when she bobs her head.

In unison as usual

Three heads in the food bowl

Butterscotch, Peaches and Speckles looked so cute all in the food dish together. I love the harmony that I now have in my flock.

At last Butterscotch’s pins are opening on her breast. This was Butterscotch ten days ago.

Butterscotch has pins on her breast

This is Butterscotch today.

The gap in her breast feathers is closing at last

Butterscotch is looking so much better

She has a little black heart shaped spot at the back of her neck

Her head is almost covered now

I am not sure if she will get her crest back this year after some of the pins from her head were plucked but at least her head will have feathers and that is so much better than a bare head. If her head is covered I will be happy with that.

Yesterday we had a five egg day. We have had several five egg days this year but we had eight girls up until now. What makes this five egg day special is that it is five eggs from six girls. That is pretty impressive!

When we have omelette for dinner I use five of our little eggs. At the beginning of the season it took about three weeks to collect enough, we were eating some eggs for breakfast at weekends and a couple of days in the week.

Now one day’s eggs can make an omelette. When keeping chickens eggs are a bonus but they are a very lovely bonus.

I now have an even split of three girls laying brown eggs and three girls laying white eggs. They are not really brown, that’s just how I think of them, they are beige. The white ones are pure white though so there is a difference.

Peaches, Barley and Speckles lay the white eggs and Toffee, Emerald and Butterscotch lay the beige eggs. Below, the white eggs are the two on the left. The first one is Peaches and the second large one is Speckles.

A five egg day

Of the white eggs Speckles eggs are really big, Peaches are medium and Barley’s are small. Only Barley didn’t lay yesterday.

Five eggs from six girls

The colour doesn’t show up much on a photograph but it’s enough for me to easily tell them apart.

The odd thing is that research says that game birds don’t lay well and neither do goldtops (my biege egg girls) because they go broody regularly but leghorns and anconas (my white egg girls) are good layers.

In my flock my beige laying girls lay the best. The game birds do have a shorter season than the rest of the girls, they start a bit later and stop laying about a month earlier, but while they lay they lay almost every day. Toffee recently laid six days in a row missed a day and started again.

Butterscotch does go broody but lays almost every day in between. Peaches, Barley and Speckles only lay  two or three times a week. It will be interesting to compare the tally at the end of the year.

I love watching the patterns that emerge with their egg laying and always feel so proud of them with every egg laid. The pleasure never wears off. I am really enjoying their lovely eggs at this abundant time of year.

I am feeling so much happier after seeing Topaz and Honey yesterday. They are settling in fine and my flock of six are much more settled too.

I gave them a dish of mash this morning and it was so nice to see all six girls round the dish and Speckles is now allowed to join in at the same time.

All six girls round a dish of mash

Speckles is now able to join in

I love seeing them all enjoy the mash together

Butterscotch is gradually looking better too. Her breast feathers are finally opening and she has just a line at her breast now instead of a v shaped gap. She is getting some feathers on her head too. It’s been really slow but she is still laying eggs so I think that’s why her feathers are taking so long to open.

I wish she would take a break from laying and get her feathers through but of course we can’t decide what’s best for them. It will happen the way it happens.

Butterscotch’s breast feathers are filling in at last

I am so happy that my flock are are back to normal, looking happy and settled with no problems. I hope it now stays this way.

Today we went to the farm to collect some disposables, but mostly on my part, to visit the girls.

The farmer sent me a text message a couple of days ago to let me know that Honey and Topaz were enjoying the sun in the enclosed area outside the barn. It was very kind of her to let me know that they were okay.

Topaz and Honey were in the barn together

I had taken along some sunflower hearts and used them to encourage them out of the barn.

Honey was first out

Honey with the big girls

Honey comes over to see me

Topaz and Honey mix with the big girls

Topaz and Honey stick together

They face this bantam pekin together

The big girls didn’t seem to bother my two it was the other bantams that chased them round a bit.

I then went over to the orchard and found Dotty. She has a lovely red comb and wattles and her neck is fully feathered. She looked really great and seemed so big.

Dotty with a friend

Dotty is looking great

I called in to see the farmer. She said the plan was to keep all the hens and the cockerel in the enclosed part next to barn until my girls were settled but she said my old girls (Dotty and Pepper) had managed to get out each day with a few friends. I said that I hadn’t seen Pepper and she said that she is around somewhere. They like to get up in to the tree and under the bushes.

She said my two little girls were doing fine and Honey was first out of the barn in the morning. She said any time I needed to re home any girls she would always be happy to have them. Hopefully I won’t need to do this again but it so good to know that I have someone who can help me like this.

I was most worried about Honey but it turns out that she is having an easier time of it. I think Topaz probably tried to be bossy and got taken down a peg or two whereas Honey would just get out of the way.

I feel so happy now that I have seen them settling in.

After the emotional upheaval of the last few days I felt the need to celebrate my flock of six. I have spent time being with them today and without the top two girls the remaining six are getting along quietly.

I gave them a treat of fish this morning and they all got their share easily.

Some fish for my six girls

The six girls scratch together before bedtime

After the bedtime corn they always spend some time scratching together. This seems to be a ritual and I don’t know what they can possibly find but they always spend time scratching before bedtime.

I have decided to keep my flock at six from now on. I wonder if eight was too many to get along, in my set up, without a problem.

The pecking order has adjusted very subtly. Without the two top girls enforcing it all the time it has become more gentle. Butterscotch is now top hen but is not as aggressive as Topaz (no need to peck) she just runs at, or leans towards Toffee to show her her place. Toffee is a little more force full and aims a peck at Emerald’s back. Peaches and Barley are next and Speckles is at the bottom except that the odd thing is, as it has been since she arrived, Speckles is still above Toffee. Toffee is the only girl she can chase and Toffee is firmly above Emerald especially and Peaches and Barley without any fuss and yet she runs from Speckles.

I actually quite like this because they all have their place but Speckles although at the bottom of four of the girls does also have a girl below her so isn’t a hundred percent at the bottom.

Speckles jumps on me all the time, every time I go through the gate. Peaches and Barley jump on me half the time. Emerald now jumps on the inner, child gate, every time I go in and sometimes jumps on my arm. Toffee now tries to jump on me but so far only makes it to my arm and Butterscotch is the only one of my girls now that doesn’t attempt to jump on me. She is not the right build for such antics. The flock seems much more interactive with me at the moment.

I go through the gate and have all of the girls bouncing all over me apart from Butterscotch who never attempts to leave the ground and just mills around my feet.

I am feeling calmer and the flock feels calmer. We intend to visit the farm soon to see how Topaz and Honey are getting on. I think about them and hope they are okay. I know that my flock are better for not being plucked but they also seem to be more gentle with each other and more interactive with me too. I am certain that this was the right thing to do.

I am feeling sad today about re homing girls once more. I was quite tearful about it last night.

I decided that I needed to remind myself why I had to do this. I looked through photos of the girls when this was happening before.

Amber

This was Amber in May, two years ago. She has a lovely red comb and face and is giving me the chat like she always did but she looks dreadful with her plucked head and neck. I simply could not let this happen again.

The girls enjoy a broccoli stalk

This was Amber, left of Honey, in April last year the day before she died. The next morning I found her dead by the pop hole at first light. She had a great last day all over the broccoli stalk and was looking really good. It was an awful shock when she went so suddenly but she had enjoyed her last year without being plucked.

I just could not go back to those days. I am sure Topaz and Honey will be as happy on the farm as Pepper and Dotty and my little flock of six can keep their feathers. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.