Carol's Chickens

This morning I noticed Honey going in the little coop a couple of times. After lunch I went to check for eggs and was surprised to find Honey’s egg in the little coop and Bluebell’s egg in the nest box. This is really good news as it means if Honey is happy to lay her eggs in the little coop she will be safe from getting pecked by the big girls.

She had laid her previous egg two days earlier and today she showed no sign of looking unwell. Maybe the limestone flour has sorted out her problem and it looks like she is starting to lay normally now.

It will be interesting to see where Amber lays her next egg.

After Pepper and Honey both wanted to be in the nest box at the same time, the day before yesterday, neither of them laid the following day. Yesterday evening before bedtime Honey looked unwell again. I knew this meant she was going to lay another egg soon. She had some meal worms and some water then sat behind the bush until bedtime. I just don’t understand why egg laying makes her feel so bad as her eggs have normal shells. She hadn’t laid an egg for seven days.

This morning Honey seemed back to normal but still no egg. I went out on my deliveries and when I returned I found three eggs in the nest box.

Today’s eggs

Pepper’s egg is on the left, Bluebell’s in the middle and Honey’s egg on the right. I don’t know if the girls went in one at a time or shared the nest box but there was no sign of blood anywhere and all the girls seem to be getting along okay. No one seems interested in the other coop but I will keep it in there for now.

It’s such a shame that Honey seems so off colour every time she is about to lay an egg. I keep hoping it will get better with practice. I just don’t know why it effects her like this.

This morning Amber laid her seventh egg and it was her second normal shelled egg. I have been giving the girls limestone flour and their egg shells ground to a powder in their morning mash and it seems to have worked. The shell on Ambers egg feels hard and she laid it in the nest box. Well done Amber!

Shortly after Bluebell laid her egg. This afternoon I checked on the girls and Pepper and Honey were missing so I knew they must be in the nest box together. I grabbed my camera thinking I might get a sweet photo of them together.

I was shocked when I lifted the lid of the nest box and saw that Honeys comb was bleeding.

Pepper and Honey want to lay at the same time and the red spots on Honey’s comb are fresh blood

I was even more shocked to see Pepper hold Honey down and peck her already bleeding comb. Honey would run out then return to the nest box and Pepper would hold her down and peck her comb again. I felt sickened. Poor Honey’s instinct to lay in the nest box was so strong that she kept returning even though she kept getting pecked. Pepper was equally determined that she wasn’t having her in the nest box.

I had to act quickly and I put the plastic divider on the nest box to separate it from the coop. I then picked up Pepper and put her in the nest box and closed the lid. When Honey returned to the coop I closed the coop door. This would make it dark in there and I hoped that would allow her to lay her egg on the coop floor.

I felt really cruel shutting them both in their separate compartments but I couldn’t bare to let them go on trying to both sit in the nest box while poor Honey was repeatedly having her already bleeding comb pecked.

I checked them frequently and at one point I let Pepper out of the nest box. She hadn’t yet laid (Pepper takes the longest of all the girls to lay her eggs), and she was really distressed when she found the coop door shut and couldn’t get back in. I picked her up again and returned her to the nest box.

I opened the side of the coop to check on Honey and she had made a nest on the coop floor between the perches and the side that opens. She was calmly sitting so I decided to leave her.

I went back a little later and checked on Pepper. She had laid her egg so I let her out and then opened up the coop and removed the divider. Honey came out of the coop without laying an egg. I couldn’t believe she had put herself through all that and wasn’t even ready to lay. She really doesn’t seem to know when she is ready to lay.

Peace was once more restored and Honey bounced back as if it had never happened. This is another problem that we need to try to solve. My husband suggested we put the spare coop back in as a second nest box.

I put it on the patio with the ramp facing the corner between the storage cabinet and the fence. I hope this will keep it dark and make it a suitable place for egg laying. It remains to be seen how long it will take for the girls to find it and if they do, will they want to use it! It’s worth a try though and if a situation like today arises again, I can pick up one of the girls and put them in the second coop instead of adding the divider. Whether they will stay in the coop to lay remains to be seen.

The little coop to become a second nest box

The ramp facing in to the corner

I will close the ramp at the end of each day so that they don’t sleep in there as I would have to be up early to let them out, while the big coop has the automatic door opener. I hope this will solve the problem but it’s a case of waiting to see. Just as things get better  there always seems to be another problem to solve!

We have had the bantys for seven weeks now and it’s been two weeks since they have been completely integrated. Last weekend Ambers comb was pecked but since then everything seems to have settled down and there have been no more incidences. They are now mixing much more and dust bath and snooze and preen together.

Rose in front of the chicken run

We transplanted this rose from the patio as we needed more space there, to the front of the chicken run last summer. We weren’t sure it would survive but its looking really good now and makes the front of the run look pretty without obscuring our view in. I have also planted a row of nasturtiums in the hope that they will tumble through the mesh and the chickens can eat them. Chickens love nasturtiums and they are edible.

Five girls snooze together

I love to see all the girls having their afternoon snooze together and this is their favourite spot near the bush. Both Pepper in the foreground and Dotty behind Bluebell, have their head under their wings. Honey and Amber are tucked in at the back. This is so sweet to see.

Last night before bedtime Amber looked unwell again and I knew she was about to lay another egg. She had been her usual bright self all day but at bedtime was just standing on the spot with her eyes closing. I now know this to be the sign of an egg on the way and wonder if it is always going to be like this when she lays.

I went in at dusk and both little girls had gone in the coop. The big girls were together on the high perch just like the night before. This seems to be the new routine!

This morning all the girls ran to greet me and I could see that Amber was back to her normal self again. I checked the nest box and sure enough, there was her next egg.

Amber’s sixth egg

Amber’s fith egg on the left and her sixth egg on the right

I don’t know why Amber is having problems with her eggs. All of Honey’s eggs have been normal (nine in total) whereas Amber has laid two tiny eggs, two soft shelled eggs, one normal egg and now one almost normal egg. I do wonder if Amber has started her egg laying at a younger age as she is quite a bit smaller than Honey. I would say that Honey is now about a third larger in size than Amber. Both have red, mature, combs though.

I will be starting the girls on limestone flour today which I hope will help the shells to improve and therefore make the egg laying process easier for them.

Last night from early evening Honey looked unwell. She would drink some water and sit under the bush and wasn’t her usual self. I recognise this in the bantys now, this was exactly how Amber was a few days ago before laying her egg then she was straight back to normal. The bantys seem to struggle with egg laying. Honey was laying every other day but hasn’t laid for five days now, so I feel she is struggling with laying her egg.

I spent some time with the girls keeping an eye on Honey then left them until dusk. When I went back in I was surprised to see a change in the bedtime positions. Amber had gone in the coop and the door had shut (Amber always goes in first). Honey was on the coop roof alone!

Honey on the coop roof

The three big girls had chosen a new place to roost.

The three big girls sitting on the high perch

We three are perching here tonight!

I put Honey in the coop then lifted the big girls down and put them in. Surely Honey couldn’t have kept them off the roof! It will be interesting to see where they choose tonight.

This morning I hoped Honey would have laid her egg but she hadn’t and she still wasn’t herself. I put two dishes of mash with ground egg shells in for the girls and Honey ignored it. She had some water then returned to the bush and I felt really worried about her. Bluebell laid her egg first which is good because if Honey needed the nest box it’s better not having to compete with Bluebell.

A little later Honey settled in the nest box. I checked on her a few times and she was in there for a very long time. When I next went to check on her Bluebell was going in to take a look. I rattled the corn container as I wanted to distract Bluebell away from Honey. Honey came running out for the corn too. I checked the nest box and there was her warm egg. Honey was then completely back to normal.

Honey’s egg was smaller than usual and more pointed in shape.

Bluebell’s egg on the left, Honey’s in the middle and Amber’s on the right

Honey was fine after she had laid her egg. I don’t know why the little girl’s are having such a hard time laying. I hope that when they are laying more regularly they will find it easier.

Amber has laid two tiny eggs and two soft shelled eggs and when she laid the soft shelled eggs she looked really unwell. My friend, Jackie has kindly offered me some of her limestone flour to improve the egg shells but as we are not meeting up until Thursday I felt I needed to do something before that to help Amber with her egg laying.

While cooking our weekend roast, I put a tray of the girls crushed egg shells in the bottom of the oven to dry out. Once completely dried I ground them up with my pestle and mortar until they were really fine. I have been putting the crushed egg shell in a couple of dishes of mash each morning.

The last couple of mornings when I did this, Bluebell was in the nest box laying her egg. This was quite useful as it enabled the little girl’s to get their share without being chased away.

This afternoon we found a banty egg in the run and it has a normal shell. We are sure it is Amber’s as it is smaller than Honey’s eggs and Honey lays hers in the nest box. It probably took Amber by surprise.

I haven’t got an egg from Honey to compare it with but when she next lays one I will photograph them together.

Peppers egg on the left and Ambers egg on the right

The girls seem to have settled together a bit better at the moment. While Dotty and Pepper were laying their egg Bluebell was having a dust bath and Amber joined her and had a dust bath next to her.

Later in the afternoon, all the big girls were sat having a snooze and Honey went and sat with them. I hope that we are over the worse now and things continue like this.

We put two high perches in the run to give the bantys somewhere to escape from the big girls. They haven’t discovered either perch yet!

Bluebell has found the one over the store cabinet and taken to settling there at bedtime. I think because Pepper tries to keep her off the coop roof she has chosen this perch as it’s near to them.

The little girls try to get on the coop roof too but Pepper chases them off. They usually give up and go in the coop. They settle in the nest box together which is good for me as I don’t have to put them in.

Bluebell has taken to roosting here before bedtime

About to jump down

Her weight keeps breaking the top of the store cabinet

Pepper and Dotty roost here

Bluebell is big and heavy and every time she jumps off the high perch she collapses the top of the store cabinet. The top is a sheet of plastic which fits into a slot in the wood. After she has pushed it in I am able to pop it back up into the slot. This is temporary though. I am going to get a wooden board to fit the top so that it will take her weight. Another small job on our never ending list of improvements to the run.

Everything has been going really well with the girls for the past few days, then early evening yesterday, Amber looked unwell again. She was standing with her eyes closing. I tempted her to half heartedly eat a few sunflower hearts. She stood by the water drinking a lot. I felt sure that she had an egg laying problem and would probably lay another soft shelled egg, it was four days since she laid her firts soft shelled egg.

Before dusk as the girls were going through their bedtime routine of sitting on the coop roof, I picked up first the little girls, then the big girls, and put them all in the coop. I felt an early night wouldn’t do any harm. I peeked in the coop and as usual the bantys were in the nest box and the big girls on their usual perch.

This morning when I went out to them, Amber was back to her normal self again and sure enough there was another soft shelled egg in the nest box. I know it’s Amber’s as Honey had laid her normal egg yesterday afternoon.

The shell was slightly firmer than her last one as I was able to pick it up this time.

Amber’s second soft shelled egg

Pepper’s egg on the left, Amber’s egg in the middle and Honey’s egg on the right

I have never seen the bantys take the grit and oyster shell that is in a hopper in the run but they do pick up grit from the ground and both Honey and Amber have the same diet. Honey’s eggs have been normal from the start where as Amber has now laid two tiny eggs and two soft shelled eggs.

I made them some mash with some grit sprinkled in to it but most of the grit was left in the bottom of the dish. I will get some limestone flour as soon as possible.

We were doing a function in the afternoon and were out between eleven o’clock and three o’clock. I went straight up to check on the girls and give them the last of the maggots. To my horror the patio area had splashes of blood on it.

I checked each of the girls and poor little Amber has had her comb pecked again. There was a little blood inside the door of the coop and most of it on the area outside the coop. I would imagine that Bluebell has attacked her as she has come out of the coop. Both little girls have now each had their combs pecked two times and there was much more blood this time. Amber seems fine now but I feel so awful for her. I just don’t know what to do about this.

At last I feel my little flock are properly integrating. They seem much happier and more settled. There are still times when Bluebell goes after the little girls but it’s not nearly so bad now and I am feeling more relaxed and happy about them.

It’s lovely to have all five girls run to greet me now. Today I forked over some of their run to see if we could find some worms. All five girls were under my feet as soon as they saw the fork. The bantys have soon got the hang of seeing the fork, the white treat dishes, or the store cabinet door opening, or simply seeing me coming up the garden path.

The trays of grass that I was giving the girls last summer have not over wintered very well. The remaining grass is sparse and I may have to redo them or give up on them. I decided to put three trays in for the girls today as they may as well have what grass there is.

The grass soon disappeared

This afternoon while the big girls snoozed the little girls had a dust bath. Pepper soon decided to check out what they were up to.

Dust bath

Preening and dust bathing

I am finding that as the little girls are maturing I am able to tell them apart more easily. Honey has always been bigger than Amber and now has a more arched shape to her back, just before her tail. She has the peacock like spots on her back and a longer tail. Honey’s comb is also more ragged in shape, possibly due to having been pecked.

Honey

Amber’s comb is much smoother in shape and she has more small black dots on her back. Her tail is a different shape too but I’m not sure if she is not yet fully grown. I can easily tell them apart now, where as at first I could only tell them apart by size and Honey’s spots on her back.

Amber

Honey is on the left and Amber on the right

Pepper wants to pose with Amber

These two are very together, Amber is in front

Honey is in the foreground

Amber’s tail parts in the middle but it may just be that she isn’t mature yet and her comb is less ragged. I am loving getting to know these little girls and so happy now that they are one flock. I hope things run smoothly for a while now, it’s been lovely having a few good days. Long may it continue!