Carol's Chickens

This morning Butterscotch laid her egg first thing as she always does after she has missed a day. A bit later Peaches was in the nest box. When I next checked Barley was also missing and it turned out that she was stood in front of the nest box watching Peaches. They do like to stick together.

Once I had opened the nest box to take a photo the usual girls came over for a look too.

Peaches is trying to lay her egg while Barley watches over her

Emerald and Honey get in on the act

Barley now watches from above as Honey has taken her place

Speckles jumps to the nest box lid at eye level with me once again

She takes a look at the girls below

It is always this same set of girls that have to watch a girl in the nest box as soon as I take a look. Butterscotch, Toffee and Topaz don’t join in with this although you can see that they are milling about nearby on the patio area.

A little later Peaches got her egg laid and soon after that Barley laid her egg. They are even in sync with their egg laying at the moment. One difference between them though is their egg size. These two are a very similar size with Peaches being just a little wider across the beam but you can only see this when they are side by side. Their eggs however are quite different in size.

Barley’s egg is on the left and Peaches egg is on the right

By late afternoon when I checked in again Butterscotch was back in the nest box despite laying her egg first thing this morning. It is day twenty two since she started laying again, so as usual like clockwork, it looks like she is going broody once more.

Speckles again jumped to the child gate when I went in the run later in the day. I stroked her and felt that I could easily have picked her up. If my husband is nearby with the camera I may try this next time.

When I went in to give them their bedtime corn Butterscotch was back out again. I think she knew it was corn time.

I went back at dusk and Butterscotch was in the nest box instead of the chicken shed so that means she is definitely broody once more. I lifted her out and placed her on the perch in the chicken shed.

And that’s another day with my funny little girls. They do make us smile.

There are plenty of places in the run to dust bath but Butterscotch has suddenly decided to squeeze between my boot scraper and the wooden block. This is the fourth time we have found her trying to dust bath here.

Apart from this being a very small space the ground is rock hard with only a thin layer of dust over it. There are plenty of deep dust filled holes in the run. Why on earth does she want to try to dust bath in this spot?

This is a crazy spot for a dust bath

I think Barley and Honey are wondering what on earth she is doing here.

Barley is very curious about this

What a squeeze

Butterscotch is looking a bit shabby

Butterscotch is moulting at the moment and this is the most shabby she has looked so far. She laid yesterday but not today and has been laying for three weeks now so I think she may be about to take her next break.

It would be good if she just took a break and let her feathers grow in but I expect instead she will go broody. This time I will just have to leave her to be broody as I can no longer close the nest boxes as four other girls are laying.

There is enough fuss over the nest boxes as it is without one of them being perpetually occupied so it will be interesting to see how this goes.

So far the large (little coop) nest boxes have been favourite and until today no one has gone in the little nest box, apart from Butterscotch once, when I had closed the rest off.

Today though we had three girls wanting to lay, Butterscotch, Honey and Speckles. Despite how roomy the large nest boxes are the girls will not share. Butterscotch and Honey bagged the large nest boxes so Speckles settled into the small one.

Butterscotch with some pine shavings on her head

Honey in the other large nest box

Speckles is in one of the small nest boxes

Speckles with her magnificent comb and wattles

I am really pleased to see this as it means when the large nest boxes are occupied the girls will make use of the smaller nest boxes. I had begun to wonder if they were ever going to be used so this is good news.

This afternoon the girls were enjoying a communal dust bath in the sun.

A heap of dust bathing girls

Communal dust bath

They are having a lovely time

Toffee takes her dust bath on her own

Toffee

Meanwhile Butterscotch is getting her egg laid

The girls have changed their position

I just love to see them having such a lovely time.

Speckles is now obsessed with her new trick of jumping on my back every time I go through the gate to the run.

This morning I closed the outer gate but the inner child gate was still open and in her eagerness to get to me she jumped on to the child gate. I thought that I would try stroking her and she allowed me to stroke both her sides with two hands. She wasn’t at all bothered by me touching her. She then jumped down from the gate and up onto my back.

A little later my husband followed with the camera to catch her in action.

Speckles on my back

I asked my husband what she was doing and he said she was looking up

She is such a funny girl

She is looking the other way

My husband says she looks like a parrot

She is happy to stay on me for ages. When I want to move her I duck down and gently tip her but sometimes she counter balances and manages to stay on.

In the morning she stays on me until I throw the morning handful of seeds out into the run then she flies over my head into the run and once used my head as a stepping stone. She does the same thing at bedtime when I give the girls a handful of corn.

Speckles has developed into such a lovely little character.

We now have five out of eight girls laying and the day before yesterday was our first “four egg day” with Speckles, Peaches, Barley and Butterscotch all laying and Honey laid the day before.

This is nearly a full house because the game girls, Emerald and Toffee, have a shorter laying season and start later. Last year Emerald started in March and Toffee in April and Topaz is a law unto herself and doesn’t seem to be bothering this year.

Now that we have more girls laying I am actually finding it easier to tell who’s egg it is. Honey laid her third egg today and they are small and pointy and the colour is a shade in between Butterscotch and Peaches, Barley and Speckles. These three lay pure white eggs and Peaches are bigger than Barley’s and Speckles are bigger than both girls. Butterscotch’s are a distinct pinkish shade, round and with a satin finish.

When Peaches or Barley are in the nest box Honey and either Barley or Peaches will stand outside shouting or go in and watch. If Honey is in the nest box then Peaches and Barley will stand outside shouting or go in and watch. This little trio seem obsessed with each others egg laying.

Speckles is now obsessed with me and jumps on my back almost every time I go into the run. She jumped on me while poop picking yesterday and rode on my back then stepped off at the table like Peaches and Barley do.

She follows me around and gets on eye level with me at every opportunity. She is such a changed girl. Sometimes Speckles jumps on me and then Peaches or Barley will join her as if they are not to be outdone and are showing that that is their trick.

Below is an example of the egg laying behaviour, this was today when Honey was laying her egg.

Honey is trying to lay her egg while Peaches watches

Barley joins the watch

Speckles gets on eye level with me

I am holding the nest box lid open while taking photos when Speckles jumps on to the lid at eye level with me. I can’t get over the change in speckles from being so nervous around me to being best friends with me. It is lovely.

Honey got her egg laid and it had a good shell so I am pleased that she is back to normal now. I did see her go to the grit at bedtime last night so she seems to have sorted herself out.

It is lovely having plenty of eggs once more but what a commotion it can be at egg laying time. So far none of the girls have laid in the small nest boxes. They obviously prefer the big ones.

Since we have lived in this house (nine years) we have had a bird feeding station in the garden with two feeders filled with black sunflower seeds and one with a suet block. As a bird bath near by we have always used a chimney pot with a flower pot saucer in the top.

Every year when its gets frosty and the bird’s water freezes the saucer cracks and we buy a new one. Today while we were in Homebase we looked for a replacement but there were none the right size.

We then saw a proper bird bath and it is heavy enough to sit on top of the chimney instead of fitting inside. It has the advantage that it will be easy to clean and won’t crack in the frost. Also being bigger it may not freeze solid.

Old bird bath with the rim broken away

Another casualty of the frost

This pot was already in the garden when we moved in. It wasn’t very attractive but was free and the yew tree had self seeded in our garden. We are now going to plant it back in the garden and throw away the pot.

New bird bath

Looking down on the bird bath

It is rather cute. I think the two little birds are to form a stepping stone. It will be interesting to see how soon it is used. I think this is a real improvement and will be more practical as well as looking better. I hope the birds like it.

Yesterday Honey was in the nest box next to the store cabinet. I checked on her several times and she was settled in there. The next time I checked she was out and there was her egg at the bottom of the ramp to the nest box. It had a very small crack at the pointed end probably caused by rolling down the ramp on to the patio.

This was her second egg this year and she had laid a soft shelled eggs two days before so I was quite pleased that this egg had a shell. This morning I decided to scramble it and give it back to the girls. I decided that I would put it on top of a dish of mash so that all the girls might get a bit.

The egg shell was thin but not soft. As this is her fourth year of laying this is what I had expected and Honey is looking good.

Honey’s egg on top of a dish of mash

I called the girls then set the dish down and they all rushed to it.

Even Speckles gets some

Scrambled egg is the favourite treat of all

The girls are so fast that each photo has one blurred head

Butterscotch is the only girl not around the dish as she was in the nest box getting her daily egg laid. She missed out on the egg but she will be able to have some mash when she comes out. A big dish of mash like this usually lasts most of the day.

At least broken eggs never get wasted as the girls appreciate them and we are enjoying the increase in eggs too.

I gave the girls some turf from Jackie’s allotment plot. The girls just love a bit of fresh grass.

The girls have some turf

The girls love some fresh grass

I knew the grass wouldn’t last long but it was making eight little girls happy.

Just before bedtime the grass has all gone

By bedtime there were just a few blades left. I think I can safely say the girls enjoyed their grass.

Today I visited Jackie’s flock then we went to the allotment to get some turf for the girls. Jackie is digging out some grass to make some more vegetable beds.

I then bought Jackie back to visit my girls. I took my camera with me to photograph the girls with the turf (my next post). Jackie could see that Speckles was about to jump on my back so she asked me to pass the camera to her.

I was really pleased that she was not only able to see Speckles latest party trick but was able to capture it on camera too.

speckles on my back

This is her new trick

Nearly every time I go in the run at the moment Speckles jumps on me. It’s as if now that she has discovered she can do this she wants to keep on doing it. It is really quite funny.