Carol's Chickens

Every time Butterscotch takes a break from egg laying she starts to lose feathers. Each time this happens I am convinced that she won’t start laying again but each time so far she has.

I have been picking up a hand full of feathers each morning from beneath her roost spot. There are feathers in the spots where she takes a dust bath.

She doesn’t usually look any different but yesterday morning she had a loose tail feather. I gave it a gentle tweak to see if it would come out but it wasn’t ready yet.

Butterscotch has a loose tail feather

As the morning went on the tail feather remained sticking out

This is the first time Butterscotch has had a feather noticeably out of place

It does look odd but it is staying put for now.

We went out at lunch time and her tail feather was still hanging in there. We returned in time for the bedtime corn. Her tail feather had finally fallen out.

Butterscotch has lost her tail feather

Butterscotch has a drink of water

Butterscotch from a different angle

It took all day but Butterscotch is now back to her pristine feathered self once again.

Yesterday was a cold frosty morning. Mid morning all the girls were perched together in a shaft of sunshine. They spent all morning here. They always find any spot of sun that is available in the run and they always prefer to be up on a perch when the ground is cold.

I don’t like taking photos through the wire but made an exception because once I go through the run gate the girls will jump down and come running towards me to see if I have any treats for them.

All the girls are perched up

When I see them like this I wonder why they squabble so much when getting into their bedtime positions. During the day they are happy to perch together but in the evening they are so fussy about which girls can perch next to who.

It is lovely seeing them together in harmony.

My hobby is my chicken keeping and chicken blog, my husband’s hobby is his model railway. A couple of years ago we doubled the size of the chicken run and at the same time my husband doubled the size of his model railway to fill our back bedroom.

This room had never been used by us as a bedroom and we still have two spare bedrooms for when family come to stay. We feel that as we are heading towards retirement age we both need a hobby.

A few years ago I bought some chickens to be incorporated into the railway scenery. The railway is very much a work in progress with much to be completed which is the point of it really. My husband makes all the model buildings himself from balsa wood. I painted the houses that are on the high street at the back but over time my husband has continued with the painting. As he is colour blind I sometimes offer guidance but I think that his skills have improved immensely.

He makes each building so that it can be lifted out from the set for repair or a closer look or a change of position. He has recently been working on a farm area and built a barn with a chicken coop attached so that the chickens could finally be put into the set. He suggested that I glue the chickens in place in the barn and the strip of grass in front so that they are contained and won’t get knocked as they are so tiny. Some of the chickens are not much bigger than a pin head.

Below is the chicken barn on our dining table after I had placed the chickens on it with tweezers.

Chicken barn

I put some chickens on the hay bales on the right of the barn, it is rather a large flock in a small space but we allow a bit of poetic license.

To put this into context I thought I would take some photos of the railway.

Model railway

At the back is the high street which contains the first buildings my husband made

One of the platforms, with the chicken barn behind the brick wall

A church and some more buildings

A view of most of the railway

The gap in the centre is where my husband works from and the control panel is outside on the right of the photo. This means that while he runs the trains he can view the whole set up.

A few Christmas’s ago my husband made me a chicken coop as a sort of joke gift. He said that I didn’t have to keep it but how could I not? He got the chicken from a toy shop and by luck it just happens to be a brown leghorn. It has the floppy comb and white earlobes of Barley and Peaches.

Chicken coop

I thought that as I am updating on chickens on the railway scenery that this coop deserved a mention too. I thought it was very cute and it lives on top of a cabinet on the landing which leads to the railway room, as we call it.

This is a summary of my husband’s hobby which is forever evolving, much like the chicken run really.

I have had some wonderful, thoughtful Christmas presents this Christmas. I am only going to show the chicken related gifts that I have received this year and will list them in the order that I received them.

Before Christmas, Jackie and I met up and exchanged gifts. We exchanged two gifts each but I am just showing the chicken shaped one.

Chicken bottle stopper

On Christmas day my husband and I exchanged several small gifts throughout the day. He said that he had to include just one chicken shaped gift.

Egg holder

Recently only Butterscotch has been laying and I always leave her egg on the kitchen counter to cool before putting it in the fridge. My husband said that in the summer when I could have up to eight eggs waiting in the kitchen this would give me somewhere safe to store them.

Christmas chicken

This was from my youngest son and his partner. He said that in keeping with my theme of descriptive names it is to be called “black spots on a white background”!

Chicken coasters

These beautiful coasters were from my eldest son and his wife. She had made a lovely job of painting all my chickens from the start of my chicken keeping journey. The first tile is Poppy ( who turned out to be a cockerel and was returned to the farm) and Pepper and Dotty (re-homed on a farm because of the feather plucking problem)

The second tile is Treacle who we sadly lost and Bluebell who I re-homed with Jackie.

The third tile is of Honey and Amber, who we sadly lost last spring at two years old. She is depicted with the bump on her back which we always felt was the slight deformity that probably led to her short life.

The fourth tile is Topaz and Sparkle who we also sadly lost last summer.

The fifth tile is Toffee and Emerald. The sixth tile is Barley and Peaches and the seventh tile is Butterscotch and Speckles.

They also gave me a house number which was going to be part of their last house number but didn’t get used as they moved. This was for the chickens’ shed door so I am adding it to the chicken related gifts.

The chicken’s door now has a number

It was so lovely spending time together and there was much food and drink consumed and games played and laughter. The gifts are just a small part and spending time together has been lovely but the gifts were so special and thoughtful that I just had to record them.

Since I moved the new nest boxes to the top of the little coop nest boxes the girls have ignored them except for Speckles. They have become a new favourite place for her to stand. I think she likes the extra bit of height.

Speckles likes to stand here and inspect the shed after I have done the morning poop pick.

Speckles inspects the clean shed

Speckles likes the extra height of the new nest box

This is Speckles new favourite place to perch

I am glad to see that at least one girl likes them even if only to perch upon.

I am not sure how well the new nest boxes are going to work. Today I lifted them on to the top of the little coops (which I am keeping closed to stop Butterscotch going in) and they were ignored.

A little later we noticed Topaz was missing. As the little coops were closed and she wanted to practice her egg laying, she decided to find her own spot. I opened up the chicken shed and there she was settled into a corner.

Topaz has a new place to practice laying eggs

We are fine with this because I poop pick the shed first thing each morning so it is always clean and always has a deep layer of shavings. If any of the girls want to lay in here it would be no problem and may ease the queue when they all want to lay at the same time. As my husband pointed out they would have four corners to choose from.

Half an hour later Topaz strode out shouting. I checked to see if there was an egg but there wasn’t. Topaz needs an awful lot of practice.

Yesterday we added an extra strip of wood to the new nest boxes so that they are slightly less open. I then filled them with pine shavings and put them in the run to see what the girls would make of them.

The newly modified nest boxes

We decided to place them on the patio to give the girls a chance to discover them. As Butterscotch is wanting to be broody at the moment, I thought she might be the first to try them out. It was weird, all the girls investigated the new nest boxes except for Butterscotch who wouldn’t go near them. It was as if she suspected they were some kind of a trap.

Topaz takes a look and pecks out some shavings

Emerald takes a look

Peaches prefers to jump on me while I am taking photos

Butterscotch would only get this close

Peaches, Barley and Topaz are all interested, Barley is looking down from the little coop nest box

Speckles stands on top

Honey takes a look

She first inspects one box then the other

Speckles looks from the safety of the top of the box again

Toffee takes a look

Toffee and Speckles are the two most shy girls but even they had a brief look in. Butterscotch just wasn’t having it at all though. Maybe when she has had time to get used to them being there her curiosity will kick in. It would be so good if they would accept these new boxes but very often anything new takes time so I guess only time will tell.

This is quite a difficult comparison between the girls because of the differing time that I have had them.

To start with an easy one, Topaz has laid 8 eggs in January and February with just one last one in March (2 months).

Sparkle had a short season because we lost her in June. She had laid well until she became ill and laid 37 from February to the first week in May (4 months).

Honey laid 54 from the end of March and one last one in September (6 months). Honey is three years old so I would expect her to lay less as time goes on.

Amber laid 1 egg on 21st March and sadly died on the 25th April.

Emerald laid 36 starting in March until the end of May (3 months).

Toffee laid 39 starting in April and finishing at the end of May (2 months).

Peaches laid 78 from January to August (8 months), but as it was her first year she also laid 16 in November and December 2014 so a total of 94 (10 months).

Barley laid 75 from January to August (8 months) but also laid 18 in November and December 2014 so a total of 93 (10 months).

Butterscotch has laid 77 from August to December as it is also her first year (5 months).

Speckles was moulting when she came to us in July so has yet to start laying but I have high hopes for her next year.

The interesting thing is how close the breeds are in their egg laying numbers (apart from Topaz who is a law unto herself).

Emerald and Toffee (game birds) both have a very short season but they lay well during those few months with 36 and 39.

Peaches and Barley (brown leghorns) had a long season as it was their first year and laid 94 and 93.

Butterscotch has also excelled with 77 in five months considering she has been broody four times now.

We have had a total of 428 eggs this year. Topaz, Amber, Sparkle and Speckles can’t really be counted so mostly these have been from four girls. Next year we may have seven out of eight girls laying regularly (assuming Topaz continues as she has in the past) and eight girls if Topaz changes! This should mean a good egg tally next year.

Thank you to all my girls for their efforts and a Happy New Year to all my readers and your girls.

All winter we have had only one girl laying and the process has been calm with Butterscotch choosing her spot in either of the little coop nest boxes.

In spring and summer we could have up to eight girls laying and at any time a possible two girls going broody. We will need more nest boxes. We had already made another two nest boxes and installed them inside the chicken shed but I think our girls are so used to having their nest boxes outside that I am not sure they would know to go and look in the chicken shed for them. They only go in the chicken shed to roost or to help me clean. It seems that once I open the big door and busy myself in there it suddenly becomes a desirable place to be.

I know that conventional chicken coops have their nest boxes inside but our girls have always been used to having their nest boxes outside and I think this is what they expect.

We decided to make some slight alterations. We decided that the nest boxes we had made would need a bit more cover over the top of the boxes (as they will be outside and will need to let in less light) and then we would put them on top of the outside nest boxes to give two storey nest boxes (a block of four).

The two little coop nest boxes on the chicken’s patio area

The ramps and openings face the back so that the boxes are dark enough to be attractive for egg laying.

The two home made nest boxes in the chicken shed

My husband removed them from the shed and when covering the last bit of the top of the boxes he also raised this part to make access for the girls easier.

Back view of the adapted nest boxes

Butterscotch is inspecting in the bottom right corner of the photo.

Front view of the nest boxes minus the pine shavings

They needed gluing and leaving overnight to dry properly so I put them in place for the photos but haven’t put shavings in yet as I then removed them to dry.

They look a bit crude but as long as they serve their purpose that doesn’t matter. They may need a bit of fine tuning. We may put another strip of wood along the top edge to make the box less open.

I will put them back in tomorrow and see if broody Butterscotch finds them. If she sits in them we will know they are okay as she is our biggest and least agile girl. The proof is in the pudding as they say.

I thought the girls deserved another treat. Of course it’s not really Christmas mash it’s just a big dish of mash but the girls don’t care. I always put the mash in one big dish rather than spreading it around the run because I know that once the first girls tire of it Speckles will move in and get her share.

A big dish of mash

A treat for the girls

Speckles is getting braver

I was quite surprised by how brave Speckles is getting. There was a time when she would never have got this close to the other girls.

On another note I think Butterscotch is going broody again and yet she is still laying at the moment. The day before yesterday she missed a day and yesterday morning she went straight into the little coop nest box after the morning sunflower hearts. An hour later she had laid her egg and was back out in the run but she was making the tell tale clucking sound.

By late afternoon she was back in the nest box. As she had already laid her egg I decided to lift her out and close the nest boxes. She walked around them looking for a way in.

I gave the girls their pre-bedtime corn and they started making their way into the coop, all except Butterscotch. It was almost dusk and I knew the coop door was about to close but she made no attempt to go in so I opened the nest box and let her go in. Once the pop hole had closed I lifted Butterscotch out of the nest box, opened the big door to the chicken shed and put her on the perch. She stayed put and I closed the door then closed the nest boxes to stop her going in one of them at first light this morning.

As she had laid her egg at half past nine yesterday I knew that if she was to lay another egg today it would be from half past ten onwards. I opened the nest boxes at half past ten and decided to leave her until lunch time. I didn’t want to shut her out if she was going to lay again as I did that once before and felt so bad when she laid her egg in the run.

At half past twelve I lifted Butterscotch and to my surprise she had laid another egg. I was so glad that I had left the nest boxes opened but now that she had laid I decided to close them again.

Butterscotch usually lays for three weeks before going broody but this is her record as she has now laid for thirty days. Previously she had laid twenty eggs then twenty one eggs then fifteen eggs. This time she has equalled her best of twenty one eggs. Well done Butterscotch.

It seems that she does want to go broody but she thinks she hasn’t finished her clutch yet and she just wants to sit on her eggs. I will just play it by ear and see how she goes.