Carol's Chickens

Recently I have been in with the girls during their bedtime routine to observe their habits. I realised that the reason Emerald always roosts on the shoe box is because Honey and Amber don’t allow her on the big perch but she seems happy on the shoe box and now settles there automatically.

Sparkle has always settled on the store cabinet and after a few evenings on the big perch it seemed that Topaz found it tricky getting on and off of it. She decided she she would prefer to settle on the store cabinet with Sparkle and this has now become their habit.

Toffee however really likes to settle on the big perch but Honey and Amber chase her off. I felt so sorry for her as she repeatedly went to the big perch but Honey would march up to her and push her along or peck her leg until she flew down.

This would be repeated until eventually Toffee settled on the cabinet with Sparkle and Topaz.

After a couple of evenings of this I decided we needed another high bedtime perch. I could see Toffee didn’t want to be on the cabinet but she is intimidated by Honey.

Today we put in another perch crossing the right hand corner by the cabinet and I went in before bedtime to observe the girl’s behaviour.

Emerald as always settled on the shoe box and Sparkle and Topaz settled on the cabinet. Toffee soon found the new perch.

The new perch in the right hand corner behind the store cabinet

Toffee on the new perch but she is soon joined by Honey

Toffee gets moved off of the new perch and settles on the original perch

Honey goes over to chase Toffee from the original perch

Eventually Honey and Amber settle on the original perch

Toffee finally gets to settle on the new perch

I went back to check on them an hour later and they were all still in the same positions so I think this has proved successful.

As always the chicks were in their flower pots under their umbrella.

Peaches and Barley in their bedtime positions

They have roosted here every night for the two weeks they have been with us and at dusk I lift them down into their little coop.

Hopefully the new perch will make a happier bedtime for Toffee.

Finding red mite in the coop was a shock. It is said that if the girls are reluctant to roost in the coop or if they look unwell it could be a sign of red mite.

My girls never roost in the coop, I have always had to put them in each night so this was no warning to me. They all look good with red combs apart from Amber and she has her own problems so this didn’t warn me either.

It was only when I cleaned the coop that I discovered the red mite much to my horror. Today I have taken a portrait of each girl to show how healthy they look (apart from Amber).

Amber’s face and comb are so pale that if I was new to this flock I would say  she hasn’t got long to live. Yet she is a tough little cookie and a fighter. Her behaviour is absolutely normal. She eats, drinks, poops, dust baths, scratches around, rushes to the treats and pecks away her lower ranking flock mates. You wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with her apart from being really pale and having a swollen face.

Her face swelled up ten days ago and she also hasn’t laid since this happened which is a relief. I thought her face was getting a little better but it is difficult to tell. She is now able to peck at apple which she couldn’t at first.

Toffee

Emerald

Topaz

Sparkle

Honey

Poor little Amber

This little girl wouldn’t win any beauty prizes. The rest of the flock look really good but Amber has a big spirit and I can only hope she gets back to normal in time.

Honey laid an egg today without looking unwell and it has a hard shell so she seems to be back to normal.

I found a third worm today so I think it was the worms upsetting Honey’s egg laying and as I have only found three in four days it may be possible that it is only Honey who has them. I am half way through treating them with flubenvet and will repeat the treatment again in three weeks time to break the cycle.

Sparkle laid her fifth egg in a row today.

Wednesday is the day for the next treatment to the coop for red mite. I bought more red mite spray today as I don’t want to run out and also bought some poultry housing spray.

It says that when you clean the coop you can spray it with this and it will protect the coop from re-infestation of red mite for several months. If it works that is great news. If I had known about this spray I would have used before and I intend to use it now on a regular basis.

I feel a lot more positive that we are getting on top of all the problems now and the chicks are growing fast and are happy and healthy.

They now sprint towards me when I go up to the run and zip around like crazy. They have found all the high perches in their half of the run and seem able to fly to any hight. It’s a good job we have a very secure top on our run. They constantly make their little cheep cheep sounds and are just adorable.

It will be good to get to the back end of the treatments and be able to start the integration but for now I am going to remain patient and wait until everything is back to normal.

It’s only been a week since we bought the chicks home but I am sure they have grown. Their combs seem bigger too. They are always in the feed dishes and are getting more used to me.

The chicks have grown in a week

Peaches is getting quite brave

If I am still Peaches will come quite close to me now but Barley is still quite skittish. It’s not bad for a week though. They are getting quite used to having the bigger space now that I let them have half the run from morning until a couple of hours before bedtime.

Since I started giving the flubenvet in mash every morning the chicks have cottoned on to this “treat”. They run to greet me along side the main flock and run up towards the patio area as I approach the gate. They love the mash and always finish it.

I treated all the girls last night with the red mite powder as well as sprinkling it in all their dust bath areas. I put the main flock to bed in the dog kennel at half past ten last night and the chicks into their little coop.

I let all the girls out at five o’clock this morning and they all looked good. I think they must have been relieved to get a good nights sleep and I am amazed how well they all look apart from Ambers poor swollen face.

Sparkle laid her egg for the fourth day in a row and they all have red combs apart from Amber. Amber is her normal self in every way apart from her swollen face but it is looking a bit better.

I haven’t found any more worms (only two in total) so think that I may have nipped that in the bud just as it began.

Although there seemed an awful lot of red mite in the coop I know that they breed very quickly. I think perhaps the daily dust baths have helped the girls too but I am amazed how well they all look. They all have bright red combs and those that are laying are still laying and they not showing any sign of being off colour which I am thankful for.

The other mini drama today was when I checked on them after lunch and discovered one of the chicks in with the big girls. It later became apparent that she had squeezed under the gate. The girls would run at her and she would run away cheeping. They didn’t peck at her but she was clearly not happy and wanted to get back into her side.

She would run towards the girls, get scared and run towards me holding the gate open for her, get scared again and run back towards the girls. I decided to distract the girls with sunflower hearts and at that moment my husband came to see what was going on. Between us we shooed her back in to her own side.

I then got a spade and banked the soil up against the gate. Another lesson learned, I must keep an eye on the soil levels around the gates.

All in all I think we are moving forward okay. We are overcoming the problems and the flock seem happy.

Today was the second day of the girls having flubenvet in their mash and when I did my mid day poop pick I found a second worm. At least this means it’s working as the flunenvet should cause the worms to be expelled with the poop.

After lunch I intended to clean out the main coop and change the pine shavings. As always I used disposable gloves and always run a finger around to check for any tell tale blood smears indicating the dreaded red mite. After two and a half years of chicken keeping today was the dreaded day when I discovered red mite in the coop.

I couldn’t believe the bad luck of finding worms and red mite for the first time in the same week. My poor girls, yet they all look well and are laying apart from Amber and Honey’s recent soft shells.

We swung into action and spent the entire afternoon dealing with it. I had read all about it in the past so was prepared. First we emptied the coop. We then vacumed the coop, the patio area and the fence and anything in this area.

We then sprayed the coop with red mite spray. My husband then set about taking the entire coop apart. He removed the roof and took every panel apart. We treated each part with the spray as they get into any crevices.

We left the carcass of the coop in the run as it won’t fit through the gate but all the other parts were sprayed then put into the shed to dry.

I washed all the feed and water dishes.

I picked up Emerald as she is the only one I can pick up easily and we dusted her with flee and mite powder. I sprinkled the powder in the all the places the girls dust bath. We will treat the rest of the flock tonight when they roost and we will be able to pick them up easily.

The coop treatment needs to be done three times at three day intervals to break the cycle of mites and eggs.

I was wondering about leaving the girls to roost outside. I rang my friend Jackie and told her what was happening and she very kindly offered to lend me her dog kennel which gets used as a spare coop when needed.

I went and collected it straight away. I wouldn’t have minded too much the girls being out for one night but it could take a long time to get the coop clear. If it needs to be repeated three times apart every three days that is nine days then it will take a further day or two to dry out. Once dry we intend to seal all the crevices with silicon sealant to protect it from this happening again. Having a spare coop will mean we can take our time to be sure we get rid of them rather than rush it and risk the coop getting infected again.

Temporary coop

The girls inspect the temporary coop and the carcass of the original coop is in the background. The girls were very interested in the changes. It won’t be a problem not having an automatic door opener as I am up early every day to let the chicks out.

We checked the little coop/nest box and the chicks little coop and both were clear.

We do seem to be lurching from one problem to the next and having finally sorted out the plucking problem it seems we are being thrown other problems to deal with.

I do feel like I have a neglected looking flock here despite my best efforts to give them the best life possible. I have girls that have been plucked, an eye infection, girls that struggle to lay, worms and red mite all at once and yet I have followed every rule in the book to give them the best life possible.

The main thing is that we have reacted quickly and these problems will be sorted. I am amazed how well my flock look under the circumstances. They all have massive dust baths every day so maybe this has been helping them with the red mite.

I won’t be integrating the chicks until all these problems are solved so it may be a while before they can join the flock. The most important thing is to make sure it is safe before integration and not to expose them to any potential problem.

I feel like I am being thrown the book of problems to deal with all at once but the flock seem happy so hopefully fast and thorough action will nip this in the bud and the flock can carry on happily.

Tomorrow is another day.

This morning I did some research on the internet and identified the worm I found yesterday as a round worm. It was described as looking like a bit of spaghetti which was exactly what it looked like and a much better description than the one I used.

I talked to the vet and asked if I could give the chicks flubenvet. He said there is no age restriction and it is very safe so as long as they are eating pellets it’s fine to worm them too. I asked if worms could be the reason Honey laid a soft shelled egg for the first time and he said yes this could well be the reason. If she has worms she may not be getting the nutrition and calcium that she needs.

I ordered more fluninvet as although it should be used every six month as a preventative it needs to be repeated after three weeks if a worm is found as more eggs will be hatching and the cycle needs to be broken.

I mixed the powder into mash and dished it out into four little dishes for the main flock spaced apart to make sure they all get some. I mixed it with the chicks growers mash in one little dish for them as they share okay.

Honey still looked the same so I knew she hadn’t got her next egg laid yet. When I got back from my deliveries at lunch time Honey was in the nest box which I thought was a good sign. After she had been in there for an hour I decided to lift her to see if she had laid and sure enough she had. I lifted her out of the nest box and she instantly bounced back to her usual self again.

Her egg was very fragile but not as soft as the last one.

Honey’s latest egg

The weather has been dry and sunny for the past week but rain is forecast for the weekend. The flower pots where the chicks like to roost before bedtime are in the corner where rain leaks in a bit and also runs down the fence despite the plastic sheet I put up.

I decided I needed to put something in place before the rain. I bought an umbrella for a pound and have squeezed into the corner over the flower pots. The umbrella itself will fill with water but it should run off and the flower pots should be protected. It’s not pretty but it’s only to protect the chicks until I lift to them to the coop each night and once integrated it can come down.

Chicks umbrella

I will see tonight if they are happy to perch underneath it.

In the afternoon I once again gave the chicks the bigger space and they discovered the bigger perches.

Peaches and Barley find the bigger perch

They settle down to sit in the sun

The chicks are getting used to me now and don’t panic so much when I poop pick around them and also let me get closer with the camera. Any chicken of mine must learn to get used to the camera.

All the dishes of mash were emptied so I am happy that they are getting their doses of flubenvet. Honey had been getting a bigger share of worms since the big girls were re- homed and I wonder if that has some bearing on this. I am not going to dig for worms for a good while.

The chicks have also had little spats between themselves. They run at each other but it’s all over in a few seconds. They are obviously sorting out their pecking order and Peaches seems to be top at the moment.

Honey has had bottom girl syndrome and runs at Toffee and Emerald to show them she is now above them. Toffee also runs at Emerald to make sure she knows she is bottom girl.

This afternoon we gave the girls some chard and Honey was throwing her weight about when Topaz ran at her and showed her that Topaz is still top girl. They raised their ruffs and ran at each other until Honey backed down. We felt it wasn’t a bad thing that she is shown her place. Topaz makes a good top hen because she doesn’t throw her weight about but doesn’t take any nonsense.

It all seems calm and happy again at the moment and I just hope the umbrella doesn’t bother the chicks. I will report back tomorrow.

Where to begin, there are so many updates, I will go through them in order.

Firstly Peaches and Barley have discovered the new perch my husband put in a few days ago. They now like this spot for catching a bit of early morning sun.

Peaches and Barley on their new perch

Today I saw them go to this perch and they jump to the bistro table/rain shelter then jump to the perch. Clever girls!

I have also given them mash for the last two days and they love it and empty the small dish through the course of the day.

Barley finds the mash

Peaches joins Barley at the mash

The next move today was to let the chicks have a bigger area to explore. After lunch today I opened up the extension half of the run by removing the hatch but shutting the gate to keep the rest of the flock out.

Peaches in the new area

The chicks soon explored the new area. I didn’t get many good photos as they look so small in the big area and still won’t let me get too close to them.

At one point when I checked on them they were sitting in the sun in the new area against the wire with the main flock sat next to them on the other side of the wire. This was lovely to see.

Before bedtime I shut the chicks back into their usual area and opened the gate again. I did my last poop pick of the day and was horrified to find what I thought was a worm in a poop. In two and a half years of chicken keeping this is the first time I have found anything like this. It was like a very thin rubber band. long, thin as cotton and the colour of a rubber band.

I only wormed the girls in spring but since then have added four new girls plus the two chicks. My husband wondered if this could be why Honey laid a soft shelled egg for the first time.

Tomorrow I will start a course of Flubenvet in mash for a week. I will also ask the vet if I should treat the chicks too or if they are too young at seven weeks. Now that I know they like mash it would be easy to do but I need advise first.

The next development was Honey taking up the penguin stance again and looking unwell. Despite two days of mash with limestone flour and cod liver oil it looks as if she is about to lay another soft shelled egg. I am wondering if my husband is right and a dose of worms has effected her laying. I will ask the vet about that tomorrow too.

Then finally the good news is that Amber is looking better. She is now able to peck at apple which was the only thing she couldn’t eat after her face swelled. She is looking much brighter in herself and the swelling on the right side of her face has gone down.

I took a series of photos of Amber and Honey together to show Honey’s tail down stance and Amber’s improved right cheek.

Amber’s left cheek is still quite swollen

Honey in the background has the tail down stance and the sad eyes that I am so familiar with in Amber.

Amber’s right cheek has gone down

Amber is looking much better

Amber’s improved cheek and Honey looking sad

Amber only has a small lump on her right cheek now rather than the whole cheek being swollen and Honey behind her is not happy at all.

I checked at intervals and again as they were taking up their bedtime positions. Honey still hadn’t got her egg out and this was a very sad thing to see.

Poor Honey still trying to get her egg out

The other thing that I had forgotten to mention was that Emerald only ever laid one egg on her second day with us. I then found a dozen black feathers in the coop where she was sleeping and since have found a few black feathers in the coop and run from time to time. I think this means she is moulting although she doesn’t actually look any different. She is a little fluffy under her wings and the lack of eggs and looking a bit sad makes me think this is an early moult. I know that the game birds may moult earlier after being broody so suspect this is the case.

I will report back tomorrow on Honey’s egg situation and any information I get from the vet. It seems just when everything was going smoothly something else comes along to rock the boat. I hope I can get this sorted out quickly and get things back to normal.

Late afternoon I checked in on the girls and found Honey in the penguin position. I recognised this from Amber’s egg laying problems but Honey has never had a problem with her eggs. She had laid yesterday and generally lays every other day and sometimes two or three days in a row and all with good hard shells.

Honey had her wings down and a concentrated look on her face. The next thing I saw was egg white dripping out from her vent. I was alarmed as I thought this meant an egg had broken inside her and that would be a very bad thing.

I called my husband and we both watched her and we could see that she was straining. Then her egg dropped out and I picked it up quickly before the other girls descended on it.

I was relieved to see that it was complete but with a small tear in it which was where the white was leaking out and it was soft shelled. This is the first time Honey has ever laid a soft shelled egg. I don’t know why this should be as nothing has changed with their diet.

Tomorrow the girls will be back on mash with limestone flour and cod liver oil and I will be keeping their egg shells to dry and crush and add to future mash.

I hope this is just a one off.

Amber meanwhile still has a very swollen face and isn’t laying (which is a good thing) but other than that she is completely her normal self. She seems brighter than she was at first and is eager and fast to the treats, is eating, drinking and pooping normally, is scratching, dust bathing and pecking at the lower ranking girls. I think this means she is feeling better but I think her face will take time to get back to normal and I am not even sure if it will get back to normal.

It feels very solid and the farmer said it is possible that it could burst. Amber is impossible to pick up other than at bedtime or in the nest box (which she is not going to at the moment). She hates being handled and I don’t think it would therefore be possible to take her to a vet. I have shown her photo to the vet and the farmers and they agreed that I was doing the right thing for her.

I have researched and some with a similar swelling had it lanced by a vet but it just filled up again. The general opinion seems to be if the hen is fine in herself to leave her be so we are going to wait and see how she goes. At the moment she seems happy but it just looks awful. She wouldn’t win any beauty prizes.

Meanwhile all the other girls are fine and the chicks seem settled in their new home. They are scratching, dust bathing and sitting in the sun in their favourite spot on top of the hatch. They are eating and drinking and chirping and are just so cute.

There always seems to be something else around the next corner to challenge us.

My husband fitted a perch for Peaches and Barley to roost on at bedtime. When I spent time with them before bedtime it soon became obvious that this wasn’t going to work. They hadn’t discovered the new perch but more to the point that wasn’t where they wanted to roost.

As soon as the main flock settled on their high perch the chicks started to franticly try to join them. They would fly at the wire and cling on really high up. They were also putting their head through the wire which worried me. At ground level I had doubled the wire to stop this happening but didn’t think I would need to do this up here.

We wondered if they were missing their mum or if they thought she was on the other side.

I quickly improvised and made a perch from bamboo canes which I attached with wire at the height they were getting too. I would never have thought that such little chicks could get so high.

The chicks soon got the hang of jumping on the coop roof and then up to their new perch.

Before bedtime Peaches and Barley on my makeshift perch

I then attached three bin bags to the outside of the wire to form a curtain. This meant they couldn’t see the other girls and they couldn’t put their head through the wire.

I left them to settle and returned after dark. At first I couldn’t see them but then realised that they were above the perch in the plant pots. They had settled on the two highest plant pots. They were easy to lift from the pots to the coop and then I took the “curtain” down.

I am happy for them to roost in the plant pots and thought that now they had discovered a bedtime spot they would return here the next night.

Last night I tied the bin bag curtain to the wire before bedtime. I returned at the time that the girls usually settle into their bedtime positions. The main flock were all in their usual spots.

Peaches and Barley were settled on their plant pots and were chirping happily and preening. I felt pleased that they were happily settled without any stress this time. I easily lifted them down to put them in the coop.

I am happy with their chosen bedtime position as long as they are happy. Sometimes the girls dictate what they want rather doing what we expect them to but that’s okay as long as they are happy and safe.

I let the chicks out at quarter to five this morning

The one of the left is the biggest of the two and is also the top girl of these two as she lightly pecks the other one if she gets in her way. I have decided the bigger girl is Peaches and the little one is Barley. I don’t know how I will tell them apart if Barley catches up but maybe their personalities will show by then.

Honey and Amber were identical when little but as they grew up they became more and more different.

Topaz had a brief look at them through the wire

They soon found the food

Peaches and Barley explore

Last night at the same time as the main flock settled into their usual positions Peaches and Barley also realised it was time to settle for bedtime. Instead of going into the coop though they got very agitated and started flying at the top of the dog crate.

I realised that they must be used to perching at bedtime and were looking for the highest spot. For their safety I put my arm into the dog crate causing them to run into the little coop and then I shut them in.

I removed the dog crate and set up the feeding station for the morning.

Peaches and Barley find somewhere to perch

Quite often through out the day Peaches and Barley would be perching on the top of the hatch between the two runs. I had to take this through the wire because as soon as I open the gate they jump down.

I realise that after last night they may not go into the little coop to bed so I needed another plan.

My husband has now put up another perch just above where they are sitting in the photo above. I hope that if they choose to roost on top of the hatch or on the perch above the hatch I can wait until after dark then lift them down and put them in the little coop.

The other thing that may be causing this is that although there are four perches in the main coop there are no perches in the little coops (they are only used for integrations and extra nest boxes) so I have now put a temporary perch in their little coop. It’s only a narrow cling film box but it may do the job for now. Of course they would have to go into the little coop first to see it but if they perch outside they may find it when I put them in.

We will have to wait until tonight to see what happens but I am sure we can work round it. I am used to lifting sleepy girls down into the coop.

They seem very settled in their new home and have been scratching around, feeding, drinking, sitting in the sun or sitting on top of the hatch.

The main flock haven’t taken any notice of them at all and I am very pleased with how it is going so far. They are very cute and very beautiful.

Yesterday I made my weekly phone call to the farm in Amersham (where I got Honey and Amber two years ago) to see how the baby bantam brown leghorns were coming along.

It was good news. Their mum was now fed up with them and they were fully feathered. They were ready to leave home at any time.

I arranged to collect them at five o’clock today. The reason for collecting them late in the day is because I intend to do what I have done before and keep them in the dog crate up against their little coop so that they know where to go to bed at dusk and I didn’t want them to be confined to such a small temporary run all day.

Once they are in bed I will remove the dog crate and at five o’clock the next morning I will let them out into their separated area.

Yesterday I dug over the run and cleaned and swept everything ready for the arrival of the new girls. I put fresh pine shavings in their little coop and I separated their area in readiness. I also have chick crumbs ready for them.

Today it has been raining and it reminded me how little dry area there is in the separated area when raining because the coop and feeding station take up most of the dry part and water drips onto the area between the bush and the gate.

I said to my husband that I was going to try to find something to put in this area for the new girls to shelter under when it’s raining. He then remembered that we had a little round, metal, bistro table in the shed that we once used on our patio but have since replaced it with a square wooden table. It’s a good job my husband never throws anything away.

I installed it next to the bush at an angle so that the water runs off into the bush. This will make a perfect shelter as it is positioned just where the water drips in. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.

New rain shelter

We arrived back home with our new girls at six o’clock. They are so tiny that we transported them in a pet carrier. I persuaded them out of the pet carrier and into the dog crate and they ran straight into the coop.

I am staying with my theme of descriptive names and because of the colour of their breasts I have decided to call them Peaches and Barley. Which one is which will take a bit of time to sort out.

Peaches and Barley

Peaches and Barley are six weeks old and so beautiful. I returned a little later.

They have found the food

I think they are going to settle in fine. I will try to get better photos tomorrow.