Carol's Chickens

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.

This morning I walked through the gate into the run and bent slightly to pour some hot water into the water dish as it had ice in it. Speckles jumped straight up on to my back and stayed there until I threw out a handful of sunflower seeds.

This is definitely her new thing and I will try to get a photo when I can. She was so nervous when we first had her that I struggled to get any close up photos of her. It is now the opposite as can be seen by these photos.

Speckles facing straight on

The girls always look so funny when they are facing straight on.

Speckles has an amazing comb and wattles

I love this photo and her comb is magnificent. She laid her second egg today just two days after her first and it was just as big as her first one.

Speckles now follows me around the run and when I go out of the gate I have to make sure she doesn’t follow me out. She then stands looking out at me through the gate. She has gone from being so nervous to being my friendliest girl but she is still nervous around the rest of the girls.

Speckles has become a lovely little character and it looks as if she is going to be a good egg layer too. What a lovely girl she is.

It’s all going on here with first eggs of the year being laid. Honey has been very vocal for the last few days and very nosey when any of the girls are in the nest box. I had wondered if she was getting ready to lay.

At lunch time today she was settled in the nest box with pine shavings flicked over her back.

You can’t see Honey as she she is hiding under pine shavings

When we heard shouting from the girls and checked in on them Honey had laid a soft shelled egg and the girls were eating it. I scooped up the remains and the sticky damp shavings, removed them, then added fresh shavings.

I remembered that Honey had laid a soft shelled egg at the start of last year and when I checked my records she had in fact laid the first egg with no shell at all and the second with a soft shell then normal shells from then on.

As this is her fourth year of laying I am quite pleased that although this egg had a soft shell she managed to pass it and didn’t look poorly before doing so like she has in the past. She seems just fine now and as she is no spring chicken (excuse the pun) I am rather pleased that she is doing so well.

She has also laid this egg a month earlier than she laid her first one last year. I am wondering if more light in the run is causing an earlier start to laying. We didn’t put a tarpaulin over the newer part of the run this year as it made the run darker and didn’t stop it being wet.

I have also removed some tarpaulin from the side of the run by the patio area and recently chopped back the big bush. A combination of these things allows more light into the run.

Other news is that Speckles jumped on my back this morning for the first time. The only bantam girls that have ever jumped on my back up until now have been Peaches and Barley and I have had them since they were six weeks old.

As Speckles was between one and two years old and so very nervous when we first got her this is a heart warming transformation in her. I never imagined she would jump on me when we first had her.

Also just for my records I am more than half way through worming the girls at the moment. It has been six months since I last wormed them and I thought I would get it done before they started laying but have had three girl’s first eggs three days running.

Two more days of flubenvet to go. I am mixing it in little dishes of things the girls like such as, fish, scrambled egg, yogurt, chopped grapes etc. I put three dishes down and keep a fourth one back to drop bits in front of Speckles to make sure she gets some as she still gets chased from the treats by the other girls.

She seems to have cottoned on to me helping her out and I am satisfied she is getting some each day. She nearly jumped on my back again this evening but misjudged it and dropped back down again. This seems to be her new thing.

Peaches has just laid her third egg and is now laying every other day. We will soon have an abundance of eggs. We are having an omelette tonight for dinner from our own girls eggs. Hurrah!