Carol's Chickens

When my husband sweeps the path he often dumps the sweepings in the run for the girls to scratch through. Usually it is mostly leaves. At the moment there are also fallen blossom petals. The girls absolutely love blossom petals and later in the year rose petals.

Some sweepings for the girls

They are hoovering up the blossom petals

They had a great time scratching and spreading the sweepings. Within minutes they had picked out all of the blossom petals. Note the petals in the first photo and in the second photo they have all disappeared.

The girls find fun in the most simple of things which is lovely to see.

I give the girls some greens every day at mid morning. Usually I give them spinach but today I had run out so I decided to give them a dish of peas instead.

A dish of peas for the girls

I love how they share

The peas won’t last long

The peas didn’t last long at all and I think I can safely say they really enjoyed them.

What is so lovely now is that I no longer need to spread treats around in several dishes. I just put out one dish and they all group around it with no pecking at all. This is so heart warming to see.

I decided to give the girls a treat of some fish in the hope that the extra protein helps Butterscotch to get her feathers opened.

Some fish for the girls

They share the fish with no aggravation

Barley takes a water break

It is so nice seeing the girls share happily together. I no longer have to spread the dishes far and wide to allow Speckles to get her share. My flock of six get along together peacefully.

At bedtime they settle quickly without any of the girls being chased out of the chicken shed and they all seem to interact with me more. It’s been a surprise what a difference it has made to the flock since Topaz and Honey have been re homed. I think six is a better number for our space and these girls seem much more settled together.

There is a new bargain store that has just opened next door to one of the supermarkets that I use regularly. I decided to take a look and found quite a few items at bargain prices. They also had seventy litre bags of potting compost selling at three for ten pounds. I decided to get three to help keep the soil level topped up in the chicken run.

It was a mission getting them up the garden path on my trolley, one at a time, between my husband and myself.

Emerald is the first to investigate as the first bag is emptied into the run

Emerald, Peaches and Butterscotch scratch in the compost and it is soon spread around

I caught Butterscotch mid shake

Butterscotch often does this sudden shake that seems to almost knock her off her feet.

Three girls snoozing together

I think all the scratching must have worn them out as these three girls, Toffee, Butterscotch and Speckles were stood together dozing.

Speckles has a spectacular comb

Finally I couldn’t resist this close up of Speckles. She is such a beautiful girl and she has the most amazing comb and wattles. She would do a cockerel proud. For such a little girl that is a big comb and she lays the biggest eggs too.

Butterscotch has been broody for just under two weeks. The last few days she has been staying out of the nest box for longer and I could tell she was coming to the end of her broody spell.

Yesterday morning when I went out to the girls first thing, she was already out, instead of me having to get her out of the nest box. That was it, she stayed out all day. At bedtime I didn’t bother closing the nest boxes and she went to roost in the chicken shed. It’s over for now.

I am struggling to tell if her head looks better or worse. Some of the pins are opening and there are little bits of fluff there now but I think some of the pins have also disappeared. I hope there will be enough feathers remaining to eventually cover her head even if she no longer has a crest.

I think this side of her head does look a little better

I’m not sure if this side looks a little worse

A little out of focus but a closer view

There are now some little bits of fluff. I hope that next year will be different because she won’t be laying and going broody through the winter. I hope this means she will moult and regrow her feathers more quickly.

Butterscotch really has had the longest moult I have ever come across. She has been moulting bit by bit for eight months now. It would be so good to see her with feathers on her head again.

Every time Butterscotch goes broody she performs a strange habit. When I get her out for one of her breaks she always runs off and jumps on the log. She scratches and pecks at it for a moment then goes about her business, scratch, quick dust bath, large poop, pellets, water and back to the nest box.

I meant catch this behaviour with photographs last time she was broody but kept missing my chance. This time round I thought I would try to catch it again.

Once  again every time she did this I kept missing it. I either didn’t have my camera or when I did she had jumped down before I got the shot.

Yesterday I finally got the shots I wanted. The thing that is so odd about this is that she only ever does this when she is broody. When she isn’t broody she never goes on the log.

Butterscotch on the log

She is looking at me

She pecks at the log

She turns to face the other way

She then jumps down and continues with her normal routine. Why should she only do this when broody? Why is this ritual connected to her being broody? It is most odd but unique and amusing to watch. Who can tell what goes on their chicken brains!

Butterscotch has been broody for a week now. I get her out of the nest box three or four times a day for a break. She is a docile and easy to handle broody girl. She accepts me taking her out with good grace and not a murmur.

She sits until I move her on then runs off and frantically scratches, takes a quick dust bath, poops and has some food and water, then returns back to the nest box.

While she has a dust bath Barley always helps her. She seems fascinated by Butterscotch and is always by her side while she has a dust bath. Barley scratches and pecks the dirt around Butterscotch and pecks specks of dirt from her feathers.

Butterscotch takes a dust bath

Barley is always on hand to help

Barley with Butterscotch

I then noticed that Barley would peck at the pins on Butterscotch’s head and I would chase her off. Yesterday I noticed that Butterscotch now has a bare patch on her neck.

I worried that Barley may have pulled feathers from her. I dreaded the thought of this happening again.

Butterscotch has a bare patch

Butterscotch is missing feathers

I then realised that Butterscotch has pins on the bare patch. You can just see them on the photo above and below.

Butterscotch has pins

I think what is happening is that Barley is trying to pull these pins. The white pins on black skin really show up and Barley probably thinks she is being helpful trying to remove these specks.

It’s good news that she isn’t pulling feathers but bad news if she pulls out the pins as this would leave Butterscotch with a bare patch.

I really wish her pin feathers would hurry up and open. Luckily she is in the nest box most of the time and I am watching over her when she comes out. The problem is that while she is constantly either laying eggs or broody her feathers are opening at a painfully slow pace. This leave the pins vulnerable to being pulled.

There is nothing more I can do though so I just have to hope enough feathers open to give her some covering. Butterscotch has had the longest and slowest moult of any chicken I have ever come across. I hope she has new feathers soon.

Every time I go in to the run Emerald jumps on the inner child gate. It’s firmly become her habit. Now Toffee has started to do this as well. She doesn’t do it all the time but she is doing it more often recently.

Toffee on the gate with Emerald

What a funny pair of girls they are.

For the past three days Emerald has shared a nest box with Butterscotch despite the other nest box being empty.

Emerald is sharing a nest box with Butterscotch

Butterscotch and Emerald together

They look so cute together. Soon after I took this photo I checked back in on them and I knew that Emerald had just laid because she was standing up next to Butterscotch but no egg was in sight.

I reached underneath Butterscotch and rolled Emerald’s egg out. Butterscotch promptly rolled the egg back underneath herself with her beak. I had to lift Butterscotch to retrieve the egg.

I wonder if Butterscotch has got some kind of telepathic communication going on with Emerald to make her lay her eggs next to her so that she can sit on them. It is interesting and quite funny and sweet.

We have just had a massive amount of work done to our sitting room. I decided to write three posts covering the three weeks and then put them all out together when the sitting room was finished.

What I didn’t think of, is that they are in reverse order. So if you want the whole story instead of scrolling down to the first post you can click on the links below. I have named them – Part one, part two and part three.

Here are links to the posts in order:

Part 1 – Some changes to our sitting room

Part 2 – Week two of the sitting room make over

Part 3 – The sitting room is finished