Carol's Chickens

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.

As it was Christmas day I decided that instead of fish or yogurt for a treat, the girls should have both. I put the yogurt in four dishes and the fish in two dishes so that I could spread the dishes around the run to insure that Speckles got a share.

Christmas treats

Fish and yogurt

The dishes are spread all over the run

Even little Speckles gets her share

Spreading the dishes out works well and it’s good to see Speckles get her share. I think they all enjoyed their Christmas treats.

On Christmas Eve I  cleaned out the chicken shed, washed the food and water bowls, swept the chicken’s patio and dug over their run. I wanted everything lovely for them for Christmas day, you don’t need to tell me that they won’t know!

The girls were keen to help.

I start to remove the shavings from the shed

Speckles would like to join in but is always nervous and so just watches from her vantage point.

Peaches and Barley oversee my work

We all want to help

I have one last pile of shavings to take out which Topaz helpfully spreads again and looks very pleased with herself too

I hoover the shed while the girls form a queue in the run

They don’t like the hoover so they went back out into the run but it amused me how they seemed to line up in a queue.

The girls inspect the newly hoovered shed

Topaz is the first to scratch in the new shavings

We like the new shavings that Topaz has scratched out

We need to check out the new shavings

Speckles is in her usual vantage point once more.

We approve of the new shavings

We think a good job has been done in the shed

Once the door is closed the pop hole needs checking out

Once again Peaches and Barley are together with their inspection.

Christmas morning the girls have an extra treat of dishes of yogurt and dishes of fish.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Last year I did a post about a Christmas window. It had rained during the night and then there was a heavy frost and this left a pattern on the velux window in our bedroom which looked like snow flakes. I photographed it and put it in a pre Christmas post.

Today there was another weather related Christmas look to our bedroom windows, this time on the opposite side of our bedroom. It had been raining but suddenly the sun came out and lit the droplets on the windows making them look sparkly like Christmas fairy lights.

Sun on the windows

Christmas windows

Close up of the window

It was just luck that we saw this as I have never seen it before but we went up to clean sheet our bed ready for Christmas and I noticed the sparkly windows and went back down stairs to grab my camera. Just after I took the photos the sun went in and the effect was gone. The sun must have been in just the right position to light up the rain droplets.

I would like to wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas and New Year and may all our chickens be happy and healthy and lay lots of lovely eggs in the spring.

Yesterday morning straight after the girls had had their morning sunflower hearts Topaz and Butterscotch took themselves off to the nest boxes.

Topaz is in the nest box again

Butterscotch is also in the nest box

Two girls in the nest boxes at the same time

Topaz was in the right hand nest box and Butterscotch in the left. About an hour later I checked on them again and they were both back out in the run. I checked the nest boxes and there was an egg in the left nest box. This egg had to be Butterscotch’s egg because she doesn’t go into a nest box and come back out again unless she has laid her egg. If she was broody she would stay in the nest box. It also had the satin sheen that her eggs have.

This afternoon the same thing happened again. Both Butterscotch and Topaz went into the nest boxes at the same time. This time Butterscotch was in the right hand box and Topaz in the left. A short while later I heard Butterscotch give her egg shout. I went and checked and sure enough her warm egg was in the right hand box and Topaz was still in the left box.

I thought to myself that if Topaz laid a bit later I could still presume the egg I thought was hers three days ago was actually hers. If she didn’t lay I may have to revise my thinking and conclude that it was Butterscotch’s egg after all.

I checked back fifteen minutes later and when I lifted the nest box lid Topaz stood up and came out shouting her head off (as before). There was no egg! I think I was mistaken about her laying an egg a few days ago. Topaz always has lots of false alarms. It’s seems as if she believes she has laid an egg.

This further confused me because I thought Butterscotch hadn’t laid for a few days and was about to go broody again. If the egg I thought Topaz had laid was Butterscotch’s after all then she only actually missed one day which is quite normal. What threw me was that she usually stops laying after three weeks and goes broody but she has now been laying for twenty three days which is a bit longer than usual for her.

I now think that Topaz isn’t laying but is just practising ready to start again soon. Her egg laying has always been somewhat confusing with lots of practice and false alarms. Topaz is such an unusual girl and therefore more difficult to read. She certainly keeps me on my toes.

I knew Topaz was ready to lay again after a few practice runs at it. Yesterday afternoon she was missing on parade and when I lifted the nest box she was standing in the “just laid an egg” position. I brushed her tail with my hand causing her to leave the nest box shouting. There in the shavings was her warm egg.

Topaz spotted the apple I had just bought in and immediately set about pecking vigorously at it. Her egg is a lighter colour than Butterscotch’s egg and doesn’t have the satin sheen. It is also slightly rounder and a bit larger.

I didn’t take a photo because I didn’t think the difference would show up in a photo.

This will change my end of year egg count. I had said that Topaz had laid six eggs last year and eight eggs this year but by starting back into lay a month early she has now added egg number nine and may yet add a few more. She hasn’t laid any for the nine months in between.

Research shows that the most prolific egg layers wear themselves out and it shortens the length of their life. With Topaz I would expect her to live a very long life. We will make the most of her eggs while she is laying and wait to see what the coming year brings for her. For now though, we will triumph in her early start back to egg laying.

I know that I have touched on this subject before but as time goes by I notice every day how together these two girls are. The rest of the flock don’t seek out any other flock mate and it is completely random which girl will spend some time with or near another girl. Peaches and Barley are totally different, they are always inseparable.

I had this same thing with Pepper and Dotty which is why it was ultra important that they were re-homed together and they are still happily together today.

Peaches and Barley were hatched together and kept with their mum until she tired of them at six weeks old. This was when I collected them and bought them to my run but kept them in a separate part of the run until they were mature enough for integrations.

It is being together from hatching that makes them so bonded. Other girls in my flock have been together in a big mixed flock with the breeder but it doesn’t have the same impact as being together from hatching.

My husband remarked recently that if we lost one of this pair it would be devastating for the one left. I can’t bare to think of that and hopefully they will be together for a long time.

I have been taking photos over the last two weeks to demonstrate this but when I looked back at older photos I realised that there were so many of the two of them together. I could actually compile hundreds of photos of them together but have limited myself to ten recent ones.

Peaches and Barley at the food dish

I love that they even mirror each other with one foot on the dish. They do the same at the water but I didn’t have my camera on me for that shot.

Peaches and Barley having a dust bath together

All the other girls switch around with who they dust bath with or sometimes dust bath alone but these two always dust bath together and preen each other.

Peaches and Barley on top of the little coop

Peaches and Barley share a cabbage stalk

Peaches and Barley are looking at something outside the run

They even yawn together

You just started me off

At dusk they stand together under the wooden table

Before bedtime they peck at the shavings in unison

At bedtime, if they can, they roost together

They really are an inseparable pair of girls and it is quite touching to see how together they are.

Topaz has been very vocal for days now and has been having a twirl around in the nest boxes. This morning I thought she was actually going to lay her egg. She sat in the nest box for nearly two hours.

Topaz sat in the nest box

She then came out shouting and with excitement I went in to look in the nest box. No egg! Oh well, she is just practising. Topaz always did need a lot of practice and has always had a lot of false alarms. I am sure she will lay an egg soon.

My girls are looking beautiful after their moult. The only thing left now is for Peaches and Barley’s combs to get big and red again in the spring. All the girl’s feathers are stunning though.

I am going to put out some portraits that I have taken over the last couple of days in their pecking order.

Topaz

Topaz has always remained firmly at the top of the pecking order. She keeps all the girls in order and none of them dare to contest her.

I think she is getting ready to lay again. She has been very vocal and has been checking out the nest box. I know she has been in them because only Butterscotch is laying at the moment and she doesn’t disturb the shavings but just settles on top of them. Lately though the boxes have had deep wells in them with shavings scratched down the ramp and Topaz has had tell tale shavings on her fluffy bottom.

Honey

Honey is second in command and is our eldest girl at three years of age. This actually shows on her now as she is plumper than she used to be and sits down more often. Recently all the girls were stood in a close group and Honey was the only one sitting down, right in the middle of them.

Butterscotch

Butterscotch used to be below Peaches and Barley in the pecking order but she seems to have gradually worked her way up and I think she is now above them. She is full of confidence and only Topaz and Honey ever give her a peck these days to keep her in her place.

She is still laying at the moment but no doubt will go broody again soon. She is always last to bed at night. The other girls all go to roost about half an hour before the automatic door shuts but Butterscotch will still be casually drifting around from the food dish to the water to the grit, to peck at the shavings and back again, then suddenly she decides it’s time to go in and briskly marches to the shed and straight up to the perch about ten minutes before the door closes.

Jackie noticed yesterday that her beak has a blue tinge similar to the blue of her lobes. I looked back at older photos of her and realised that her beak had always had a blue tinge but I hadn’t really noticed it before.

Toffee

Since Toffee’s moult she has some feathers around her neck with a slightly green sheen to them. One of Toffee’s characteristics is that every day when the treat of corn or sunflower hearts runs out she makes a real sound of complaint. As soon as we hear this sound we know the corn has all gone. She marches around complaining for a few minutes and does this without fail every day.

Emerald

Emerald has such beautiful glossy, shimmering feathers. This pose with one foot on the food dish is very typical of her. One of her habits is to come and scratch in the shavings every morning when I poop pick the shed. It’s as if the open door is just too tempting for her. Every morning I end up scooping a pile of shavings back into the shed. As soon as I hear the scratching behind my back I know that it will be Emerald.

Peaches and Barley

Peaches and Barley are absolutely inseparable so I had to take their portrait together, Peaches is on the left and Barley on the right. They do everything together and I have been taking photos of them during the last week to do a post on their total togetherness. If we ever lost one of these girls it would be a terrible shock to the one left.

They are constantly chatting or “squeaking” as I call it. They still love to jump on my back if ever I bend over and ride on my back while I clean up the run.

Speckles

At last Speckles is no longer nervous around me but she is still wary of the other girls as she is firmly bottom girl. The only one she has no fear of is Toffee and Toffee will run from her. Speckles seemed to sense early on that Toffee is a nervous sort of a girl too and while she remains above the flock mates that have never contested her place in the pecking order she never managed to put Speckles in a place below her. I am glad that Speckles has one girl that isn’t above her as she takes some stick from the rest of them. She is very speedy though and manages to get out of the way.

So there we have our beautiful eight girls and all of them so full of character and with their own funny little ways. I am so happy with how lovely our flock are together.