Carol's Chickens

This was by fiftieth birthday gift (six years ago).

Birthday rose

This rose continues to flower until the first frost so it’s still full of flower when most of the other roses in the garden are over.

The chicken’s strip is filling in nicely.

The chicken’s strip

A closer view

I think that by next year this strip will have completely filled in. Every evening after dinner we take a walk up the garden and we give the girls some dandelion leaves through the mesh. The girls wait expectantly for this end of the day treat and rush at the leaves as if they are starved.

Most people are surprised that I grow dandelions for the girls but it’s irresistible fun to have leaves on tap, as it where, just for them.

It’s interesting to look closely at the girls feathers and combs at this time of year.

Butterscotch’s crest is almost back to her former glory and she has a tiny black comb.

Butterscotch’s crest is almost there

Emerald and Toffee

These two have small combs and they are still pale after their moult. Emerald has the smallest comb of all.

Speckles comb is pale after the moult

Speckles head feathers stick up

When we first had Speckles a year ago she had two little head feathers sticking up. Then she moulted and I wondered if these would disappear but she grew them back again. This year she moulted and they dropped out and once again I wondered if they would come back. Sure enough they are back so they are obviously a little feature of hers almost like a miniature crest.

Speckles head is whiter than before her moult.

I wanted to get some photos of Peaches and Barley so I crouched down on the patio and waited for the girls to come to me. I think Speckles looks so tiny in amongst the flock.

The girls come to see me

You can just see Emerald in the background. She had been perched up and was slower than the other girls to come to the patio.

Barley has a right flopping comb and Peaches has a left flopping comb but Barley’s comb is bigger than Peaches and she can only see out of her left eye most of the time.

Barley can only see out of her left eye

Her right eye is covered by her comb

Peaches has a smaller comb

Barley on the table

Barley had jumped on my back and I had just bobbed down next to the table for her to step off.

Barley photo bombs

This was just before Barley jumped to my back and she photo bombed so close that her comb is blurred but I thought the photo was funny so decided to include it. It is typical of her, many photos of her have a blurred comb as she is always on the move and always bobbing her comb so that she can see.

Barley and Peaches have yet to start moulting so their combs are still nice and red but in winter they shrink and go very pale.

Peaches and Barley are an inseparable pair of girls but are actually quite different characters. Barley is the one who has spats now and again and won’t take any nonsense from any of the girls. She is the one who is always at the front of the flock and jumps on me the most. She is the most noisy and is constantly squeaking away. She also stands at the nest box and shouts when Peaches is trying to get her egg laid and she stands on the perch squeaking away at any time that I am in the garden or sitting on the patio.

However Barley is not as good an egg layer as Peaches and only lays three quarters as many eggs as Peaches does. I wonder if Barley’s bigger comb is what makes her the stronger character of the two girls although Speckles has a big comb (when she isn’t moulting) and is a timid girl. I wonder if the size of the comb only makes a difference if they are the same breed or if it’s just coincidental.

It is interesting in a small flock how noticeably different the girls characters are.

I usually give the girls some spinach every morning but this morning I had run out. I had some lettuce but I know they don’t like lettuce as much as spinach. This may be because it’s a bit more difficult to shred so I decided to put it in the square container.

I only had time for a few quick photos before I had to go out and only Peaches and Barley were showing any interest.

Peaches and Barley approach the lettuce

Peaches has a peck

Peaches and Barley get some lettuce out of the container

To my surprise when I returned at lunch time there wasn’t a shred of lettuce left. They didn’t mind it that much then!

Yesterday afternoon the girls were chilling in the sun together. That is all except Butterscotch. The girls will often sit in the sun together, perch up together, or dust bath together, but Butterscotch is her own girl and doesn’t feel the need to stick close to the flock.

While the rest of the flock are gathered together she can often be seen just wandering around stopping to scratch and to peck at the ground.

It’s the same thing at bedtime. The girls will all be perched up in the chicken shed but Butterscotch will be casually wandering around the perimeters of the run for an extra half an hour.  When she is ready she goes in and takes up her position in the middle of the perch, always unhurried, as if she has all the time in the world.

The girls are chilling

Hanging out together

Butterscotch is doing her own thing

Just look at those head feathers. She is so nearly back to normal now.

She is just wandering around

Pecking at the ground

Butterscotch has always been her own girl rather than one of the crowd. She can join in with the girls or not,  just as the mood takes her.

Speckles has been hanging on to her last tail feather for the past week. This afternoon it fell out and now she has no tail.

Speckles has lost her tail

No tail

Speckles has a new shape

She looks so sweet

And she’s off

She looks such a sweetie with no tail and she is so shy at the moment. This takes me back to last year when she first came to us. I look forward to her growing her tail back and with it her confidence. I am sure that she will return to the changed Speckles that grew in confidence last year once she got her feathers back.

At the risk of getting boring and repetitive I really do think Butterscotch’s head feathers are nearly back to normal.

Butterscotch

Since she first lost her head feathers six months ago this is the best she has looked. Her head feathers are opening up at last. Hurrah!

Our hanging baskets give a splash of colour but it’s funny how when we bought them they were both the same round shape. The basket at the front has kept its round shape and looks the perfect basket with a bright splash of colour to welcome you.

Front hanging basket

The back basket is completely different and has opened up into a weird shape.

Back hanging basket

At the top of the garden beside the chickens is a hibiscus that is one of the few shrubs that was already here when we moved in nine years ago. In that time it has doubled in size and also gives a splash of colour at this time of the year.

Hibiscus

Hibiscus

We prune it back after it has finished flowering but it goes on getting bigger and bigger each year.

I stepped back to show the size of this shrub/tree

Notice the girls chilling in the background.

The blooms close up

Hibiscus are like day lilies, as one bloom opens another bloom passes over. This plant is amazing with it’s giant size and many blooms.

Of my flock of six there are three girls laying at the moment which is quite surprising. Peaches and Barley are still laying although it’s a little less often than earlier in the year and Butterscotch is back to laying every day until she lays late afternoon then she misses a day then lays at first light again just as she has always done.

Emerald appears to have finished her moult but Toffee’s moult has been slower and she is still losing an occasional feather.

Speckles moult was fast with handfuls of feathers in the run and she has completely lost her confidence with it. She used to jump to the gate and then my shoulder or back every morning before the corn and every evening before the seeds. When Butterscotch was broody Speckles would remain on my back while I lifted Butterscotch from the nest box.

Since she started heavily losing feathers she stopped doing this and hangs back behind the others. Sometimes I go in with the seeds in the evening and the girls come running but she is still at the other end of the run until I call her. She joins at the back of the group then while they scratch afterwards she will retreat under the table.

It’s odd how some of the girls massively lose confidence when they moult. Emerald was just the same but it’s more noticeable with Speckles because she no longer jumps on me. I wonder if she will start doing it again when she is through the moult. I used to drape a cardigan over my shoulders while it’s been hot to protect my bare back from her claws and now I don’t need to do this any more. I miss her closeness though.

Meanwhile Butterscotch is looking the most back to normal that she has in six months. I have been dreading having no eggs this winter but David (fellow chicken keeper and regular comenter) raised the interesting fact that as she has mini moults and constantly lays then takes breaks to go broody that there is a possibility that she could continue to lay over winter as do some of his silkies.

This would be amazing because this would otherwise be our first winter with no eggs at all. Year one our first girls had just started laying, that was Treacle, Bluebell and Pepper. Year two Bluebell and Dotty (who didn’t start until four months behind the other girls) still laid through the winter. Year three Peaches and Barley had just started laying. Year four Butterscotch laid through what was her first winter. So now year five it’s a case of having to wait and see. It’s an interesting thought though, thank you David.

So now for the latest photos of the girls.

Speckles has a white patch on her head where she has lost the black tipped feathers

Apart from having only a single tail feather she doesn’t look too bad

Toffee

Toffee is looking good despite still losing a few feathers

Emerald

Emerald is looking good

Butterscotch is getting her crest back

Our twinnies are still looking good

Barley is trying to get her egg laid

Peaches is looking for Barley

So that is the state of play with the flock at the moment. I am just enjoying the eggs while they are still coming and it is good to have the moult a few at a time rather than all at once.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Butterscotch over the winter.

A few weeks back I started digging out the rotten wood from besides the chicken run and replacing it with bricks. It was too hot at the time to continue.

Yesterday afternoon it was cooler, in fact it was drizzling, and I had a free afternoon so I decided to continue the job. I managed to get the job completed. I chiseled out the rotten wood and hammered bricks in its place. I jammed stones in any gaps between the remaining wood and the bricks. I hammered the bricks in really tightly so that it would be very difficult for anything to remove them or dig under them.

I have put slates vertical to the weld mesh and then horizontal under the soil on the inside of the run but I like to protect the run both inside and out to stop anything digging in.

Bricks at the side of the chicken run

Further up the run

Looking back the other way

I am quite pleased with my work as I feel that the run is safer. I think it is good to keep a check on the condition of the run and keep securing any parts that may be weak. I am happy that I have made it as difficult as possible for anything to try to dig in.

We got Butterscotch and Speckles at the end of July last year so they have just completed their first year with us.

Speckles was moulting when we got her, started laying in March and started moulting again at the end of July just like last year.

Butterscotch is the most different girl I have ever come across. She has gone broody as regular as clockwork every month but has moulted every month too. She lays for two weeks then goes broody and moults for two weeks (usually broody for the first week and recovering for the next week before starting to lay again) then lays for two weeks and the cycle just keeps repeating.

At the moment she nearly has her head and neck feathers back in and she is laying once more.

Butterscotch’s head and neck feathers are nearly back in

Once more her crest looks like it’s coming back

The feathers on the back of her neck are beginning to open

These photos of her are almost identical to the photos I put out a month ago. She has been losing her head feathers every month when she goes broody for the last six months. Every month she loses her head feathers then while laying her eggs for two weeks she grows them back in again then goes broody and loses them again.

We got her at the end of July last year and she started laying in August. At the end of August and the beginning of September she went broody for the first time with us and then had a big moult. She looked like a feather duster and I assumed she wouldn’t lay again that year.

To my surprise she started laying again through September then went broody again in October. The pattern continued with her broody again in October and November. She laid throughout December going broody again at the end of December and beginning of January when she lost her tail feathers.

In February she went broody again and this was when she first lost her head feathers. She laid again and grew her head feathers back in but went broody in March and lost them again. In April her head feathers were back in but she went broody again at the end of the month and lost them again.

In May her head feathers were almost back and her photo was almost identical to the one of her now. In June she went broody again and lost her head feathers once more. By the end of June the pins on her head were opening again.

In July she went broody again and once more lost her head feathers. She also had a bigger moult this time and again dropped her tail feathers. Once again I thought that she may not start laying again but by the end of July she was laying again and her head feathers were opening up again.

It’s not the fact that she goes broody every month that surprises me but the fact that for a year now she has moulted every month too. If she moulted a different part of her feathers each month I could understand it but what really puzzles me is that for six months now she has moulted her head and neck feathers over and again. I am surprised that they keep growing back.

I wonder how long this will continue. I am assuming that she will stop laying and going broody over winter and will get all her feathers back in but I wonder if she will repeat this same pattern next year. Is she destined to have an almost bare head for half the year?

I guess we will have to wait and see. It will be interesting to see what winter brings and how she will be next year. Despite all this she is still our best layer when she is laying and I will be interested to see how the end of year egg tally stacks up. I will be surprised if Butterscotch doesn’t have the largest total of eggs over the year.

I will miss the eggs during the winter but it would be great to see Butterscotch with a full head of feathers again.