Carol's Chickens

Since we have had the new chicken shed Emerald comes in every morning when I poop pick and very helpfully scratches around in the shavings.

Yesterday I cleaned the shed out and as soon as I had the door open Emerald was there to help me.

Emerald is going to help me clean out the chicken shed

This is helping isn’t it?

I empty out all the shavings then vacuum the shed before putting in fresh shavings. Being able to stand in the shed makes this so much easier and I can vacuum dust and any cobwebs from the ceiling and walls of the shed and any dust from the floor.

I also scrub all the perches and dry them with a cloth. The perches are smooth which also makes them easy to clean and dry.

Meanwhile Speckles is having a dust bath

I love the intense concentration on her face.

Action shot

I managed to capture her flicking the dirt over her back, getting all the feathers evenly covered.

Topaz takes over the dust bath

Speckles left her dust bath and Topaz moved in making it a bit deeper to suit her.

Speckles comes over to inspect my work

I left the shed to open a new bag of pine shavings to finish and when I turned back Speckles was in there.

Okay, I’ll let you finish

These girls love to get involved when I am cleaning the shed. After I had finished and closed the door they all trooped in to check it out.

We live in an Edwardian house which has it’s original windows. The windows were one of the things that attracted us to this house. This means no double glazing though. We cope with thick, lined curtains and an open fire in the winter (as well as central heating).

On cold mornings we have what my husband calls “ghosts on the windows”. The cold air outside and the warm air inside produce condensation while the drafts in the window frames keep pockets on the windows clear. This gives the ghostly effect.

It’s odd but when we look at the windows we focus on the ghostly white shapes but the photograph shows up the clear bits the most.

Ghosts in the windows

It does give quite a spooky effect though which I thought was quite appropriate for Halloween.

Butterscotch is an amazing girl. She is so routine. She laid twenty eggs then took fourteen days off to go broody and moult, laid twenty one eggs, then took another fourteen days off to go broody and moult and then started laying again. Just like last time she laid her first two eggs then missed a day then laid her third egg at first light (or just before) before the automatic door had opened.

Her egg was under the perch where she had been roosting and the advantage of the perches now being lower is that her egg was intact. She is smart too and knows what she needs. She went to the grit and oyster shell before bedtime.

Butterscotch goes to the grit and oyster shell

Butterscotch at the grit

Butterscotch has a lovely fluffy bottom and it’s not noticeable at all that she has been dropping a trail of feathers.

She is such a business like girl, full of character. I can’t believe we thought she was a dumb blond when we first had her. How she has proved us wrong, she is quite a star!

Butterscotch had been dropping feathers like crazy but over the last few days they have slowed again. She never appears to look any different though.

This afternoon there was no sign of her in the run and when I checked to my surprise she was in one of the little coop nest boxes.

Butterscotch is in the nest box

A while later she gave the shout and I went to check the nest box. To my surprise there were two eggs side by side. They were the typical slightly pinkish colour of her eggs with the slightly satin finish that her eggs have. I think she must have laid one of them yesterday.

Butterscotch’s eggs

I had been checking the nest boxes every day up until a few days ago when I stopped bothering as no one was laying.

Checking my egg record sheet Butterscotch laid twenty eggs then took fourteen days off. She then laid twenty one eggs and again took fourteen days off before laying these two. What a regular girl she is and what a star!

So we have eggs again, hurrah! Hopefully like before she will keep us in our weekend breakfast eggs for a while. I really didn’t expect her to lay again until spring so this is a really lovely surprise.

Since we lowered the perches the girls have been taking a lot longer to settle in the evenings. Toffee, Emerald and Speckles get forced out a few times and Peaches and Barley are now always last in. Peaches and Barley are always looking up as if searching for a higher place to roost.

As Amy advised, I knew we had to wait at least three days for it to settle down. Four evenings later and they seem to be getting used to it and settling more quickly.

What amazes me is that during the day they flock together happily and yet at night they are so fussy about having another girl near them.

Yesterday they were all hanging out by the bush and the table. It was difficult to get good photos as the gate and table were in the way but you can see that all eight girls are grouped together.

All eight girls hanging out together

Eight girls together

Despite loads of room in the run they all chose to congregate in this corner.

The bedtime line up seems to have settled into a pattern now. Honey favours the right hand perch and has settled there every single night since the new perch arrangements have been in place. Sometimes Speckles will be next to her but mostly she is there on her own and always facing away from the other perches.

Butterscotch always settles in the middle of the back perch. Speckles is usually tucked in the corner next to Topaz and Peaches and Barley will be anywhere along the back but next to each other if possible. Toffee is usually tucked into the left hand corner and occasionally is on the new perch. The new perch seems to be the least favourable.

The current bedtime line up

I had to crop Honey as there is not room to get all the girls in. Notice how all the girls space themselves apart from Peaches, Barley and Toffee.

Butterscotch is much happier with the new arrangements. She goes to her spot on the perch quickly and easily each evening and can now jump down easily in the morning.

The girls now come out instantly when the automatic door opens in the morning. I think it has been worthwhile doing this despite the teething troubles.

Of all the girls Peaches and Barley’s combs have gone through the most noticeable change while moulting. This is because they have floppy combs and while they were laying eggs their combs were big and red. Barley’s comb was especially big and it made it easy for me to tell them apart at a glance.

Barley’s comb flops to the right and Peaches flops to the left but when their combs are big I don’t have to check which way they flop as I can tell Barley immediately by the size and angle of her comb.

Peaches and Barley stopped laying at the end of August and started to moult. Their combs got smaller and smaller and paler and paler. I have just taken some photos of them today to compare with photos of them last year in November when they had just started to lay their first eggs.

Below are some photos that I took today.

Barley is on the left and Peaches is on the right

Barley and Peaches combs are small and pale

Barley and Peaches

Barley’s comb in the foreground

Below are some photos I took last November. As it was their first year they didn’t moult and continued to lay all winter.

Barley and peaches with big, red combs

They can hardly see out from under their combs, Barley is on the left

Barley is on the left and Peaches is on the right

Barley’s huge comb and wattles

It is amazing how different they look. I am looking forward to spring when their combs return to being big and red and they start to lay their lovely eggs again.

On Monday I went with my friend Jackie to the allotments and we collected some greens for our girls. Every day this week they have been enjoying the lettuce that had gone to seed, chard and dandelion leaves. I have been saving the cabbage until last as I felt it would keep the longest.

This morning I gave the girls a couple of cabbages. I wasn’t sure if they would be too hard for the girls but they love them. I think because they are quite solid it makes it easier for them to keep pecking at them than loose leaves. The cabbage stays put while they peck at the outer leaves.

Peaches and Barley peck at the cabbage

These two girls are always together

Two little combs together

Later in the day the cabbage is disappearing

This has kept them entertained all day today and will continue to entertain them tomorrow too and I still have one large cabbage left. Nothing from the allotments gets wasted with our chickens to hoover up the greens.

For the last few evenings Peaches and Barley have jumped to my shoulder at bedtime. I think they have been doing this because they are not happy with the lower bedtime perches.

Jillian asked me in a comment how they came to do this and I replied that I think it comes from having them at only six weeks old and it’s always been something they have done.

I thought it would be fun to go back to some photos my husband took last September.

Barley on my back

We both turn to look at peaches

She turns back to the camera

Whenever I duck down for any reason (usually cleaning up), Peaches or Barley will jump on me and ride on my back until I reach one of the perches when they will just step off. Sometimes if I duck down near a perch they will use me as a stepping stone to the perch.

Steve (my eldest son) and I have pondered on why they do this and we think it must just be for fun. There is no reward for this so we think they just like it. If anyone has any ideas why they do this I would be interested to hear them. Either way I rather like it as it is a way of them interacting with me purely from their own choice.

Barley on my shoulder last night

Here is another shot of Barley on my shoulder. Unfortunately I have just cropped her comb but I am completely blind as to what will be in shot. The better ones came out blurred. It does show how she like to stand tall on my shoulder though.

It is quite an endearing habit. Let me know if your girls do this too.

The process of perfecting the perch changes in the chicken shed has taken longer than I anticipated. It seems that each change throws up another problem.

Last night we realised that we would need another perch. The bedtime routine took much longer than usual with lots of aggravation between the girls.

Peaches was first to jump to the perches

The girls spend some time scratching in the shavings

Emerald and Topaz are first up as usual

Half the girls are in

It was at about this point that the trouble began. Topaz would not have Toffee or Emerald next to her. Toffee and Emerald would not have Peaches and Barley next to them. Peaches and Barley would not have Speckles next to them. Give me strength!

Why is it that during the day the girls sit together, perch up together, congregate on the table together, take dust baths together and yet at bedtime they won’t tolerate having a lower ranking girl next to them.

Peaches and Barley ended up still out on the patio at near dark. While I was taking photos of the girls in the shed, Peaches jumped to my shoulder twice. I took a selfie with no idea what was going to end up in shot.

Peaches jumps to my shoulder

Butterscotch is in

There is a lot of unrest going on

You can see in the photo above that Topaz is about to force Emerald down and Toffee has already been forced down and is looking for a way back up.

The final line up

Finally just as the automatic door shut they had taken up their positions. I went out this morning to watch them jump down which is now a quick and easy process so that is one problem solved.

Getting ready to jump down, Peaches was last this time

It wasn’t Butterscotch who was last down for a change. This is so much better for them. We fitted another perch to give them more space and hopefully resolve the squabbling at bedtime.

Another new perch on the left of the photo

Peaches and Emerald check out the new perch

Peaches and Barley don’t like the perches being lower but I am hoping that they will get used to it. There was a little less aggravation at bedtime but Peaches and Barley were last to go in and again jumped to my shoulder. Barley was first this time and later on it was Peaches again. I think they are looking to me to give them somewhere higher to perch.

Barley on my shoulder

The final line up with Speckles on her own perch

Poor Speckles got moved on from where ever she tried to perch and ended up on her own on the new perch.

They were settled earlier tonight though so I think they will soon get used to it. I know they would prefer to perch higher but I need to know that they can get down easily in the mornings. I think after a few nights they will get used to the new set up and I am probably making things worse for them by opening the door and taking photos thus letting in light and sparking another bit of aggravation.

I will leave them to it for the next few nights and see how it works out. Who would have thought this would be so difficult! I want to end up with an easy bedtime and morning routine and I think that sometimes there just has to be a bit of trial and error. I hope this is  going to be the end of the tweaking for a while.

It’s taking a bit of fine tuning to get the chicken shed just right for the girls. Since we lowered the perches I have watched the girls come out a few times in the morning and I felt that it was still a bit of a struggle. It was still taking a while for them all to negotiate their way down and I felt that Butterscotch was still struggling with it.  She was always last and would take ages to take the plunge and jump down.

I decided to try the perches a bit lower until I could find the comfortable jump down height for Butterscotch.

The perches are lowered again

The perches started out at the top of the ladder’s uprights, then moved down to the top rung and now to the next rung down. This should be a really easy and safe height for Butterscotch to jump down.

It was now just a matter of seeing what the girls made of it. I hoped that moving the perches down gradually would get them used to the change.

They were not best pleased with this change and there was a lot of going in and back out again.

Emerald and Topaz were the first to check it out

Topaz and Emerald went back outside many times before they settled as did Toffee when she came in. Peaches and Barley were last to go in and seemed most dubious about the new perches. Butterscotch was the only one that went in, took up a position and stayed put.

Honey joins them

The ladder now has the most desired position

Emerald can’t find a position that she is happy with

They all now want to be on the ladder

The final position

I went out this morning as they were coming out and it was a much quicker process.

Butterscotch jumps down

As usual Butterscotch was the last to come down but she got her head right down, then dropped easily to the floor. I felt this was a lot better for her.

It now threw up yet another problem though. The girls that were on the top rung of the ladder jumped down from the top rung to land very tight up against the bottom of the ladder. I realised that it was now the ladder throwing up the problems and now that the perches are lower the ladder is actually no longer needed.

The girls can easily jump up on to the perches and the ladder is now just in the way. We decided to take the ladder out and put in another perch across the corner where the ladder had been.

The ladder has now gone and there is a new perch across the corner

I will see how it goes at bedtime tonight. I am hoping that now all the perches are exactly the same height it should be easier for the girls to settle in the evening and it will definitely be easier for them to jump down in the morning. Watch this space!