Carol's Chickens

I recently did a post about an unusual caterpillar in our garden. I put a description into google and came up with Eastern black swallowtail. The caterpillar looked very similar and this was the only result that came up so I took it that this was what it was.

Caterpillar

In the comments Jenny said that she had had it in her garden last year and that it was a mullein moth caterpillar. I then googled mullein moth and sure enough she was right. Thank you Jen!

I couldn’t look at them side by side so I sketched the pattern of the black dots then went back to my photo. Sure enough it was a match. The black dots on the Eastern black swallowtail are in neat pairs whereas these black dots are more frequent.

This makes much more sense, although less exciting, as it says that the caterpillars are found in southern England in May and June and feed on, among other things, verbascum.

The moth has light and dark shades of brown that blend into woody stems.

So, not such an amazing visitor after all, although it is the first time we have seen one. I felt that I must post again as I don’t want to give out incorrect information.

I would like to credit this post to Jen as I wouldn’t have known of my mistake without her comment. Once again, thank you Jen.

Even the girl’s dandelion strip is looking good at the moment. I decided to add some self seeded plants last year to bring a bit of colour to their patch. The self seeded antirrhinums (commonly known as snap dragons) are the prettiest colour we have had so far. We have never planted these, they just randomly arrive each year.

The chicken’s dandelion strip

The yellow poppies in the background self seed all over the garden too. There is still a row of dandelions next to the weld mesh which are hidden in this photo.

Every evening when we visit the girls after dinner we pick some dandelion leaves and offer them through the weld mesh for the girls. My husband refers to them as “crack cocaine for chickens”. The girls go mad for them no matter how much spinach they have had during the day. They absolutely love dandelion leaves!

Freckles laid her fourth, soft shelled egg, yesterday. She has been laying every other day and as before looked unhappy and took herself off to bed early once more.

When I went to check a bit later her egg was laying by the food dish. I imagine she came back out for a top up of pellets and laid it then. It obviously catches her by surprise when it comes.

Freckles latest egg

I find it difficult to understand how Freckles has gone from the best shells to these soft shells. I am not seeing her go to the grit like she used to and wonder if this is why. I don’t know why she isn’t going to the grit though.

I really hope she improves soon as it is sad to see her laying eggs like these. I guess only time will tell.

I think that our rose is better than ever this year. It is absolutely laden with blooms.

Our rose has reached it’s peak

The arches are lovely

Another of the arches

And another arch

This rose is so crammed with blooms

It’s so beautiful

Looking in the other direction

I think the garden is at it’s loveliest at the moment. I love spending time in the garden.

An unusual  caterpillar caught my eye in our garden yesterday. It was on our verbascum and had stripped quite a bit of the flower.

An unusual caterpillar

I put a description into google and it soon showed our caterpillar. We had expected it to be a large moth but were amazed to find that it is an Eastern black swallow tail. The amazing thing is that it is found in Mexico, Central America and South America. How on earth did it get here!

The adult wing span is between seven and eight and a half centimetres. The wings are black with two rows of yellow spots. Between the spots is a powdery, iridescent, blue.

Before I had looked it up my husband had picked it up and put it over our back fence in the strip of woodland because it was stripping our verbascum. Once I had looked it up he regretted not keeping it.

It is a mystery how it got here and I can only imagine that our unusually warm weather has helped it to survive. It is protected from predators by it’s bright colour which warns that it is toxic so hopefully it will survive to become a butterfly.

The chicks have only been in the dog crate for five days but we felt that they were already outgrowing it. Blue and Lemon have been doing a lot of chest bumping and flying at each other and chasing each other around. They are obviously competing for top place. Jasmine takes no notice of it at all. She stays out of it and usually has her head in the food dish.

I was still concerned about the chicks putting their heads through the chicken wire so despite it already being a double layer I decided to add another layer. I had some spare wire so I attached a third layer at the bottom on the outside of their part of the run.

Once I had done this I opened the door to the dog crate. Blue accidentally found the way out and once she had realised she was out she hopped straight back in.

Blue was first out of the dog crate

The chicks showed no sign of wanting to come out and in the end I chased them out.

All three chicks are out

They are not wandering far

You can see from this photo that Blue still has a bare bottom. It has been bare from the day we got her and she still has only a few pins on her bottom.

Lemon was soon heading back in

They didn’t move from this spot until Lemon lead the way back in and the other two followed. They showed no further inclination to leave the dog crate.

I shall leave the door to the crate open when we are at home and give them some time to get used to it like this before removing the crate. I have set up another water bottle on the gate to their part of the run.

I have also started them on grower pellets. I have broken them up a bit to start with and mixed them with the chick crumb. They seem to be eating the pellets so I will gradually withdraw the chick crumb.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to start venturing out and exploring.

I have baked some egg shells in the oven, crushed them and added them to dishes of mash which I gave the girls yesterday and today.

All the girls seem to have stopped laying apart from Freckles. She has now laid three eggs (every other day) and all have been under her roost spot and have been soft shelled. The really odd thing is that Dandelion had this problem last year from the start of her laying and yet this year she is fine.  Freckles has always been the best layer and was always at the grit and her eggs always had little calcium bubbles on the shells. This makes it weird that she is now laying soft shells.

I saw her go to the grit yesterday for the first time in ages. My theory is that as  she had taken a months break from laying she had stopped going to the grit. I hope the crushed egg shells will give her boost.

Three dishes but at first this is the favourite one

Speckles tries another dish

The girls decide that all three dishes are okay

Emerald and Speckles both stopped laying in June last year so I think that they are now finished for this year.

I have another theory about the seramas. They are a breed that is prone to going broody. I think that when they don’t go broody they need to take a break from laying eggs. If broody they would naturally take a break. Freckles recently took a break and Cinnamon and Dandelion were laying at least every other day until the last day of May and are now taking a break.

Freckles laid twelve eggs in April and then two in May before her break. Cinnamon laid twelve eggs in May and Dandelion laid thirteen eggs in May. Emerald laid fifteen eggs in May and Speckles laid four.

I am hoping that Freckles egg shells will soon get back to normal. Of the three recent eggs each time she has looked unhappy but less so on each occasion. Each time she has taken herself to bed early and each egg has been broken under her roost spot in the morning. This morning the shell was less soft and was intact on the top but broken on the bottom from landing on the shed floor even though the layer of shavings is deep.

I hope this improvement in each egg will continue until she is fully back to normal. It is ironic that she is currently our own girl laying and yet we have been unable to eat any of her eggs. I have had to resort to buying eggs once more.

I am hopeful that Cinnamon and Dandelion will resume laying after a break. More importantly though I hope Freckles gets back to her usual, good, egg laying, self.

I didn’t think there would be a problem with the chicks going in at bedtime and I was right. About nine o’clock each night they settle in the little coop and I just have to close up the door.

As I am always awake early I have been opening their door at five o’clock which is when the automatic door on the main chicken shed opens. As soon as I open the door they come straight out and into the food dish.

I then go back to bed. If I am not out so early it won’t matter if they come out later but while I am awake early I feel I may as well let them out at the same time as the other girls.

The chicks soon investigated the little coop

At bedtime they settle in the little coop

The chicks come out as soon as I open the door

They head straight for the food

All three at the food dish

I will let them get used to this first and then later I will try to encourage them to perch. I am confident that when they outgrow the dog crate they will be fine about going in the coop at bedtime.

This time of year is the best for our garden. It’s when the rose peaks and the veg plot takes off and everything looks lush. Even the front drive has a splash of colour.

Colour on our drive

The other side of our drive has the plant that colonised all by itself

The rose is looking amazing over the cabin roof

The rose on the fence

The rose on the fence looking in the other direction

Looking down through the arches

Close up of an allium

The veg plot has grown

Clematis and honeysuckle on the fence opposite our kitchen window

The view from our bedroom window

I just love the garden at this time of year.

Freckles hasn’t laid for an entire month. As she is usually our best egg layer this seemed odd. She usually only takes a ten day break when she has gone broody but this time she hadn’t gone broody but just stopped laying.

A few days ago I felt she was getting ready to lay again. If I came up behind her she would drop into a squat. She started going into the nest box for about half an hour and then would come out not having laid. I put it down to practising as a few of the girls do this when about to lay after a break.

Yesterday she looked really unhappy. She had a peculiar stance and her eyes were closing. I felt she was having an egg laying problem.

Freckles looks most peculiar and very unhappy

I picked her up and inspected her. Her vent looked normal and that odd bump is just soft feathers but it looks exaggerated because she has her tail down. When her tail is up the bump appears to disappear.

I felt helpless as I knew she just needed to get an egg laid. Some people suggest a warm bath to relax the muscles but it was getting near the end of the day and I felt that it would be likely to cause her more stress.

Freckles put herself to bed early. She was first in whereas she is usually the last little girl in. I felt this was the best place for her.

In the morning she ran over for some corn and seemed back to her usual self again. I checked in the chicken shed. Under her roost spot was an egg coloured puddle and then I spotted egg yolk on the bracket behind her perch. There was no sign of any shell at all.

It appears as if she has laid an egg without any shell. I worried about the shell being inside her but I have read that if this is so they rapidly look very unwell and she was digging and scratching as usual. I couldn’t see anything unusual about her vent.

She later went in the nest box for about half an hour and came out shouting. She was obviously unaware that she had discharged the egg earlier. She continued the day as normal.

She was soon happily perching with her flock mates.

The flock perch together

Hopefully the crisis has passed. These girls do like to worry us.