Carol's Chickens

I bought a pack of asparagus to make a starter of asparagus wrapped in pancetta and baked in the oven. I only needed half of the asparagus. I wondered if the girls would like the rest. I thought it would be too hard for them raw so I cooked it for them.

Will they like asparagus?

Butterscotch is last to come and investigate

The girls check it out

They are not at all sure about this

It turned out that they didn’t like it at all. I was surprised because they love things like peas. Maybe they would have preferred it uncooked. At the end of the day it was untouched and I had to pick it up and remove it.

So what do you know! My girls don’t like asparagus!

Yesterday morning I did all my weekend chicken chores. I swept the patio, washed the food and water bowls and dug over the run. I opened all the panels to let the sun in.

In the afternoon it started to rain gently. It was so dry and dusty in the run that I thought I would leave the panels open for a bit to dampen down the run.

The next minute the rain turned into to an absolute down pour. I ran up to the run and frantically started closing up the panels. Rain was dripping into my sleeves and my wellies were soon were caked in mud. The girls looked a bit perplexed.

It is so warm at the moment that it will soon dry out. No doubt the girls will leave muddy footprints on the patio that I have just swept. It was so clean and dry one minute and wet the next.

Oh dear! It’s raining

I love the way the girls line up

Then they bunch together again

They have gone from sitting in the sun the day before to standing watching the rain the next day. That’s a typical summer here in England.

The girls love to sit in the sun. Toffee especially loves to find a patch of sun and will stretch her wings out to soak up the rays but I just missed the shot of her on her side with one leg and one wing stretched out.

Sitting in the sun

Emerald isn’t in this photo because she prefers to sit in the shade or perch in the shade. She is having such a heavy moult that she is staying out of the sun.

Poor Emerald perches in the shade

Butterscotch is also moulting like crazy. I am not sure if she will start laying again because she is dropping so many feathers but I have thought that in the past and she did start laying again. I am picking up loads of feathers from the shed and the run.

The good news is that she has loads of pin feathers once more. It is now looking like she may get fully feathered again after all.

Butterscotch has lots of pins again

Butterscotch has now been moulting on and off for a year. I wonder if she is ever going to be done with this. Whereas it is really taking it out of poor Emerald, Butterscotch just seems to take it all in her stride.

Our rambling rose, Paul’s Himalayan Musk, has just reached it’s peak so I thought I would photograph it again.

The view from our bedroom window

The rose on the side fence

Over the cabin roof

A closer look

Closer still, a clamatis flower peaks out

Another close up

Our patio

Our patio and the veg plot

The veg plot from the other direction

The rose is beautiful, the garden is lovely and the veg plot is coming on well. The weather has been sunny and I have been really enjoying sitting in the garden and making the most of it while it lasts.

A few days ago I wrote a post titled  “A girl’s eye view“. This view is from the perch where Peaches and Barley always watch me whenever I am sat on the patio.

View from the perch where Peaches and Barley watch me

I thought I would reverse this view and show my view of them watching me.

Barley watches me from the perch

It seems so far away but whenever I sit in the sun on the patio Barley always keeps an eye on me from this perch and makes her squeaky little noises to me.

Barley and Peaches watch me

If I move a bit closer Peaches will join her. This is the view that I always have as I walk up the garden. The other girls all run down to the wire as I approach. You can see them making their way down.

They then run back up again beside me as I walk past the side of the run. It is lovely to be greeted by my girls every time I go up the garden and it is amusing to have Peaches and Barley watching over me as I sit on the patio.

We moved into this house nine years ago and the garden was really bare. A friend of ours had a beautiful rose in her garden which we had much admired. She gave us the same rose as a moving in gift. It was about three feet high at the time and is called Paul’s Himalayan Musk.

Nine years on it is absolutely stunning. It is very fast growing and has masses of dainty flowers and doesn’t seem to suffer from aphids and black spot like other roses in the garden. The flowers don’t last very long though. At the moment half of the buds have opened so I thought I would photograph it now and then again in a few days time when it reaches it’s peak.

Half the buds on the rose are now open

It’s going to be amazing

Close up the flowers are two shades of pink

It is beautiful

It rambles along the side fence towards the front of the house

Every year we are stunned by how amazing this rose is. It is one of the highlights of summer in our garden.

I was only saying yesterday that Toffee and Emerald are often perching together or sitting together. They often sit together in the run and take turns dozing.

Yesterday afternoon they were together again and Toffee usually dozes the most often but on this occasion it was Emerald dozing. I think her moult is taking it out of her.

Toffee and Emerald sit together

Emerald dozes

It is sweet to see them sitting together and at the end of the day they were perched together again.

Toffee and Emerald perch together at the end of the day

Emerald dozes again

Once again Emerald dozed for a bit and it really seemed as if Toffee was standing guard. Usually Toffee dozes and I always think she is like an old lady but it seems that at the moment Emerald is dozing more as she is having such a heavy moult and Toffee appears to be watching over her.

It’s so sweet to see them together like this.

Emerald has been moulting big time. Whereas Toffee is losing a steady stream of feathers and not actually looking any different Emerald is dropping masses of feathers and looking really tatty. I am picking up more feathers than poop at the moment.

The good news is the pins are coming in quickly. While preening I could see loads of pins on her behind when she lifted her wings. She has long pins on her wings and she has pins on her neck where Topaz had plucked her.

Emerald preening

You can see pins by her beak and also Toffee looking quite good in comparison.

She is tatty

Emerald and Toffee sit together or perch together a lot at the moment. Maybe they feel sympathetic towards each other.

She has pins on her wings

She has white tips to her under feathers

She is having a stretch in this photo. We think she is going grey because her under feathers are getting more white patches on them with each moult.

She has no tail

Pins on her neck

This is a bit too close because I had to hold a dandelion leaf in one hand to get her to stretch her neck and click the camera with the other hand but it does show the pins on her neck.

Emerald will soon be looking beautiful again whereas I wonder if Butterscotch will ever get all her feathers back again.

Butterscotch’s neck

She has such a tatty head

It is so sad that she had these feathers back in before she went broody. As soon as she goes broody she moults again and it is odd that she has moulted her new feathers. There are some pins but I am never sure if she will be fully feathered.

Butterscotch’s head

Unfortunately once more her head pins have proved irresistible to Barley and I have caught Barley pulling them. I despair of Butterscotch ever getting back to normal.

Butterscotch has only stopped being broody for the last couple of days. Today I saw Barley have a go at her several times. She chased her and grabbed her by the back of the neck. I broke them up and then later saw Barley chase her again and hang on to a feather on her back until it came out. It seems as if Barley is trying to move up the pecking order.

I wonder if this attempt to move up is spurred on by Butterscotch having been broody. I read recently on the Down The Lane chicken forum of some people saying their broody girls were being bullied. At the time I said that I was lucky this had never happened with my girls.

I spoke too soon because today I saw it happening. I think Barley is just trying to move up the pecking order though. I will keep an eye on this. Nothing stays the same for long.

While poop picking the run I stopped to consider the girl’s view of the garden. I don’t know how much they appreciate something pretty to look out on but I feel it must be better for them than having a dull outlook.

The girl’s outlook in to the garden

The view from their perch

When I am sitting on the patio the girls stand on this perch and watch me.

The girl’s rose in the run

The girl’s rose from the other direction

The girl’s also have several flowering shrubs in the run. They may not, perhaps, appreciate how pretty their rose is but they do love to eat the petals. As the petals fall they are hoovered up by the girls. I sprinkle any remaining petals from the spent rose blooms and the girls are quick to take them.

I love to think that the girls have a pretty environment as well as a practical one. I like to think that like us they enjoy something pretty to look at.

Whilst being broody Butterscotch seems able to get all the girls to lay their eggs next to her. I swear she has telepathic powers.

Recently I have taken photos of Barley and Butterscotch in the nest box together and then Speckles and Butterscotch. Yesterday it was Peaches turn.

Peaches lays her egg next to Butterscotch

Barley looks on

Peaches and Barley are so together that whenever Barley is in the next box Peaches stands guard and looks on and whenever Peaches is in the nest box Barley does the same.

I do find it fascinating that when Butterscotch isn’t broody the girls don’t want to share a nest box but while she is broody they all ignore the empty nest box and lay their eggs next to her.

Last month before she started moulting Emerald shared the nest box with Butterscotch. This month all three girls that are still laying have shared the nest box with her.

Emerald and Butterscotch

Speckles and Butterscotch

Barley and Butterscotch

Peaches and Butterscotch

In the two photos above you can tell it’s Barley in the first photo because her comb flops to the right and in the photo above it’s Peaches with her comb flopping to the left. In both photos the other one is looking on which is something they almost always do.

Telepathic Butterscotch should be coming to the end of her broody spell any day now. It would be good to have her laying again as eggs are sparse with only three girls laying. It will also be good to see her out in the run again.