Carol's Chickens

I am feeling elated. Four nights and we have totally cracked it. We went up to the girls before our evening meal at seven o’clock and were surprised to find no girls in the run.

The girls had all gone in on their own

Peaches and Barley were together on the top rung of the ladder and the rest of the girls were on the high shelf

When I checked back after dinner at half past seven they were all on the high shelf

Later again, eight o’clock, they were still on the high shelf but some of the girls were now standing up and the order had changed

I really don’t care what order, where they choose to sit or if they sit or stand, the thing is they are all in. I am so absolutely pleased, no blown away, that they are going in on their own so soon. Evening four and they are going in on their own, it’s better than I had imagined. I call this a success and all now worthwhile. I am just so elated that I have no further words.

At last, all is good in the chicken coop and long may it be so!

We went up to the girls after our evening meal as usual, which was about half past seven. We were surprised to see that only Peaches was out in the run.

Five out of six girls went in to the shed on their own and all chose the new higher perch

We checked a little later and they had repositioned

Peaches was wandering around the run completely oblivious to the fact that all the other girls had gone in. She went to the food then went to the water then wandered off again. We decided that it was probably time to direct her towards the shed.

Peaches looked so confused, you could almost read her mind saying, where is every body!

I decided to direct her to the pop hole.

Peaches takes her place next to Barley

I am actually really thrilled that by day three we have progressed so much. I think if I had left it until a little later Peaches would probably have made her own way in. I also think that now the girls have seen the higher perch they will be even happier to go in tomorrow on their own.

I was worried that training them to go in on their own may take a very long time and yet in three days we seem to be there already. I am feeling very positive and really feel that we have finally achieved what we wanted.

We now have a lovely area at the top of our garden and have the perfect chicken shed that the girls are actually happy to go in on their own. We are feeling really happy tonight.

We thought another high perch in the chicken shed would ease the battle to get to the top rung and make the girls more likely to want to go in at night. We now feel the chicken shed is finished.

There is now a new perching shelf across the back of the chicken shed

My husband has added a strut to hold the ladder perches up when I am cleaning the shed

The door now has a hook to hold it open instead of propping it open with a broom

My husband used a ring for the hook which he already had then decided as a bit of fun he would add a door knocker which must have come from a past door and was in his box of things that may come in useful one day.

How posh is our girl’s door!

Our next door neighbour is having our old shed and came round today to take it apart

The roof is off

We pass the parts of the shed over the wall

It’s almost gone

The old garden shed is gone

The patio area is cleaned up

This will now be a lovely area to sit on and we will eventually get some patio furniture for this area

The store cabinet is now full of kindling from the old coop

We have pretty much recycled everything. The new top of the storage cabinet is made from the floor of the coop then topped with the felt left over from the new shed roofs. All left over wood has been made into kindling which will see us through the winter.

We have spent three days “shedding” as my husband calls it and we think we are pretty much done now. It’s been exhausting but gives us a real sense of achievement.

It just remains to be seen now if the girls go in tonight. I am quite hopeful.

Having emptied the chicken patio we decided to make some changes. I have had the wooden storage cabinet for three years and it doesn’t owe me anything. My husband thought I would be better off with a plastic storage cabinet that would be easy to keep to clean.

He decided that my wooden cabinet would make a good log and kindling store and could be kept behind the chicken shed with my chicken bin and the compost bin.

He had seen a storage cabinet that he thought would be good for me so we went to look at it yesterday. It was perfect as it also had the advantage of being so tall that the girls wouldn’t be able to perch on top of it. It came flat packed.

My new storage cabinet

My husband assembles the cabinet

My new storage cabinet is in position

My storage cabinet is filled

I love how nosey Peaches and Barley are. They also look so small against the height of my new cabinet. I have decided to keep the little coop nest boxes on the patio for now as there is plenty of room for them, they are to the right of the cabinet and Peaches, Barley and Honey are still laying their eggs in them.

Everything is now back in the big shed

The chest freezer is on the left, the hot boxes on the right and my husband has shortened the shelves from the old shed and put them in on the right hand side.

The shelves are recycled and filled

There will probably be lots of fine tuning but everything is in for now.

Behind the chicken shed

Behind the chicken shed there is space to store some things out of sight. There is my old storage cabinet, now a log store, the dog/chicken crate is hanging above it then there is the compost and chicken bin.

At bedtime the girls were beginning to get the hang of where to go.

As dusk approached Toffee and Emerald started looking in the new shed

Toffee tries out the ladder while Emerald watches

Emerald bags the top perch

We have four girls in

Toffee is on the move

They are in position

We were actually really pleased with how last night went. We didn’t use any seeds and they started thinking about going in by themselves. I think because the door was open, after some of the girls went in, others would have a change mind and pop out again. In the end we herded them in again and shut the door.

Tonight we will keep the door shut and even if we have to herd them still, they will learn to go through the pop hole. I think once they do this they will start to go in on their own and stay in.

We also thought we would put another perch or a shelf up that is higher than the top rung as they all want to be on the top rung. Once again it is Toffee and Honey that can’t keep a position at the top.

This morning when they came out all was normal and the shavings hadn’t been scratched out. I think the novelty has worn off which is good because it is much tidier. Overall I am really pleased with the progress and feel that it won’t be long before they are going in on their own.

At seven o’clock yesterday morning our two new sheds arrived.

The parts for our two sheds arrive

The sheds start being put together

The chicken shed

The big shed is complete

Inside the big shed

The chicken shed

We had a pop hole cut into the chicken shed ready to fit our automatic door closer to. We needed to do a bit of work to the chicken shed to get it ready for the girls. We got the guys to cut the top of the door off as the door wouldn’t open because of the concrete base raising the door above the chicken run.

My husband then clad it with strips of wood to neaten it and to leave a slot for ventilation.

The chicken shed is in place

You can see the ventilation slot above the door which I have made mouse proof with fine weld mesh. My husband made a fence of slats to the left of the shed as we have left a concrete path all the way round both sheds to allow us to check them and maintain them.

The automatic door closer is on and the ladder perches are in place

Barley was intrigued and was the first to try the new ladder perches

We used the four perches from the coop.

I have made the ventilation at the top, back, of the shed mouse proof

I have made the window safe

The window now opens outwards

We changed the window to open outwards so that I could clad the inside with fine weld mesh and keep everything mouse proof but leave as much ventilation as possible. I can either shut the window in winter or leave it open a little or in summer leave it wide open.

The girls investigate

They check out the inside

The ladder is attached to the shed by a hinge and I can lift it up and hook it to the top of the shed when I need to clean in here.

We then removed everything from the patio area. We took the coop to bits and removed the high perches, coop, store cabinet, little coop nest boxes and my boot shelf and box. We wanted to leave no where for the girls to go but in the new shed.

We knew we needed to start the difficult process of training the girls to go in by themselves. We threw some sunflower hearts in the shed to encourage the girls to go in and investigate and propped open the door to make it easier to get them in.

We prop open the door to encourage them to go in

We had already put a strategy in place. We knew that I must not pick them up and put them in or we could be back to them depending on me to put them to bed each night. We decided to herd them in instead.

They started looking confused and looking up for somewhere to perch. They headed to the table in the run. We turned it over and used it to block the run extension which has other perches and closed the gate to the area with the other table. They perched on the table legs.

We need to find somewhere to perch

We made a barrier from a few bits of the coop nailed together and let them get on the  chicken shed side of it with a few seeds. Then like police with riot shields we gradually moved forward towards the shed making their space smaller and smaller. When they had no where else to go they had to go in the shed. We quickly closed the door and the pop hole.

All in bed and an empty patio

Bedtime

I looked in and they were settled on the top rungs of the ladder. I returned after dark to connect the pop hole again so that it would open automatically in the morning.

This morning I couldn’t hear them or see them in the run at six o’clock from our bedroom window and wondered if for some reason the door hadn’t opened. I went out to check.

This morning

Toffee is the main culprit

This was why I didn’t see or hear them. They were like children with a new toy. They were busy scratching the shavings out onto the patio.

They have spent all morning playing in the new shed and scratching in the shavings. In hind sight I probably put in too thick a layer. I hope eventually the novelty wears off and they won’t make such a mess.

We also hope that as they have spent a lot of time in there today they will know that that is where they need to go this evening. If it takes several nights of using the riot shields to herd them in we will stick with that until we train them to go in. After all the work and money spent we are determined to make this work.

It must be so much nicer for the girls to have a large airy shed with high perches instead of the coop which they obviously didn’t like.

It will be interesting to see how this evening goes.

I decided to give the girls a treat of some fish to boost their protein a little as Toffee and Emerald are still growing feathers back in after their moult. Emerald looks pretty much back to normal and Toffee’s tail has grown back in but she is still dropping feathers. She is looking good though.

Two dishes of fish

The right hand dish seems most popular to start with. See Toffee’s tail, right hand foreground, back to it’s normal length. Also note that Peaches and Barley are as close together as always.

A well received treat

It’s musical fish dishes

I love the way they all, in turn, circle around as if another position may be a bit better. The fish only lasted a few minutes. I think we can safely say they enjoyed their treat.

After a hot and dry spell we have had rain for the last few days. There is nothing like the rain to bring our resident toad out onto the path.

Last night I went out just before dusk to put the chooks to bed and our toad was out on the path once more.

Look at how well camouflaged our toad is on the path

Close up of our toad

Toad climbs over the strip of wood and disappears into the garden once more

He never seems to be in a hurry and just casually makes his way back into the undergrowth. I always feel quite privileged to see him.

After all the works going on this week I thought I would reflect on the garden which has been a bit ignored lately.

The rambling rose by the chicken run is now in full flower

The delphiniums are lovely

Another pretty climbing rose

A standard rose that was one of my 50th birthday presents, five years ago

Hop plant

There is a lovely wall of colour at the moment from the roses up to the hop plant. I think it is fair to say that it has been a good year for the roses.

Today I took a walk along the public footpath at the back of our property to see what our boundary fence looks like from the other side. I was a bit concerned by how high the bank is behind us meaning that the fence from that side isn’t very high.

I was a bit worried that it would be quite easy for an intruder to climb over the fence on to what will be our flat shed roof and drop down into our property.

Our boundary fence from the other side

Close up view of our fence

It was the right decision to have three concrete gravel boards but I am concerned that a seven foot fence on our side is only about four and half feet on the other side.

We have decided to get some anti climb paint for the top of the fence which is apparently very sticky and off putting to would be intruders and then top this with some security spikes. Our priority is to keep our property secure.

The guys came back and took away the wooden planks from the edge of the concrete today and revealed the neat edge of the gravel board.

The new edge is revealed

The concrete in the chicken run has also been uncovered and I won’t be putting the brick edging back as it will be much easier to sweep clean the smooth edge.

A smooth edge will be easy to sweep

Bit by bit everything is being improved and we just can’t wait for the sheds to arrive now.

Yesterday I was surprised to receive a card through the post. It’s not my birthday or any sort of occasion. This was the card.

It says – forget me not –

Inside it says – With sympathy for the loss of Sparkle – From all the staff at Vets 4 Pets Slough

I was quite surprised and touched, although my husband said he would prefer that they just charged us less! It is rather sweet though.