Carol's Chickens

The guys arrived even earlier this morning and had a lot of heavy work to do.

Filling with rubble ready to add the concrete on top

The concrete fence posts which had to be carried up the length of our garden as did the concrete gravel boards

Mixing the concrete for the posts

We decided on three layers of gravel boards as there is a bank of earth at the back and we don’t want the fence to rot

The site is secured for the night once more

Tomorrow the fence panels will go on top of the gravel boards and the concrete base for the sheds will be laid (I think). It should look quite different tomorrow.

Our three guys turned up for work at eight o’clock on the dot and put in a day of hard graft. On our part we kept them supplied with cups of tea and lunch time sandwiches. I will show the days progress in pictures.

Demolition of the shed begins

The shed is coming down

There is a change in colour

The roof has gone

We are open to the outside

We have this behind the shed

There is a lot of stuff to get rid of

Some of the concrete must go

There is a lot of rubble

There is a lot of sand

The site is secured for the night

Tomorrow the guys will lay the new concrete, get the posts in and get ready for the new fence (I think). I will be on stand by with cups of tea and my camera as usual.

We will end up with a bigger patio space once the small garden shed goes and will probably get some patio furniture so my husband’s home made table from this area has gone in the chicken run for now. We thought we would try it for a while before deciding if it will stay here.

Topaz was the first to try it out

Topaz does like a table to stand on. I think this may end up staying. The girls weren’t at all bothered by the works going on today and spent most of the day chilling, sitting, snoozing and dust bathing.

When I phoned mum a few days ago she told me to expect a parcel from her and my step dad. She said my step dad had seen something in a catalogue that had come through the door that he thought I would really like.

I was intrigued and guessed it probably had something to do with chickens. A few days ago my parcel arrived.

I have a lovely pair of solar hens.

My new chooks

New chooks in their new home

I  Thought they would fit in well next to the chicken run. I love the way Toffee is looking at them.

The chooks at night

This is the chooks at night once they are lit up. It doesn’t show up that well in a photo but they are lit up. They make a perfect light for me as I go out to the chooks to put them to bed.

We put the bedtime perches back up after installing our false wall on the chickens’ patio yesterday. They weren’t the same as before and I wondered what the girls would make of it at bedtime. They didn’t seem bothered by the change and looked so sweet all in a line.

All lined up ready for bed

Don’t they look sweet

We are now ready for the next stage of works to begin.

Strictly speaking, our shed project begins tomorrow with three guys booked to work for us for three days. Today though we did some preparation in readiness for them.

At the moment the back of the big shed at the top of our garden provides our boundary with a public foot path behind it and a golf course beyond that. The front of it provides the back wall of the chicken run. The shed was already here when we moved in eight and a half years ago and although it’s been very useful to us it is old and beginning to rot.

We have ordered two new sheds to be made for us and they are due to arrive in two weeks time. Our guys starting tomorrow, are going to take down and dispose of the old shed. They will even up the concrete ready to provide a base for the two new sheds and they will build a sturdy seven foot high fence as our new boundary.

One of the sheds will become the new chicken coop and will provide the back wall of the chicken run. The other will house our chest freezer, hot boxes, pans and anything else needing storing for our business as well as the contents of our small garden shed. The small garden shed is going to our next door neighbours.

There will be a concrete path running around and behind both sheds so that we can check  and maintain them and this will also stop any predators digging under. The boundary fence will also be set on concrete.

We have spent some time during the past week emptying the big shed. The water butts from the top patio have been stored on our bottom patio along with the wooden shelving from the big shed, now under a tarpaulin and my dog (chicken) crate.

Our patio is looking a bit cluttered

Because the shed provides the back of the chicken run we needed to construct a false, temporary, wall to contain the girls and keep them safe. My husband started work on this today using the door and some side panels from the old shed.

Our sheds before we begin

The garden shed on the right is temporarily housing our chest freezer. Because the freezer is now in a much smaller space my husband has taken the glass out of the window to allow some ventilation and rigged up a bit of wood to keep the rain out. The chicken run is on the left opposite the garden shed.

The chicken’s patio before we began work today, the end wall is the big shed

Half the false fence is now in place

We had to pull the storage cabinet out to get to the false fence.

Close up of the false fence which is the door from the big shed

The old shed provided us with the materials for the false fence

The false fence is nearly completed

The false fence is completed

I filled any gaps with fine chicken wire to keep out mice.

The new and temporary look of the chicken’s patio

We put the girls’ high bedtime perches back up for now and I put their little coop nest boxes side by side on the left behind the main coop.

The girls didn’t seem bothered at all by our works today in fact at times they were very nosey about what we were doing.

The plan is that when the new full height chicken shed is in place it will have a ladder of perches that we hope will be high enough to entice the girls to roost. We will take out the old coop and the current high perches and hope that the girls will then put themselves to bed instead of me lifting them from the perch to the coop each night.

We will take the automatic door closer from the current coop and fit it to the new pop hole which is going to be cut for us. I will be able to enter the chicken shed through the full size door for cleaning and there will be ventilation and an opening window which we will put weld mesh behind.  We are going to line the floor with lino to make cleaning easy. Being able to enter will also allow me to asses the temperature in the chicken shed.

That’s the plan and it is just a matter of time to see if the chickens do what I want them to do.

This afternoon all the girls were having a dust bath. It was another hot afternoon and the girls were all evenly spaced out in their individual dust baths except for these two. These two are never far apart.

Peaches and Barley in thier dust bath

I just love how together this pair are.

Today was hot again although not as hot as it was a few days ago. I decided to give the girls some frozen peas again, to cool them, but as they didn’t seem to like the water bath I hit on the idea of just giving them in two dishes of water.

My big girls used to stand in the water bath but my little girls have no intention of getting their feet wet. The peas in dishes went down much better.

Two dishes of peas in water

Topaz gets a pea

Emerald gets one

Toffee gets one

The peas are going down well

I like this idea because as well as cool peas they get a bit of cold water at the same time. They seem to really enjoy this and I am sure it must be refreshing for them.

A few days ago we had a couple of over ripe bananas that had been forgotten and I thought  that I would see if the girls would like them. I knew that my previous big girls didn’t like them but I hadn’t ever tried them with my current flock.

I know “Flock Mistress” has a girl that loves banana.

Well it was pretty conclusive that they didn’t like them at all and Topaz reacted as if I was trying to poison her.

Barley and Peaches take a cautious look

These two are always the bravest and were the first to have a little peck.

Honey also had a cautious peck

Toffee gave her alarm sound when she first saw them but after the other girls had a peck she had a peck too

I added some familiar apple as encouragement and the apple was much preferred

Toffee as usual had been brooding in the nest box but came out to see what the fuss was about.

Topaz tried a peck of banana

All the girls took one peck then did a lot of scraping their beaks on the patio and didn’t return to have any more. They clearly didn’t like the texture.

Topaz was funniest though. She had one big peck then scraped her beak on the patio in a frenzy. She then shook her head vigorously then scraped her beak, shook her head, scraped her beak and shook her head again. She then glared at me as if to ask what on earth I was trying to do to her.

For a moment I thought she was having an allergic reaction. She was not a happy girl and took herself back to the nest box in disgust.

At the end of the afternoon I removed the offending bits of banana. They hadn’t been pecked again and the apple was all gone.

I think the message is clear. My girls do NOT like banana!

We are having a heat wave at the moment. Today the temperature was 34 C – 93 F. This is the hottest day in twelve years and the hottest July day on record.

It is also the first day that I have seen signs of my current girls feeling the heat. First it was Emerald lifting her wings and gaping then a little later it was Toffee. I think Emerald feels the heat more because of her black feathers but the game girls seem to feel the heat more than the other girls as they were the only ones showing any signs.

I set about trying to cool the girls down. I offered them some frozen peas in a water bath. This gives them the cooling peas, cool water as they take the peas and the opportunity to cool their feet if they stand in the bath. Well they were having none of that. No one was brave enough to stand in the water.

Only Honey has seen the peas in a water bath before and I would swear she remembered. I didn’t use it last year so it would have been the year before but she was the only one to go straight to it and start plucking peas from the water.

Honey is first to take a look

Honey is first to take a pea, does she remember!

Emerald takes a pea

Toffee, Peaches and Barley join in

They are getting the hang of it but Topaz is having none of it, you can see her in the background on the left of the photo

Once they had had enough of fishing for the peas I decided to empty the water and peas under the table in the shade.

This gave Topaz a chance to have some cool peas and some cool damp soil under her feet

I poured some water over the table and sprayed the bush above with water then poured water over some of the perches.

Emerald and Topaz went to the table but they will stand facing the bush

Barley joins Emerald on the table

The table is quick to dry out but I wet it several times again during the afternoon.

I also wet the patio area. I thought this would help keep it cool but an added bonus for the girls was that it turned any spilled pellets to mash.

The girls can cool their feet while having some unexpected mash

Peaches joins in for some mash

When Emerald and Toffee were looking at their hottest I lightly sprayed them with water. I don’t think they liked me doing this but I felt it would help cool them.

I gave the girls melon and grapes from the fridge to help cool and hydrate them. I shall keep doing all these things throughout the hot spell.

I also let the girls sleep out last night as last night was the first night forecast to have a high temperature. I will let them sleep out until this hot spell ends. They have their high perches over the patio area and the run is predator proof.

When we have the new shed for them I will be able to walk in and assess the temperature plus I will be able to leave the window open and even the door too if it’s hot. This project begins next week.

This hot weather is only forecast to last for about  week. I know lots of countries have these high temperatures and more but for the U.K. this is unusual. I will continue to do all I can to keep the girls cool and happy.

Honey hadn’t laid an egg for two weeks and I thought she was about to moult but she sat in the nest box most days anyway. Then for the second time recently I found her egg in the run. It was extra long for her and she then went and sat in the nest box again. She never seems to know when she has laid.

Honey’s egg is in the middle between Peaches and Barley’s egg

I wondered if it would be a double yolk. I broke it into a dish this morning with Peaches egg.

Honey’s egg is on the right

It wasn’t a double yolk just an egg that was a bit bigger than usual. Well done Honey. Look at their beautiful colour. We had the eggs for breakfast and they were lovely as usual.