Carol's Chickens

Emerald and Toffee have been heavily moulting for weeks now but most of the other girls look ragged and ready for moulting with odd feathers starting to come out.

Emerald has quills on her neck

Emerald is scruffy and still losing feathers but you can see the white quills on her neck.

Toffee’s tail is growing

Toffee’s tail is growing back quite quickly and she isn’t so scruffy but also has quills on her neck.

Amber’s comb is healing

Amber’s tail feathers are very ragged.

Honey’s comb is large and she doesn’t actually look too bad apart from the bare patches on her head

Sparkle looks really good

Sparkle looks really good apart from her bare bottom but I have found long wing feathers in the run so she is starting to drop feathers.

Topaz looks good

Topaz looks the best of all but I have found an odd feather of hers and she is still not laying.

Peaches and Barley are always together

Peaches is getting quite brave

If I am still Peaches will come right up to me but it has to be on her terms. If I move towards her she will run away. Sometimes when I am cleaning up and she is on the table my husband says it looks as if she is going to tweak my hair.

I am finding feathers from the chicks too as they go through a partial moult while getting their grown up feathers in.

Amber plays dead in a dust bath

In the afternoon all the girls have a dust bath but seeing Amber like this I can understand how new chicken keepers think they have a dying chook. Amber plays a pretty good dead chicken and my husband said she looks just like road kill.

I am looking forward to my flock looking beautiful again after the moult and to having more eggs too.

And on a completely different subject, we have never grown these before, but they are looking great.

Radicchio lettuce

I don’t know what they will taste like but they are looking good.

Yesterday Amber and Honey continued to stay out of each others way. For the very first time when I took in some spinach Honey chased Amber away. I have never seen Amber run from Honey before she usually gives Honey a warning peck over the treats.

Maybe Honey really has moved up the pecking order. I wonder if it will last but she has certainly won this battle.

Amber’s pecked comb

Now that the blood has dried you can see a row of peck marks on Amber’s comb. Her comb had been looking so good recently and now it’s battered again. I feel so sorry for her.

As the day went on Amber continued to stay out of Honey’s way. I have never seen this with these two before. At bedtime the line up was exactly the same as the night before. Amber and Honey were on separate perches and Emerald joined the girls on the perches again.

The bedtime line up

It seems that this time Amber and Honey’s battle has really changed things between them.

Amber and Honey have been together on the farm where they were hatched, from chicks. They have been together with us for a year and a half. Ever since they have been with us they have had little spats between themselves every now and again.

None of our other girls have done this outside of when they were chicks doing the chest thumping, ruff raising, running at each other to establish their pecking order. Amber and Honey are best friends ninety percent of the time and are inseparable but every now again they have a battle.

It used to be ruff raising and jumping at each other but recently it has become more aggressive with pecking to each others comb and face and drawing blood.

If I see this happening I try to stop it by water spraying or picking one of them up and holding them for a while but sometimes it happens when I am not there.

It was six weeks ago that it last happened and Amber got pecked on the face and we think it got infected as it swelled up. She has been fully back to normal for two weeks now.

Yesterday afternoon I heard a lot of commotion with the whole flock shouting. When I investigated I found that once again Amber’s face and comb had been pecked and was bleeding.

Honey had a little blood on her comb but Amber’s was very much worse. It was obvious that they had had another spat. They were very vocal especially Amber. Usually they are sitting together again half an hour later but this seemed to be a real falling out. If Honey got any where near Amber she would be very vocal and they stayed well clear of each other for the rest of the afternoon.

Amber’s bloodied comb

The other side of Amber’s face

Honey’s face seems fine

Amber continued to complain all afternoon and at bedtime Amber and Honey were perched separately. Usually they sit next to each other or at least close to each other. Last night they were on different perches and even facing the opposite way.

The other surprise was that Emerald left the shoe box and joined the girls on the perch.

Another change to the bedtime line up

From left to right we have Amber, Toffee, Emerald, Topaz and Sparkle then on the other perch Honey, Peaches and Barley. Emerald is actually on my little chair at this point but she later moved across to the perch.

This really does look like a bit of a sulk going on here. I had earlier considered separating them but soon decided that wouldn’t work. They are together happily most of the time and I wouldn’t be able to tell when this would be likely to happen again. After being together for a year and a half I decided they just have to work it out themselves. They are numbers three and four in a pecking order of eight so I really don’t know why they are doing this.

Amber always comes off worse and yet so far has always maintained her position above Honey. They were once the bottom two so I wonder if because Honey was bottom girl and is now near the top she is trying to move further up. Amber has always been feisty and will not give way.

Early this morning when I was doing my first clean up of the day Amber and Honey suddenly started again. They were hanging on to each other but before I could move to intervene Topaz grabbed Amber and broke it up. Good top hen Topaz.

Amber ran off to the furthest corner of the run under the ladder and stayed there. Honey casually moved over to the big bush.

All the while I cleaned up the run Amber stayed in her corner. I did an inspection of her face now that the blood had dried up and saw that she had five little peck marks to her comb.

A little later I looked out of the window and Amber was still tucked into the same corner of the run. I think her feelings have been hurt.

A little later again I went back in and they were all back to normal apart from the fact that Amber and Honey were not together. This is their biggest falling out yet. I will be watching to see if the pecking order remains the same.

Peaches and Barley have been with us for five weeks although it’s hard to imagine them ever not being part of my flock now. They are now eleven weeks old and going through what I think of as the teenage stage. Their comb and wattles have grown, they have long legs and they are catching up in size with the grown up girls.

They are not easy to get close up photos of so I decided to take some at bedtime. The bedtime line up has changed slightly. A few nights ago Sparkle decided to perch on the big perch instead of sitting on the top of the cabinet. The next night Topaz joined her on the big perch and for the last three nights they have settled there.

This makes it easier for Peaches and Barley as they can take their time moving from the cabinet to the perch without Sparkle chasing them off.

Peaches and Barley go to the cabinet at bedtime

A very scruffy Emerald is in her usual bedtime position

Emerald has been moulting heavily and is looking very scruffy. When she stretches her neck she has loads of quills coming through.

The new bedtime line up

Peaches and Barley are getting ready to join Toffee on the perch

I love the way Toffee looks down at them. Toffee is also moulting but doesn’t look so tattered despite losing her tail. She also shows a neck full of quills when she stretches.

Even the chicks are losing feathers getting ready for their adult feathers to replace the baby ones.

They are on the bedtime perch

They settle down onto the perch

Their combs have grown and they had no wattles at all when we first had them but now they are quite big.

They settle next to Toffee as she never bothers them

Bedtime can be a bit like a chess game for the chicks. They have to position themselves next to Toffee as she never takes any notice of them. Sparkle, Honey and Amber all chase them away. Topaz also doesn’t bother them but always perches near Sparkle, Honey and Amber who also chase Toffee away. This means it always end up with Toffee, Peaches and Barley together.

I am always pleased when they have chosen their positions as I know they will then settle without any more chasing.

There are a few changes happening among the girls at the moment. Toffee and Emerald are in the full swing of their moult. I pick up a handful of feathers every morning. Yesterday Toffee lost her last single remaining tail feather.

Toffee has lost her tail

I think the girls always look quite cute without a tail.

Emerald is looking a bit shabby

Emerald hasn’t much of a tail either and her feathers are so loose that any sudden movement sends some feathers fluttering from her.

Topaz continues to sit in the nest box for a little while most days and often shouts upon leaving but when I check there is no egg. This is a mystery.

Topaz does this most days

Sparkle always looks full of attitude

Sparkle remains our best egg layer at the moment and is laying most days. Her eggs are tiny compared to Honey’s but she is a year younger so they may get a bit bigger in time.

This is a favourite spot of the chicks and if they are chased this is where they usually go. Emerald is the one who chases them because being bottom girl, she doesn’t want to slide further down the pecking order. I think she is also grumpy because of her moult.

The chicks love the table

They are growing so fast and we have now noticed their wattles growing as well as their combs.

Honey

Honey is looking good and her head feathers are almost back in with just one little gap.

Amber looks great

Amber may look a bit shabby to most people but to us she looks really good. Although she has a bare neck her head feathers have grown back in. Her face is back to normal and her comb is not only red but it seems to have grown. This is the best Amber has looked for ages.

With Amber’s return to good health comes the dreaded return to egg laying. She isn’t looking as unwell as she used to though. Yesterday I knew she was getting ready to lay her next egg as she becomes a lot more vocal.

In the afternoon she sat in the nest box for about an hour. I thought this was a good sign and might have meant her actually laying an egg in the nest box. She didn’t though. She came out without laying her egg.

At bedtime as all the girls settled on the high perches I thought Amber looked near to laying. She had her penguin like stance for a little while but then sat down and dozed.

I have been covering the little coops (nest boxes) with newspaper overnight while the girls are sleeping above them as they were getting splattered on.

This morning when I went in to clean them up there was Ambers broken egg on the newspaper. As always the shell was like paper. I think she must have laid it at first light from the perch.

Today she is looking her usual self again. It is hopeful that she isn’t looking as unwell as she used too and hopefully she will continue that way.

It’s impossible to photograph the whole of our run as it has grown so big but I thought I would photograph it in sections and try to give a better feel to it.

The patio area

The patio area is the dry and sheltered area. It has fence panels on both sides, a wooden shed at the back, a concrete base and a plastic corrugated roof over a double layer of chicken wire. It has a concrete path outside too.

It houses the coop, two extra nest boxes, my store cabinet and the feeding station. This means everything here can be kept dry and any spilled (or flicked out) food can easily be swept up.

Store cabinet

The store cabinet houses all my chicken supplies. This means everything is conveniently in one place and close at hand. I keep food, bedding, cleaning products and brushes, treats and medications, spare dishes and in fact everything I need for the girls is in this cabinet and boy do they know that this is where the treats are!

This patio area is six feet wide and it’s where my entrance gate is which is double locked when I am not around and has a child gate inside to stop the girls getting caught by the gate.

The original garden area

This is what was the original garden area of the run and has an apple tree on the left side and a huge hypericum bush on the right hand side. It can be divided by closing the gate and shutting down the chicken wire gap at the patio end.

It has double chicken wire over the top and plastic panels underneath that can be opened in fine weather and closed when wet. The weld mesh goes down a couple of feet underground and there are a layer of horizontal tiles in a trench inside that to stop anything digging in plus a concrete path on the left hand side and a decking area on the the other side of the right hand hand fence.

This part of the run is fifteen feet wide.

This is the view from the other direction

Extended garden area

This is the newest extended part of the run which can also be closed off in two halves if needed. It also has double chicken wire or weld mesh overhead and plastic roof panels which can be opened and closed as needed.

It also has weld mesh dug down and a trench was dug out and horizontal tiles laid in plus a concrete path outside on one side and some thick wooden beams outside on the other sides.

There are perches and shrubs and a rose too and this part of the run is eight feet wide.

The complete length of the run is forty two feet long and it’s height is eight feet.

The hatch linking the old and new part of the run

The run can be separated into either two or three parts if needed by two gates and this hatch. This is useful for integrations.

I had considered taking down the dividing chicken wire partition but then thought leaving it up with openings each end allows the girls to escape when chased and gives them all more exercise. I decided there wasn’t really any advantage to removing it.

My son said it was more like a zoo adventure playground than a chicken run which I take as a compliment as this was what I wanted to achieve. There are lots of high perches, shrubs, logs, a ladder and a tree, all things the girls like to shelter under or perch on.

It is a safe environment for the girls with plenty of space and plenty of interest for them. My girls seem very happy in their run and as long as they are happy I am happy.

This weekend we had my eldest son, Steve and his lovely bride to be in three weeks time, to stay for part of the weekend.

It was the first time they had seen the newest girls, Toffee and Emerald, and Peaches and Barley as they live in Cambridge and with wedding plans on the go haven’t had time to come down recently. It was also the first time they had seen the run since it’s been extended.

They said that my photos don’t do it justice and the newest girls were all more attractive than the photos show and the run is bigger and more interesting than the photos show.

That’s probably because it’s impossible to photograph the whole run with my, quite basic, camera and lack of skills.

Steve did say that I should leave the roof panels open when it rains as the run had got very dry during the hot weather and that I should also probably add some top soil. With constant poop picking the level of the soil had gone down quite a bit.

I took this on board and decided to leave the roof panels open last night when usually I would close them overnight.

We woke up at five o’clock to an almighty storm with crashes of thunder and heavy rain. At six o’clock I couldn’t hold back any longer and went out to close the panels. There was a lot of water.

The thunder and rain continued for three and a half hours. I have never known thunder go on so long but we are in a valley so we think the storm was trapped.

However as it is so hot at the moment that the run had dried out again by lunch time. On my way home before lunch I called in at a garden centre and they had five and a half litre bags of topsoil on offer at three bags for twelve pounds so I decided to buy them.

I tried lifting them and soon realised that I couldn’t manage. I got someone at the garden centre to put them in my van for me.

Back home my husband and I managed between us to get them on the sack truck and pull them one at a time to the top of the garden.

We got them into the run and emptied them. No wonder they were so heavy as the first bag of soil was damp but the next two were really wet.

I was going to spread the soil but my husband said we should leave it in heaps and let the girls have the fun of spreading it.

Some top soil for the run

The girls scratch around in it

It is soon spread out

I think it was probably a bit disappointing as there were no bugs in it so we dug up the soil and wood chip that has been scratched outside of the run and dumped that on top of the top soil.

This gave out to a frenzy of happy scratching and pecking and soon all the soil had been levelled for us. This also means the surface is damp for now which should be good for scratching in and help keep it cooler.

I think the girls appreciated it.

The bedtime line up is exactly the same every night. I always know where the girls are going to end up. They are such creatures of habit and have perfected their bedtime positions and now they stick to those positions every night.

Emerald in her bedtime position

Topaz and Sparkle in their bedtime position

Amber, Honey and Toffee in their bedtime position

Peaches and Barley in their position

This is the complete bedtime picture

I think there are reasons behind some of the choices. Emerald is bottom girl and the others don’t let her roost with them so she settled on the shoe box as it’s out of their way. it has now become her spot and she is always the first to roost in the evening and always goes straight the shoe box and never leaves it again. She always stands for a while before eventually sitting down. This may be because it’s so hot at the moment.

Some of the girls take up their places but come down again for a last top up of food and water and then return but never Emerald.

Toffee is usually next up and always quick to dose on her perch. Topaz and Sparkle are next and I think being heavier birds they prefer the flat surface of the cabinet. They occasionally used to try the perch but looked uncomfortable getting up and down from it and soon returned to the cabinet. They now just go straight to there.

Amber is next up followed a little later by Honey and they always sit together. Toffee, Honey and Amber seem to prefer the narrower perch.

Peaches and Barley are always last up. I think they enjoy being able to potter around on their own and being able to top up with food without competition. I think they like this perch because it’s away from the rest of the girls and they always sit together.

I once moved Peaches because she was looking stressed because she couldn’t get past the other girls to get to Barley. Once I put her next to Barley she settled happily. Since then they have always managed to get perched together, perhaps another reason they settle later.

This same routine takes place like clockwork every evening.

I have a flock of eight bantams in pairs of four breeds. I will give some information of each breed in the order that I got them.

Bantam vorwerks

I got my two bantam vorweks, Amber and Honey, in April 2013.

The vorwerks are a breed of chicken originating in Germany. A rare fowl, it has distinctive black and gold plumage with black head and tail and gold body.

In 1900 a poultry breeder called Oskar Vorwek began to create a medium sized fowl. It is said that he liked this plumage as it didn’t show the dirt. The chicks start off with the plumage colours in reverse.

In 1966 an American man called Wilmer Vorwerk developed an interest in the breed and he created the bantam version. This version is now the recognised version in America.

They are good layers of cream coloured eggs. They are hardy, adaptable, alert and active. They have a single comb and white earlobes.

Honey and Amber

This is Honey on the left and Amber on the right. I have chosen descriptive names for all my girls and these two were named for their gold colour.

They are friendly and inquisitive characters. If I crouch down they come running to me. If I am cleaning the coop they are there inside the coop watching my every move and chatting away to me.

They do have little spats with each other every now and again despite being inseparable most of the time.

As for the good egg laying, well Honey is a reasonably good egg layer, laying four or five eggs a week but Amber has never been good at laying eggs. She has had a real problem with egg laying right from the start and only ever laid two or three eggs a week at most and often soft shelled despite giving her limestone flour, crushed egg shells and cod liver oil. I have always felt that there is something wrong with her egg making machinery.

I am sure this isn’t typical of the breed though as I have always felt that Amber was sort of like the runt of the litter. She is noticeably smaller than Honey.

Amber is a feisty girl though and above Honey in the pecking order. She is full of chat and character.

Bantam silver and gold laced wyndottes

The wyndotte is named from a native tribe in New York State. It is one of the original American breeds developed in the 1800’s along with domeniques, plymouth rocks and rhode island reds.

The original wyndotte was the silver laced variety developed in New York in 1865. There are numerous different colours now.

Bantam wyndottes are docile, hardy and good egg layers. They have a flat rose comb and sturdy legs.

Topaz the top girl

Sparkle the second in command

Topaz and Sparkle are also named for their looks and are top girl and second girl in the pecking order.

We got them at the beginning of April 2014 and they very quickly settled in and established their top status.

Topaz is a good top hen because she doesn’t stand any nonsense and none of the girls ever contest her but at the same time she never bullies.

Sparkle laid from her very first day with us and has remained our best layer since. She lays an average of five eggs a week.

Topaz on the other hand didn’t lay until three months later and after laying three eggs over a two week period stopped altogether. I have no idea why she isn’t laying. She is happy and healthy with a red comb and not moulting so it’s a bit of a mystery.

Topaz is at the moment our loudest girl. She shouts every time any of the girls goes into the nest box as well shouting on occasions when she herself has been in the nest box but not laid an egg.

Sparkle preens all the time. I know they all preen a lot but Sparkle preens much more than the others.

They don’t run to me when I stoop down like Amber and Honey but they are completely confident with me and will allow to me to touch them or get right up close to them. They take no notice of me moving around them and if they are in my way and I go to gently move them aside they will lean into me.

Bantam game

There are many varieties of bantam game birds and they come in many colours.

They are curious birds and can be tamed. They are not good layers and can tend to be broody. They make good mothers.

Toffee

Emerald

I got these girls at the beginning of June 2014 and they settled into the flock within a few days which was my quickest integration yet.

They went in at the bottom of the pecking order with Emerald at the bottom.

Toffee has partridge markings while Emerald has a glossy green and purple sheen to her feathers which is why I called her Emerald. She has some silky mixed in her background which gives her the feathers on her legs. Emerald has the tiniest comb I have ever seen and no lobes, this apparently is typical of her breed.

These breeds have long necks and are almost bottle shaped with their round shoulders. They have very prominent crops too. They seem able to bring their neck in and then when they want to they stretch it out.

Toffee is the most shy of my girls and doesn’t like us to get too close to her. Emerald on the other hand is like Amber and Honey and will run to us if we stoop down. She is the easiest girl to pick up.

Emerald is also very inquisitive and always wants to see what I am doing. When I open the store cabinet she will jump from the coop roof to the top of the store cabinet then put her head in looking at the sunflower seed box. She is an entertaining girl.

Emerald stretching her neck towards the sunflower seed tub

Both these girls had been used as broodies for the farmer and Emerald laid one egg on her second day with us and then started to moult. Toffee started laying three weeks later (which is the usual time span after being broody) and laid five eggs in ten days then started moulting.

It is also usual for them to go into the moult after being broody. There have been masses of feathers from both these girls and yet they still look good. I think the new feathers must already be through by the time the old ones fall out.

I am hopeful that if these girls moult at different times I may then still get some eggs when the other girls are moulting.

Bantam brown leghorns

They originated in Italy and the white variety first reached Britain from America around 1870 and the brown followed a couple of years later.

They are a very sprightly and alert breed. They have a single floppy comb and long, feather free legs.

They are prolific egg layers and rarely go broody. The eggs are white and laid throughout the year.

They can be rather noisy and like to roost high. They will roost in the top of trees given the chance.

Peaches and Barley

I got Peaches and Barley in June 2014 at six weeks old. I named them for their peach coloured breasts.

I was going to integrate them slowly because of their young age but by the third week they kept digging under their gate to join the main flock. I decided that as they were desperate to join the flock that I would let them and to my surprise there was no trouble at all.

They are very speedy and if the girls ran at them they would soon get out of the way and never actually got pecked at all.

They do like to perch up high and from their first night they would find the highest spot to roost.

At ten months old they still have their baby cheeping sound and they are cheeping all the time. I am not sure if this is just because they are chicks or if they will turn out to be noisy. We will have to wait and see.

They were very skittish at first but are now getting braver around me and braver around the rest of the flock. They are growing fast and have long legs and big feet for their size. Their comb is also growing quickly.

They should start laying around November to December. It will be good to have two good egg layers as the rest of the flock aren’t very good egg layers apart from Sparkle and her eggs are very small.

I will do an update on Peaches and Barley when they are fully grown and laying eggs and I will add a portrait of them as adults.

I love this diverse flock and they all get on happily together which is lovely to see.

Amber has been improving day by day. Her swollen face was returning back to normal and her feathers were growing back in. Her face and comb were red again.

I know that pin feathers are very tempting to the girls and sometimes get pulled out. When the girls moult as Emerald and Toffee are at the moment the new pin feathers push the old feathers out. This means that by the time the old feathers have fallen out the new ones are already in underneath and they never actually have bare patches.

Because Amber was plucked it is rather different and the pin feathers are on show and are a temptation. My husband saw Honey attempt to take a pin feather from Amber’s neck but Amber pecked Honey twice on the comb and Honey backed off. This was a good sign I thought.

But then there was a change that I have been dreading. Amber had become much more vocal over the last few days, her comb was bright red and she was looking in the nest box. I knew she was ready to start laying again.

I dreaded it because this is always the cause of a problem for Amber and I have been enjoying her good health while not laying.

Sure enough she went into her usual decline and looked unwell for a day which I knew meant an egg was coming. The awful part of this story is that while unwell and vulnerable she no longer resisted Honey and very quickly her neck was plucked bare again.

I felt so frustrated as the pin feathers had just started opening, looking like little paddles, so nearly there.

Amber has pin feathers on her neck

This was a few days ago and since then the feathers had started to open.

Amber’s neck is bare again

This is such a shame and she may now have to stay like this until she moults. At least she still has her head feathers though and her face has returned to normal. She actually looks really good now despite her bare neck.

I was a bit panicked about the feather plucking returning but I have been reading that pin feathers can be really tempting to flock mates and hope it’s just the combination of that and Amber being under the weather.

During the bedtime routine as the girls were beginning to take their positions I checked in several times as usual. Amber was on the top of the store cabinet with Topaz and Sparkle.

Then I noticed a broken soft shelled egg on the patio below the store cabinet. I quickly cleaned it up and Amber was instantly back to normal and headed off to the food dish.

Another egg safely passed and everything back to normal for now. I think my next move is to talk to the vet about the possibility of an injection to stop her laying.

While she wasn’t laying she was happy and healthy and even growing feathers but as soon as she starts laying the problems start again. It is such a shame. We were enjoying her not laying. Seeing how well she has been while not laying really makes me consider what our options are to make her life better.