Carol's Chickens

We now have five out of eight girls laying and the day before yesterday was our first “four egg day” with Speckles, Peaches, Barley and Butterscotch all laying and Honey laid the day before.

This is nearly a full house because the game girls, Emerald and Toffee, have a shorter laying season and start later. Last year Emerald started in March and Toffee in April and Topaz is a law unto herself and doesn’t seem to be bothering this year.

Now that we have more girls laying I am actually finding it easier to tell who’s egg it is. Honey laid her third egg today and they are small and pointy and the colour is a shade in between Butterscotch and Peaches, Barley and Speckles. These three lay pure white eggs and Peaches are bigger than Barley’s and Speckles are bigger than both girls. Butterscotch’s are a distinct pinkish shade, round and with a satin finish.

When Peaches or Barley are in the nest box Honey and either Barley or Peaches will stand outside shouting or go in and watch. If Honey is in the nest box then Peaches and Barley will stand outside shouting or go in and watch. This little trio seem obsessed with each others egg laying.

Speckles is now obsessed with me and jumps on my back almost every time I go into the run. She jumped on me while poop picking yesterday and rode on my back then stepped off at the table like Peaches and Barley do.

She follows me around and gets on eye level with me at every opportunity. She is such a changed girl. Sometimes Speckles jumps on me and then Peaches or Barley will join her as if they are not to be outdone and are showing that that is their trick.

Below is an example of the egg laying behaviour, this was today when Honey was laying her egg.

Honey is trying to lay her egg while Peaches watches

Barley joins the watch

Speckles gets on eye level with me

I am holding the nest box lid open while taking photos when Speckles jumps on to the lid at eye level with me. I can’t get over the change in speckles from being so nervous around me to being best friends with me. It is lovely.

Honey got her egg laid and it had a good shell so I am pleased that she is back to normal now. I did see her go to the grit at bedtime last night so she seems to have sorted herself out.

It is lovely having plenty of eggs once more but what a commotion it can be at egg laying time. So far none of the girls have laid in the small nest boxes. They obviously prefer the big ones.

Since we have lived in this house (nine years) we have had a bird feeding station in the garden with two feeders filled with black sunflower seeds and one with a suet block. As a bird bath near by we have always used a chimney pot with a flower pot saucer in the top.

Every year when its gets frosty and the bird’s water freezes the saucer cracks and we buy a new one. Today while we were in Homebase we looked for a replacement but there were none the right size.

We then saw a proper bird bath and it is heavy enough to sit on top of the chimney instead of fitting inside. It has the advantage that it will be easy to clean and won’t crack in the frost. Also being bigger it may not freeze solid.

Old bird bath with the rim broken away

Another casualty of the frost

This pot was already in the garden when we moved in. It wasn’t very attractive but was free and the yew tree had self seeded in our garden. We are now going to plant it back in the garden and throw away the pot.

New bird bath

Looking down on the bird bath

It is rather cute. I think the two little birds are to form a stepping stone. It will be interesting to see how soon it is used. I think this is a real improvement and will be more practical as well as looking better. I hope the birds like it.

Yesterday Honey was in the nest box next to the store cabinet. I checked on her several times and she was settled in there. The next time I checked she was out and there was her egg at the bottom of the ramp to the nest box. It had a very small crack at the pointed end probably caused by rolling down the ramp on to the patio.

This was her second egg this year and she had laid a soft shelled eggs two days before so I was quite pleased that this egg had a shell. This morning I decided to scramble it and give it back to the girls. I decided that I would put it on top of a dish of mash so that all the girls might get a bit.

The egg shell was thin but not soft. As this is her fourth year of laying this is what I had expected and Honey is looking good.

Honey’s egg on top of a dish of mash

I called the girls then set the dish down and they all rushed to it.

Even Speckles gets some

Scrambled egg is the favourite treat of all

The girls are so fast that each photo has one blurred head

Butterscotch is the only girl not around the dish as she was in the nest box getting her daily egg laid. She missed out on the egg but she will be able to have some mash when she comes out. A big dish of mash like this usually lasts most of the day.

At least broken eggs never get wasted as the girls appreciate them and we are enjoying the increase in eggs too.

I gave the girls some turf from Jackie’s allotment plot. The girls just love a bit of fresh grass.

The girls have some turf

The girls love some fresh grass

I knew the grass wouldn’t last long but it was making eight little girls happy.

Just before bedtime the grass has all gone

By bedtime there were just a few blades left. I think I can safely say the girls enjoyed their grass.

Today I visited Jackie’s flock then we went to the allotment to get some turf for the girls. Jackie is digging out some grass to make some more vegetable beds.

I then bought Jackie back to visit my girls. I took my camera with me to photograph the girls with the turf (my next post). Jackie could see that Speckles was about to jump on my back so she asked me to pass the camera to her.

I was really pleased that she was not only able to see Speckles latest party trick but was able to capture it on camera too.

speckles on my back

This is her new trick

Nearly every time I go in the run at the moment Speckles jumps on me. It’s as if now that she has discovered she can do this she wants to keep on doing it. It is really quite funny.

This morning I walked through the gate into the run and bent slightly to pour some hot water into the water dish as it had ice in it. Speckles jumped straight up on to my back and stayed there until I threw out a handful of sunflower seeds.

This is definitely her new thing and I will try to get a photo when I can. She was so nervous when we first had her that I struggled to get any close up photos of her. It is now the opposite as can be seen by these photos.

Speckles facing straight on

The girls always look so funny when they are facing straight on.

Speckles has an amazing comb and wattles

I love this photo and her comb is magnificent. She laid her second egg today just two days after her first and it was just as big as her first one.

Speckles now follows me around the run and when I go out of the gate I have to make sure she doesn’t follow me out. She then stands looking out at me through the gate. She has gone from being so nervous to being my friendliest girl but she is still nervous around the rest of the girls.

Speckles has become a lovely little character and it looks as if she is going to be a good egg layer too. What a lovely girl she is.

It’s all going on here with first eggs of the year being laid. Honey has been very vocal for the last few days and very nosey when any of the girls are in the nest box. I had wondered if she was getting ready to lay.

At lunch time today she was settled in the nest box with pine shavings flicked over her back.

You can’t see Honey as she she is hiding under pine shavings

When we heard shouting from the girls and checked in on them Honey had laid a soft shelled egg and the girls were eating it. I scooped up the remains and the sticky damp shavings, removed them, then added fresh shavings.

I remembered that Honey had laid a soft shelled egg at the start of last year and when I checked my records she had in fact laid the first egg with no shell at all and the second with a soft shell then normal shells from then on.

As this is her fourth year of laying I am quite pleased that although this egg had a soft shell she managed to pass it and didn’t look poorly before doing so like she has in the past. She seems just fine now and as she is no spring chicken (excuse the pun) I am rather pleased that she is doing so well.

She has also laid this egg a month earlier than she laid her first one last year. I am wondering if more light in the run is causing an earlier start to laying. We didn’t put a tarpaulin over the newer part of the run this year as it made the run darker and didn’t stop it being wet.

I have also removed some tarpaulin from the side of the run by the patio area and recently chopped back the big bush. A combination of these things allows more light into the run.

Other news is that Speckles jumped on my back this morning for the first time. The only bantam girls that have ever jumped on my back up until now have been Peaches and Barley and I have had them since they were six weeks old.

As Speckles was between one and two years old and so very nervous when we first got her this is a heart warming transformation in her. I never imagined she would jump on me when we first had her.

Also just for my records I am more than half way through worming the girls at the moment. It has been six months since I last wormed them and I thought I would get it done before they started laying but have had three girl’s first eggs three days running.

Two more days of flubenvet to go. I am mixing it in little dishes of things the girls like such as, fish, scrambled egg, yogurt, chopped grapes etc. I put three dishes down and keep a fourth one back to drop bits in front of Speckles to make sure she gets some as she still gets chased from the treats by the other girls.

She seems to have cottoned on to me helping her out and I am satisfied she is getting some each day. She nearly jumped on my back again this evening but misjudged it and dropped back down again. This seems to be her new thing.

Peaches has just laid her third egg and is now laying every other day. We will soon have an abundance of eggs. We are having an omelette tonight for dinner from our own girls eggs. Hurrah!

For the last few days I have thought that Speckles was getting ready to lay. This morning she sat in the nest box for a few minutes.

At lunch time my husband was home before me and he said that there was no egg in the nest box but he could tell Speckles had been in there as she had pine shavings on her back.

I went up to take a look and I timed it just right. She was sat in the nest box with pine shavings on her back. Some of the girls like to flick the shavings on their back while laying their egg. It is a throw back to being in the wild where they would flick grass or leaves over their back to hide themselves.

I had left my camera in the storage cabinet so I grabbed it and was just in time to catch Speckles standing over her egg.

Speckles in the nest box with Honey looking in

Speckles is standing over her first egg

Her egg was long and large. The largest egg this year so far.

Butterscotch’s egg is on the left then Barley’s egg next, Peaches egg next and Speckles large egg on the right.

Again, from the left, Butterscotch then Barley then Peaches then Speckles on the right

That is a large egg from such a little girl. Speckles is our smallest girl. This is the first egg she has laid while with us as she was moulting when we got her at the end of July. We now have four out of eight girls laying.

Well done Speckles.

We recently found out about another farm near us that breeds bantams. It’s in Barkham, near Wokingham which is a half  hour drive from us.

I phoned Kirstin, the breeder and asked her if we could go and see her birds.

Her web site shows that she has serama, Dutch bantam and Japanese bantams among her breeds. I wanted Dutch bantams a few years ago but couldn’t find a farm nearby that bred them.

We wanted to see what she had for future reference so that when we are ready to add to the flock (if we have any losses) we will know where to go.

I researched the breeds that she had and absolutely fell in love with the seramas but unfortunately they are not cold hardy and need to be kept inside in the winter so this would make them unsuitable for us.

The Dutch bantams turned out to be bearded Dutch bantams and although they were cute I really prefer chickens that are not bearded. It isn’t a look that appeals to me. Also she only had black and I like pretty colours.

She didn’t have any Japanese bantams at this time which would be my preferred choice but it may be that when we are ready for new girls she may have some different breeds.

Both the Dutch bantams and the serama are really tiny and are smaller than my girls.

Bearded Dutch bantams

One little cockerel in the middle

These are tiny

Beautiful seramas

There is a white silkie in with them

My photos aren’t great but they give an idea of them. I think these are so pretty. They don’t breed true to colour so you never know what colours you are going to get.

It was very good of Kirstin to show us round when we are not yet ready to buy. She is passionate about her breeds and has won awards at shows for some of her birds. It was lovely to see her birds and it is good to know that there is another bantam breeder within a reasonable distance of us.

This morning, just like the day before yesterday, Peaches and Barley were doing a lot of shouting. I checked on them and Peaches was in the nest box with Barley watching from outside.

I grabbed my camera and was just in time to see Barley go into the nest box with Peaches.

Peaches and Barley in the nest box

Barley has a very red face and comb

Can Barley see out from under her comb?

There is Peaches egg

Peaches looks a bit squashed under Barley and her egg is just peeping out from under her. I removed the egg and could see that there was no doubt it was Peaches because it was the same long shape of her previous egg.

Peaches came out of the nest box and Barley settled in. I checked back about ten minutes later and when I lifted the nest box lid Barley came out shouting and there was her egg.

So now they are even laying their eggs together. They really are a very together pair of girls.