Carol's Chickens

When I give the flock some mash, I now just put one dish on the patio. The flock are so united that she will share from one dish. It is lovely to see all the girls together.

A dish of mash

All the girls come to take a look

Bigger girls and little girls share the mash, Cinnamon being the tiniest girl of all

They come and go until they have all had a share. What is lovely to see is the different combinations eating from the dish together. Looking back a few months this would never have been possible. The flock have come such a long way.

I often think that one of the things myself and the chickens have in common is our love of sitting in the sun and being able to find a patch of sun to sit in.

The girls will find a patch of sun whether it is on a particular perch, the ladder, or on the ground. Wherever that patch of sun is they will move to it and sit there.

I love to sit on our patio, facing the chicken run and facing the sun, reading a good book. Recently we have been lucky to have some sunny days coinciding with half term which means a quiet week for us as there are never so many lunch bookings during holiday time.

At this time of year the sun disappears from the patio between five o’clock and half past five as it is then shaded by the trees but since we have had our new path I have discovered  that the corner of the path still gets the sun until seven o’clock. There is just enough space for one chair.

At six o’clock my husband brings me a glass of wine. I said that the sloping path wasn’t a safe place to put down a glass of wine. He came up with a solution. The redundant cowl from our chimney was on the veg plot as we had planted a chilli plant in it last year. My husband has now re-purposed it, once more, as somewhere to put my wine glass. Bliss!

Patio area

It’s six o’clock and only a little dappled sunlight is left on here. You may notice that one of the chairs is missing.

End of the day sun spot

This is my perfect spot to catch the end of the day sun. I face my chair to the sun if I want to sit  facing the sun or I turn my chair sideways like this to sit with my back to the sun. This way I get an even amount of sun all over.

This also means that on sunny days when we are busy I can still catch the last hour of sun that I would otherwise have missed from the patio. I just love this little corner in the end of the day sun.

Speckles hasn’t laid an egg for two and a half weeks. She has been growing back her feathers after being plucked which has been like having a mini moult. For the last four or five days she has sat in the nest box for a while each day.

I thought that she probably didn’t know why she wasn’t laying eggs. Today there was a slight change in her behaviour. About six times during the morning I saw her go to the grit and oyster shell. I began to think that perhaps today was going to be the day she started laying again.

She went into the nest box and came out a bit later with a shout. I went to check. Oh my goodness! There was her first egg after her break and it was the same shape and colour as Apricot’s first egg but it was huge.

Speckles egg on the left, Apricot’s egg in the middle and Emerald’s egg on the right

Speckles egg in the middle

Speckles egg in the middle of the egg stand

Wow! What a long egg. It is good to have her back laying again. I think like Apricot she has felt this coming for days. Now we have all the girls laying. Happy egg days.

Apricot  has just laid her first egg. It turns out that she isn’t a squatter as she still doesn’t squat when I hold my hand over her. I thought she had gone in the nest box for her usual practice. She has done this for four days now. I went to check on her just as she was standing over her first egg.

Its so cute, tiny and pointed at one end, with a little blood streak on it.

Apricot’s first egg

It is so small that it falls right through the egg stand.

Here it is with some coins for size comparison

Egg comparisons

Emerald’s egg is on the left. She is always taking the grit and oyster shell and this gives her egg shells little calcium bumps. Next is Apricot’s first egg which is pointier than any of the others. Next is Dandelion’s, pale shelled, egg. Next is Cinnamon’s, then Freckles round egg and on the right Rusty’s slightly larger egg.

It’s interesting that Freckles, Rusty and Cinnamon’s eggs have beige coloured shells while Dandelion and Apricot’s have white shells.

Emerald’s eggs also have beige shells whereas when Speckles lays, her eggs are large, with white shells. This means it will be really easy to tell the two bigger girls apart if I was out on a day when they both laid.

Well done Apricot! What a clever girl and she laid it in the nest box too. That means all the girls are now laying girls and Apricot has started before Emerald has stopped which is a bonus. That first egg is always so precious.

Yesterday Emerald was in the cat box when Dandelion wanted to lay her egg. As usual she did a bit of shouting before deciding on which spot she wanted to lay her egg. When I checked and she wasn’t in either nest box I looked in the chicken shed and there she was settled down in the corner just inside the pop hole.

Dandelion’s latest spot to lay her egg

When I next checked Rusty had squeezed into the cat box next to Emerald. She has obviously decided that this is where she must lay her eggs now. I went for my camera but when I returned Rusty was on the patio pecking at a bit of apple and her little egg was beside Emerald in the cat box.

A bit later Emerald had left the cat box with her egg in it and Dandelion was still in the corner of the shed. I lifted Dandelion and there was her egg. At least she had laid it where she wanted to this time. I don’t mind at all if she wants to lay it in the shed.

Emerald is still laying nearly every day and has never laid beyond May before so I am amazed at how well she is doing. She must be a happy girl. We have had her for four years and she was an adult girl when we got her,  possibly a couple of years old.

Emerald laid the most eggs in May with a total of nineteen. Freckles was second best with sixteen. They are the two best layers.

Apricot did her usual, practice sit, in the nest box but left of her own accord this time. I am sure she will start laying soon. She is practising every day. I just love having such a happy flock.

I wasn’t going to photograph our rose this year because I have already photographed it many times before. But then I changed my mind because I wanted to see if it would look better with my new camera.

The rose at the side of the cabin

A close up

At the front of the cabin

The rose further along the fence is also just starting to flower

It looks beautiful and it also smells lovely. It seems to be a good year for the roses, as the song goes!

Emerald and Speckles have become quite a twosome. They are often perching or sitting together.

Emerald and Speckles often perch together

Speckles and Emerald dust bath together

Emerald likes to stretch her wings out to the sun

Emerald now has several white feathers under her wings which I think are a sign of her age. She has always liked to stretch her wings into the sun.

Dandelion and Cinnamon perch together

These two are also always together and sometimes all of the three amigos perch together too. Rusty and Freckles also perch together but today Freckles was in the cat box, nest box, laying her egg.

Apricot practices in the nest box again

Apricot now goes into the nest box each day to practice laying. After an hour I lift her out and she always goes to the apple and stays out after that. It’s a bit like dealing with a broody girl except not quite the same.

Emerald and Apricot share a bit of apple

Apricot has a peck at the apple

They peck at the apple together

Emerald has the sweetest nature and will share treats with any other girl. Speckles and Freckles wouldn’t allow Apricot to share the same piece of apple like this but Emerald is just a sweetheart.

Since I put the cat box in the shed as an extra nest box, Emerald has laid every one of her eggs in there. She seems to prefer the cat box.

Freckles also lays her eggs in there. Speckles laid a couple in there but then stopped laying while her head feathers are growing. She goes to sit in the wooden nest box for a while each day though, as if she doesn’t realise she has stopped laying, but she has long since lost interest in the cat box.

Rusty had never laid in the cat box but after her three day broody spell she took two weeks off of laying and then yesterday laid her first egg in the cat box.

Dandelion started laying (or sitting as most of her eggs ended up in the run) in the cat box but has now switched to laying in the wooden nest box. Cinnamon is the only one never to have shown any interest in the cat box and always lays in the wooden nest box.

Emerald like to lay all her eggs in the cat box

She is laying weeks beyond the time of year that she usually stops laying and is laying five or six days out of seven.

Rusty lays her first egg in the cat box

Freckles lays her egg in the cat box

I had considered removing the cat box but as it has proved to be so popular I have decided to leave it be. It seems that the girls have chosen to keep it.

Apricot is getting ready to start laying eggs. She went into the nest box for about an hour today. I think she is practising and hopefully this means her first egg will be in the nest box.

Apricot in the nest box

Her comb is red but she isn’t squatting yet so I think it will be a little longer. Silky feathered girls mature slower than straight feathered girls. Rusty started laying one month after Freckles. Dandelion and Cinnamon have now been laying for a month so it’s about the right time.

Apricot doesn’t squat when I stroke her back

Freckles squats when I touch her back

You can always tell when they are about a week from laying as they start to squat. You only have to hover your hand over their back or lightly touch their back and they drop down into the squat. Freckles wings drop down and she arches her back into a U shape.

I knew that Apricot wasn’t ready to start laying yet so I felt she needed permission to leave the nest box as she had been in there for an hour.

Apricot allows me stroke her without squatting

I picked her up and put her out in the run. She went straight to the apple and greens as if she was relieved that she could now have some treats. I expect she will return to practice in the nest box between now and starting to lay.

Some girls go to the nest box on the first day they lay an egg and some girls practice for a week or so before their first egg. All girls are different but most seem to know where they should go to lay their egg. It will be good to have our last girl start laying soon.

I am still experimenting with my new camera. When I saw two bees inside a poppy flower I thought I would see if the camera would pick this up.

Two bees in a poppy flower

Yes! You can see two bees working the poppy. As I am only using the automatic setting, for ease of use, I am pretty impressed with this. The two bees are just above the bottom flower petals. I am very happy with this camera.