Carol's Chickens

I now have a name for the plant on our front drive. My mum had kept a photo of it with it’s name. Thank you Mum.

Cymbalaria Muralis

When I tried to find my previous post about this I discovered that it wasn’t last year but the year before. How time flies!

Jenny said she thought it could be ground ivy. I googled ground ivy and that is something different but I can see why she thought it might be that. The leaves are ivy shaped and it has a long list of common names, a lot of which, have ivy in them. The flowers are like tiny snap dragons.

The list of common names are:

ivy leaved toadflax, kenilworth ivy, coliseum ivy, oxford ivy, mother of thousands, pennywort and wandering sailor.

Whew, what a lot of common names!

It is native to mediterranean europe.

It just appeared on our drive two years ago and has now spread the length of the drive. The drive is gravel and only gets water when it rains but the plant seems happy with these harsh conditions.

We are happy to have it on our drive and have transplanted bits of it to other parts of the garden. I love a hardy but pretty, free, plant.

We have had a field mouse in our garden for a couple of months now. We call it “Little Mouse”. It spends a lot of time in the flower beds by the veg plot and it also visits the chicken run.

We first noticed it in the flower beds and over time it has become almost tame. It has become used to us and if we are still it will come quite close to us.

We then started to see it in the chicken run. The bigger girls, Emerald in particular, showed curiosity at it but no attempt to catch it. I know standard sized chickens will eat mice and frogs but I don’t think our bantam girls would. I have never seen them take anything bigger than a spider and even then only small spiders.

Little Mouse would often pop out from behind the shelter so I moved the shelter out to make sure there were no holes behind it. I don’t want rats finding a way in. This has been the first winter that we haven’t had a rat problem.

Then one day I was outside the chicken’s gate and Little Mouse ran past my feet and popped through the weld mesh. It took a spin round the patio and popped back out through the weld mesh with ease.

A few evenings ago I was checking that all the girls had gone to bed when Little Mouse popped out from behind the shelter and came quite close to me. I went for my camera and then dropped a few seeds in the run and waited for it to appear again.

I took a few photos. I didn’t use the zoom as I can’t see the settings without my glasses so these photos show how close it came to me. They would have been amazing with the zoom.

Little Mouse

It gets quite close

It has such big eyes and ears for it’s tiny size. I am surprised  that it hasn’t been predated as it appears during the day and seems unfazed by us and the chickens. We don’t think one little mouse can do much harm and as it gets through weld mesh there would be no stopping it anyway. It is very cute.

I looked up some information about it. Field mice will live anywhere where there is food and shelter. They grow to ten centimetres long.

They eat seeds, berries, invertebrates and worms. In the wild they tend to have a short life, as so many different creatures prey on them, with an average of six to twelve months. They can live longer if conditions are favourable.

They reproduce quite frequently with a gestation period of around twenty five days. They give birth to between four and seven mice which are out on their own after about four weeks. They can reproduce several times a year.

They are generally nocturnal and are a vital food source for nocturnal hunters such as owls.

Maybe Little Mouse is safer hanging around our garden and chicken run during the day than being out at night. We often hear owls calling at night.

We will miss Little Mouse when it goes. It’s the closest I have ever got to a wild mouse.

Late yesterday afternoon I went to pick Cinnamon up and she squatted. This means that she is getting ready to lay.

This morning both Dandelion and Cinnamon attempted to get near to the patio but Peaches and Barley chased them away. Because they have been nervous of going to the patio right from the start it has become a game like the ladders were for a while. Whenever they attempt to get near the patio they get chased away.

This has already caused me to put another feeding station out in the run but now it is causing another problem. Where can the three amigos go to lay their eggs! I have never had this problem before.

Both Dandelion and Cinnamon have checked out the shelter and rejected it. I don’t want them to be stressed because they can’t get to a nest box.

I decided to use the cat box as another nest box in the run. At first I put it in the bottom part of the run near the food station.

Peaches, Barley and Emerald check out the new box

The three amigos are interested but can’t get near because of the bigger girls

I decided it was in the wrong place. It’s was too open there so I thought it would be better next to the shelter and at least it is half way towards the patio. Moving it meant it had to be inspected again.

I move it next to the shelter

Peaches and Barley, the two nosiest girls, inspect it

It’s not ideal as the shavings soon get scratched out but it will do as a temporary measure. It remains to be seen if the three amigos will use it. I am hoping that once the novelty wears off, the bigger girls will lose interest in it, and then the three amigos will have a chance to check it out.

If this works out my lovely husband is going to make a little wooden nest box. That way we can make it with a bit at the front to stop the shavings being scratched out and with a smaller opening so that it should put the bigger girls off and leave it available for the little girls.

I really hope that eventually the three amigos will get brave enough to go to the patio but for now I just need to solve each problem as they arise.

Other news is that Rusty seems to have come out of her broody spell. She was in the nest box first thing this morning and I took her out. I went back later with some spinach and took her out again. A little later I took her out again and found three eggs in the other nest box from Emerald, Speckles and Barley.

After that she stayed out and every time I checked during the afternoon she was still out. Hurrah!

Rusty is definitely broody. She was in the nest box from when I first went out this morning. I looked in the nest box and she raised her tail. It made me realise that Freckles must have been going broody recently when she was doing the same tail raising thing.

The odd thing was that she didn’t commit to it so I passed it off as not being broody. She had been in the nest box on and off for a couple days and then finally laid a tiny egg. She was raising her tail when I checked on her in the nest box. After she laid her egg she returned to the nest box briefly as if she wasn’t sure she had laid it and then left the nest box and didn’t return to it. She did then take a break of six days before starting to lay again. It’s as if she was about to go broody but changed her mind.

Rusty raises her tail

Unlike Freckles, fan like tail, Rusty’s silky tail is wispy

I lift her out of the nest box

Every time I have gone out to the girls today I have lifted Rusty out of the nest box. She would then go and have some pellets from the three amigos feeding station, then run up the ladder for some water from the bottle (I have no idea why she goes there for water), then have a manic dust bath.

She isn’t an angry broody and is totally docile and quiet. She will let me stroke her and pick her up and never growls or tries to peck like some past broody girls (Topaz). In fact at the weekend we had our grandchildren to stay over, they are aged five and eight and they were thrilled that they could both stroke her and hold her. They don’t usually get this chance as the girls usually keep their distance from visitors.

At one point this afternoon she spent time on the perch above the ladder and I wondered if she may come out of this fairly quickly.

Freckles then went in to lay her egg and when I next checked Rusty was sat on it. I guess an egg is just too hard to resist. By now it was five o’clock and unlikely that any more girls would want to lay so I took Rusty out again and closed the nest boxes. It would be good if I could help her snap out of it sooner rather than later.

I always think it’s a little sad to spend days sitting in a nest box without an end result and it’s better that they get back to doing normal chicken things as soon as possible but I am so glad that she is a sweet broody girl rather than a little monster.

Yesterday afternoon Rusty went into the nest box and stayed there all afternoon. I was surprised that at the end of the day she hadn’t yet laid her egg and took her out of the nest box. She usually lays every other day and had actually laid the day before.

At bedtime she was back in the nest box and I moved her to the chicken shed. This morning she was back in the nest box again and I started to think maybe she was broody but I was surprised she would go broody when she hadn’t just laid an egg. I took her out of the nest box again.

Mid morning I lifted her from the nest box once more and there was her egg. I knew it was her egg as Freckles had already laid hers a bit earlier. I wasn’t sure at this point if she was broody or had just taken longer than usual to lay her egg.

She returned to the nest box and was joined by Emerald and Peaches who laid their eggs. Rusty sat on their eggs until I removed them. I am surprised that it’s Rusty rather than Freckles that looks as if she is broody as Freckles has always liked to gather other girls eggs underneath her. Freckles has been laying now for eight weeks and Rusty has only been laying for three weeks. I guess that’s enough eggs to be a good clutch though. She has laid nine eggs in total. Freckles has laid thirty eggs.

Later in the afternoon I decided to take Rusty out of the nest box again. Instead of putting her on the patio where she leaves a pile of shavings for me to sweep up I decided to put her in the run. Emerald promptly started digging right next to her and showered her in dirt. We couldn’t help finding this funny, although when I collected my camera and went to take some photos, Emerald then covered my feet in dirt too. As it was a warm day I was wearing my flip flops so my feet were in were the state as Rusty was.

Rusty sits covered in dirt

I am not looking at you

After a few moments she stood up and did a massive shake off. She ran at speed straight up the ladder for a quick drink from the water bottle then sat puffed up on the branch perch.

Rusty is a puff ball

Compare her to Apricot sat a little further along the same branch perch

She returned to the nest box shortly after this but as it was nearing the end of the day and the rest of the laying girls had laid I decided to close the nest boxes and leave her out. I don’t know if I can stop her going broody but for now I thought I would leave her out and see what the next day brings.

There is never a dull moment in this flock.

Last year a little plant arrived on our drive. I thought it was a weed but I thought it was pretty so I let it stay. I put out a blog post about it and Mum told me it was a plant not a weed but I now can’t remember what it is called.

This year it has established itself all the way along the wall of our drive. It needs no looking after and thrives here giving a splash of colour to the edge of our drive. We are happy to leave it be.

A bit of colour on our drive

A close up shows how pretty it is

I love it when something pretty arrives on it’s own and makes itself at home.

Dandelion hasn’t seemed herself for the last few days. She was spending time sitting with her head hunched down into her ruffles. I was worried that there was something wrong with her.

This afternoon while Rusty was in the nest box laying her egg I was very surprised to see Dandelion by the ramps of the nest boxes. I have never seen her go to the patio, without persuasion, apart from at bedtime. She then left the nest boxes and went into the shelter followed by her trusty sidekick, Cinnamon. I have never seen these two go in there either.

I started to think that she must be getting ready to lay an egg. I had thought Cinnamon would be the first of the three amigos because her comb is the most red but I noticed that Dandelion’s face and comb were a deeper pink than before. I guessed that her blond colouring compared to Cinnamon’s brunette colouring could be why her comb and face are a lighter shade.

I decided to get my camera and take a photo to demonstrate this. Just as I snapped the first photo she laid her egg, in the run, right in front of my eyes. A tiny, warm, damp, egg. She immediately perked up and looked back to normal. So that was what her problem was. There was no blood on her egg and it is even tinier than Freckles egg.

Maybe she was stressed because she didn’t know where to lay her egg. I think it took her by surprise when it arrived because she hadn’t even sat down. I know they have to stand up to actually lay their egg but they usually sit first.

Dandelion lays her egg in front of my eyes

I didn’t realise when I clicked this photo that that expression on her face was the concentration of laying her egg. It wasn’t until she stepped forward that I saw the egg.

And there it is

As she stepped away from her egg her eyes brightened up instantly.

Dandelion’s egg on the left, Freckles egg in the middle and Rusty’s egg on the right

Dandelion’s tiny egg is on the left, it is a paler colour than the other two

It is so tiny that it falls through the egg stand

Dandelion’s egg

I took this photo to show the egg’s size with the fifty pence piece to compare it with. This was so unexpected. Today we had three little girl’s eggs. Well done Dandelion.

Yesterday Speckles and Freckles laid their eggs together. Freckles doesn’t seem to mind who lays their eggs in the same nest box as her. She is happy to share and she likes to gather any eggs underneath her and will happily sit on them until she has laid her own egg.

Surprisingly, despite this, she hasn’t gone broody yet and is in fact our best layer. Her record is now laying four days in a row. When I saw Speckles and Freckles eggs side by side in the nest box it made me smile because Speckles lays the biggest eggs and Freckles lays the smallest eggs.

Speckles and Freckles egg

You have to smile at these eggs.

We bought our television when we moved to this house ten years ago. We wanted something small so that it would hardly be noticeable as we have tried to keep with the Edwardian style of the house and didn’t want something modern to jump out.

People have laughed at it and said that they thought it was our lap top rather than a television but we have always been used to a small T.V. so we were fine with it. Over the last few years though our eyesight has deteriorated a bit and we found that neither of us could read anything on our T.V. any longer.

I would pause the T.V. and stand in front of it to read out loud anything written. We could no longer read sub titles or text on phones or football scores. We decided it was time to move to the next size up. One size up would still fit the small corner where it lives.

We were surprised to find that they are not very expensive. Yesterday we bought one and set it up and oh my goodness, what a difference! We are suddenly able to see every bit of writing. It has made a huge difference to us. We wonder why we didn’t do this before. It still feels like we are watching someone else’s T.V. at the moment. It is so amazing to be able to see everything that is written and every detail that we didn’t even realise we were missing. Lines on faces and beads of sweat. Yes Steve, I know you will be wanting to say “I told you so”.

Old T.V.

New T.V.

Oddly enough in the photographs it doesn’t look that much different and yet it makes a massive difference to us. The screen is much wider and perhaps because it’s ten years newer there is much sharper detail. We have also put the D.V.D. player in a different spot underneath the drawers which makes the T.V. look slightly lower.

We are so pleased that we finally got around to changing this. We just hadn’t realised how much difference it would make to us. Better late than never, we can enjoy detail once more.

I have been waiting for a bit of sun to open our tulips.

Tulips tightly closed despite it being a bright morning

A bit later in the day they are starting to open

By the afternoon they are open

I love the way the tulips react to the sun. The red is so bright in the surrounding sea of blue. You can’t help but smile.