Carol's Chickens

Due to my total frustration with the extended part of the run being constantly wet we bought the only tarpaulin we could find locally which was blue and put it over the run extension.

That was eight days ago and until then Peaches and Barley had laid an egg every other day like clockwork. During the last eight days that the blue tarpaulin has been over the run laying had ceased with just one egg from Peaches half way through the eight day period.

I hated the lack of light in the run, the girls spent a lot less time in the newer part and egg laying had ceased. Time to go on line (Steve, I know what you are thinking!).

Yesterday the clear tarpaulin that I had ordered arrived and at lunch time today we changed the blue tarpaulin for the clear tarpaulin.

The run looks so much better with the clear tarpaulin over the top

The view from the original part of the run

The view from the extended part of the run

The run is a lot lighter and when I returned an hour later I found Barley missing on parade. I checked in the nest boxes just as she was standing over her warm egg.

Barley has just laid her egg

The light level makes such a difference as this is Barley’s first egg in eight days. An hour later I checked the nest boxes again and there was an egg from Peaches.

I am amazed at how much difference the light makes and I am so much happier now that we have changed the tarpaulin. Lesson learned and I will never use anything but clear in future.

On another note Topaz, who moulted first after her broody spell, has a lovely red comb and wattles and has been having a practice at laying for the last week. She goes into the nest box, twirls around, sits a while, then comes out shouting but there is no egg. She always did like to practice a lot. I think she really might start laying soon!

Maybe with more light in the run now Topaz may finally get started with laying some eggs. Watch this space!

Today was a good day because I got an update on all three of my re-homed girls on the same day.

My husband went to the farm where Pepper and Dotty now live, to collect our disposables for our catering business, but also to look in on Pepper and Dotty.

Last time we saw them they were going through the moult but today they looked great. They had all their feathers back in including Dotty’s head feathers and Pepper’s fluffy bottom. My husband said Pepper was still looking fatter than Dotty, just like she always did, so she is obviously doing well.

He said next time he goes for disposables he will take our camera and get some photos of them but I am happy that he saw them looking good and looking happy.

Jackie and I also had our first catch up since the Christmas holiday and Blossom, formerly Bluebell, is looking beautiful with all her feathers back in and her little head crest returned to its former glory.

Blossom takes some corn from Jackie

Blossom is looking good

She has her full head crest

Blossom is looking fabulous

Four fluffy bottoms

Four beautiful girls

Jackie and I are so pleased with how beautiful our flocks are looking and we once again agreed that the moment when Jackie said she would adopt Bluebell, now Blossom, was a real turning point for my flocks development. I wondered what would have happened had I not met Jackie when I did and she very wisely said that we all have these cross roads in our lives that set us on a different path.

I am just happy that everything has turned out so well and we both have a lovely flock and a lovely friendship too.

This morning was cold and frosty so I decided to give the girls a treat of a dish of warm mash. This is just their regular pellets made into a mush with warm water. It’s great because they are eating their normal food but it’s a treat to them as it has a different texture which they seem to love.

I used to use several small dishes to allow them all to get some but I now find that one large dish of mash works well. Toffee and Emerald are the most shy about pushing in to get some but as soon as the other girls have had some and move away from the dish Toffee and Emerald move in.

The girls keep coming back to the dish throughout the morning and by lunch time it’s all gone.

Warm mash on a frosty morning

The girls love the mash

This is good

Yummy

The reason Emerald isn’t in the last two photos is because I was standing next to the store cupboard to take the photos. Emerald was soon on top of the store cupboard just in case there were going to be other treats on offer.

They never miss a trick where the treats are concerned.

Last year Honey and Amber started laying again in February. This has got me thinking about Amber’s egg lay problem.

This is pure theory but Amber has always been smaller and lighter than Honey and I often think of her in terms of being the runt of the litter. Amber has also always been a different shape to Honey. She has a little bump on her back which I wonder if this is a slight deformity of her spine. Don’t get me wrong, I have always thought her small size and different shape make her unique and makes her look cute. I have always thought she was prettier than Honey.

I wonder though if this has any bearing on her difficulty laying eggs. I did some research and when I found a diagram showing both the skeleton of a chicken and the internal organs of a chicken I found that directly below Amber’s little bump are her ovaries.

I wonder if this has some bearing on her difficulty with her eggs as she always begins to look unwell the day before she lays her egg and as an egg takes approximately twenty five hours from the start of it’s journey to being laid she may feel unwell at the start of the eggs journey. Maybe if the egg is slow getting started on it’s journey this may be why the shell is often not properly formed.

This is all speculation on my part and we will never know for sure but we have always thought that there is something not quite right with her egg laying machinery and I do wonder if the bump on her back is connected to this.

It’s difficult to show in a photograph but the photo below is the best I could get to try to show this. The bump is where her collection of speckles are on her back.

Amber’s little bump

Honey’s smoother shape

When I have looked at photos of vorwerks Honey is the recognised shape. None of this theorising changes anything for her but I do wonder if it could explain it.

Honey and Amber are looking so good with their new feathers and both have developed speckles on their breasts where before there were none.

Honey’s speckled breast

Amber’s speckled breast

I am hoping that Amber may struggle less this year because she has no stress now. She isn’t bullied and isn’t having her feathers pulled. She is also in the middle of the pecking order being number four of eight so is in a good place now. I hope this might help her.

Another interesting thing is looking back at the the egg records. In 2013 Honey and Amber started to lay in May. Honey laid 52 eggs and Amber laid 31.

In 2014 they started to lay in February. Honey laid 97 and Amber 35.

If you take into consideration the extra three months laying in their second year it means Honey has been pretty consistent over the two years whereas Amber’s egg laying is still very low.

Again don’t get me wrong I don’t want Amber laying more eggs. As far as I am concerned the less the better and I would be happy if she never laid eggs again but it interesting to look at all the facts.

Amber is so well over the winter, while not laying, that I dread her starting to lay again. We have thought we were going to lose Amber so many times right from when we first had her and she first started laying but she is feisty and keeps bouncing back.

I just hope she will continue to bounce back and maybe she will surprise us and live a long life. I know that I will be making the most of having her in the flock for as long as possible. Only time will tell but she is a sweet little girl with a big character.

We extended the girl’s run in the spring and fitted panels over the top so that they could be closed against rain but opened to allow the sun in. During the summer when it rained the panels leaked between the joins and rain blew in through the sides but it dried out again during the better weather so stayed dry most of the time.

We have been disappointed to find that during this winter the new part of the run has become completely wet and it no longer dries out between wet days. During heavy rain it has puddles and although I dig the run over at least once a week the soil is claggy and heavy and the girls constantly have muddy feet.

I had hoped that extending the run would give the girls more dry area during the winter but that has proved not to be the case and I have been getting fed up of all the mud.

Today we decided to put a tarpaulin over the top of the entire extended area to see if it keeps most of the area dry. It was inexpensive and we will take it off for the summer. My only concern was that as it’s not available in clear, it will make the run a little dark. We decided to try it for a few weeks and see how it goes.

I know that the run will take some time to dry out but I am hoping that this will help and although rain will still blow in I hope the middle area will stay dry.

Tarpaulin over the extended part of the run

It doesn’t look attractive but will only be there for a few months.

View of tarpaulin from the original part of the run

Tarpaulin from inside the extended part of the run

It was a dull and foggy day so I think it will be better during brighter days. The girls didn’t seem to mind the new look and spent as much time in this part of the run as usual.

We also made another change to the bedtime perches. Since we had put up a new bedtime perch, this had become a success, with the girls using the new perch each night. Honey likes the left hand side of the new perch and Emerald likes the right hand side of the new perch.

What I did find though was that the big perch was no longer used at all. I think that now there is more choice of perch space the girls favour the slimmer perches as they are easier for them grip (as bantam girls have little feet) and the big perch is now redundant.

We decided to replace the big perch with a slimmer one to match the rest.

A new slimmer perch on the left

This worked a treat and tonight three girls used the newest perch.

Bedtime line up

Amber is on the chair. Honey is almost hidden but is behind Peaches and Barley on the left hand side of the previous new perch. Peaches, Barley and Sparkle are on the newest perch (replacing the big perch). Topaz and Toffee are on the right hand perch and Emerald is on the right hand side of the previous new perch.

Closer shot of seven girls

To get Emerald in shot I couldn’t get too close so this shows the other seven in their positions.

It’s amazing how a simple change in the perches has made the bedtime routine so much easier. The girls all now find their spots on the perches quickly and easily without any hassle.

I think keeping the extended run area dry may be a trickier matter but only time will tell. At least the old part of the run is dry and gives them a good dust bath area but it would be great to have the girls with dry feet too.

It will be interesting to see how many eggs we get this year. I know that Honey is quite a good layer (97 eggs last year) and that Amber has always had a problem laying her eggs (35 eggs last year) and even when she does lay an egg it is usually broken and not able to be eaten by us.

I know that Sparkle is a really good layer (109 eggs since her arrival on 5th April) but Topaz is an unknown quantity (6 eggs from her arrival on 5th April). She was broody for three weeks and after laying one egg she started her moult so I don’t know if she will be prone to going broody or if she will hit her stride next year and start laying properly. That was a huge difference between these two girls.

I have no idea if the game girls will be good layers or constantly broody. They came to me  (on 11th June) after being broody for the farmer (he keeps them because they make good broodies for hatching eggs for the farm) and Emerald laid 1 egg and Toffee laid 6 eggs before they both started their moult.

The farmer needed them to go broody whereas I would try to discourage it but as I know from Topaz this year it isn’t always possible. So it will be a total surprise this year to see if they go broody a lot or if they lay well. I know that bantam game birds are not known for being good layers so we will see.

Peaches and Barley started laying in November at six months old and are quite good layers and may even improve in spring. In two months Peaches has laid 15 eggs and Barley has laid 18 eggs.

Altogether we had 286 eggs from the bantams last year but two girls came to me in April and four girls came to me in June so I would expect a higher number this year. It will be our first year with eight bantams from the start of the year it so will be interesting to see how they all do.

I am looking forward to seeing how the girls progress and to having more lovely eggs to eat. The only down side is that I dread Amber returning to egg laying again. You can never tell how things will go though as we had thought we were about to lose Amber so many times but she kept bouncing back. Every year I hope the next year will be easier on her. On the upside she isn’t being bullied and she does have all her feathers. She is now looking better than she has since we first had her.

Here’s to 2015 with happy chickens and lovely eggs and happy chicken keepers. Happy 2015 to every one.

As the year draws to a close I thought I would take a look back at the past year with our girls. It has been a year of drama and changes within the flock.

At the beginning of January last year we had three big girls, Pepper and Dotty (domoniques), Bluebell (chalkhill blue) and two little girls Honey and Amber (bantam vorwerks)

January

The feather plucking continued. It was heartbreaking seeing the girls go through their moult and growing back their feathers only to have them plucked out again. I had hoped that they would keep their feathers after the moult but knew from the previous year that it was unlikely and yet felt so disappointed and upset when it continued. This to me has been the worse ever problem with the flock and was spoiling my enjoyment of them.

The big girls were plucking the little girls heads and necks and also plucking each others heads, necks and bottoms. Bluebell also bullied the little girls.

February

All the girls started laying again after their moult. The next problem also continued with Amber laying soft shelled eggs again and struggling to lay them. The feather pulling and Amber’s problem laying, were both long standing problems, that I had tried to solve and failed.

March

I decided to add two more bantam girls to the flock in the hope that the balance between big girls and little girls would be better and may improve the problems amongst the flock.

April

I added two new bantams to the flock. Topaz a gold laced wyndotte and Sparkle a silver laced wyndotte. They were in the separate part of the run where they can all see each other but not get to each other.

From the first day Bluebell was a problem. She shouted non stop and Bluebell and Topaz pecked each others combs through the wire and both drew blood.

My good friend Jackie came to visit and I told her about the problems I was having and that I thought I may have made a terrible mistake as Bluebell may never except more little girls into the flock. Jackie said that Bluebell had always been her favourite and I was so fed up that I said that if she wanted her she could have her.

To my amazement she said that this may work for both of us and went home to run it by her husband. The next day I took Bluebell to Jackie and she started the integration process into her flock. Bluebell was re-named Blossom as Jackie already had a Bluebell.

Bluebell/Blossom settled really well into Jackie’s flock and Blossomed (hence her new name) while my flock settled with Topaz and Sparkle quickly joining the main flock and Topaz immediately establishing herself as new top girl.

May

The feather plucking continued with Sparkle having her bottom plucked bare. Topaz being top girl and formidable with it escaped the plucking apart from an occasional snatched feather. We decided to extend the run to try to resolve the problem.

There was another drama as I shut the gate one day and caught Honey’s eye (I hadn’t realised that she had put her head through the back of the gate) causing her eye to partially shut. I was horrified and we installed a child gate inside the main gate so that this sort of accident could never happen again. Luckily Honey bounced back and her eye healed really quickly.

June

I made the difficult decision to re-home Pepper and Dotty. Everything we tried didn’t stop the feather plucking. With the run extended we tried separating Pepper and Dotty during the day but they weren’t happy and Pepper constantly complained loudly every day. At bedtime she resumed plucking Amber and they also continued to pluck each other.

We re-homed Pepper and Dotty to a friend’s farm where they could free range with a large flock. We have visited them through out the year and they settled happily into their new flock and with more space they stopped plucking and regrew their feathers. It was the right decision for them and for my flock.

We then decided that with the extra space we had room to add more new girls.

We added two bantam game birds, Toffee and Emerald and they settled into the flock within a few days. This was our quickest ever integration.

We decided we had room for eight bantams so organised collecting two brown leghorns at the end of the month when the leghorns reached six weeks of age.

Another drama followed with Amber and Honey having a pecking order fight and Amber came off worse with a peck to her face causing it to swell up. Honey moved up the pecking order and it took a couple of months before Amber’s face gradually returned to normal.

At the end of the month we added Peaches and Barley and my flock of eight bantams was complete.

July

For the first time in two and a half years of chicken keeping we found worms shortly followed by red mite.

Honey had laid a soft shelled egg for the first time ever when I spotted a worm in her poop. I promptly set about worming the girls and found a few more worms then no more. At least that problem was easily solved unlike the red mite which proved more tricky.

I borrowed a plastic dog kennel from my friend Jackie (as a temporary coop for the girls) and we took our coop to bits and treated it repeatedly over the next month.

August

After returning from one night away for my eldest son’s wedding we found that Topaz had gone broody. She was an angry broody and I would move her from the nest box once a day to feed and poop while she fluffed herself up, shouted and growled and pecked at anyone who got near her.

September

After three weeks of being broody Topaz suddenly snapped out of it and a week later started to moult heavily.

Peaches and Barley developed a game of jumping on my back at any opportunity.

Emerald started gaping causing me to think she may have gape worm. I wormed the girls again. I noticed she wasn’t eating properly and was hand feeding her. I got some antibiotics from the vet and treated her with it while continuing to hand feed her and build her strength back up.

In hindsight I don’t think it was gape worm as it is rare and I never saw any worms. I think as she was moulting she may have swallowed a feather and scratched her throat. I continued to make sure she was eating and over the next couple of months she gradually returned to normal.

October

Peaches and Barley’s combs flopped in opposite directions meaning I could tell them apart at a glance.

We realised that rats were getting in the run and after securing any possible gaps and tightening the roof wire we discovered that they had chewed a hole through the fence behind the coop. Next door has decking up against the fence which makes a perfect home for rats. We blocked it and put down poison under our water barrel where nothing else can reach and we got rid of them.

I also found a very small patch of red mite in the coop (not again!) and started checking at first light and dusk each day and squashing any I found. This went on until December when I finally got rid of them completely after three months of my tedious, twice daily, routine.

November

Barley and Peaches started laying at six months of age.

We discovered another hole in the fence next to the coop. We blocked the hole only to find that overnight it had been extended. This time we needed to do something more permanent. We pinned chicken wire to the fence then nailed some thick planks to the fence in front of the wire. For good measure I stuffed chicken wire behind the planks to fill any gaps. We put out poison again and this time we haven’t seen any further sign of rats.

December

All the girls (except Peaches and Barley who are only in their first winter) have moulted and now are all fully feathered. It has been extra special to me this year to see them all with pristine feathers after the feather plucking problem.

Re-homing was the right decision as I now have a beautiful flock of eight bantam girls, all with lovely feathers and all getting along in harmony. I am so pleased with how my flock has developed and after a year, which was quite a journey for my flock, I look forward to a new year with a harmonious and happy flock.

It is so lovely when I go out to the run and find them all happily together. I thought I would end with some photos I took of them on Christmas Day.

Communal preening

A close group, Topaz is at the back behind toffee

Peaches is first to break from the group

From both of us and from our flock I would like to wish everyone a really Happy New Year.

I hope everyone has had a happy Christmas. I took some photos of the girls on Christmas Day but of course we are all too busy for blogging so I will put them out later.

The girls had scrambled egg and cooked sprouts for their Christmas Day treat which went down well. I found uncooked sprouts were too hard for them and ignored but when cooked, they all got eaten.

We have had a lovely time with family and had lovely gifts including some chicken themed gifts but I thought I would just put out one photo of the coffee mug my husband bought me which is now a favourite.

Christmas chicken mug

I think it is so pretty and the china is fine which makes it lovely to drink from.

I am sending everyone good wishes for the rest of the Christmas break and wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

Every morning at first light I poop pick the coop and like clockwork my little helpers join me. I wonder if it’s an age thing because last year Honey and Amber used to do this but they have now retired from the job and join the other girls mooching about the run.

Peaches and Barley at seven months old now have this job to do each morning. The routine is always the same. I start by cleaning the nest box then I remove it so that I can clean this side of the coop.

Peaches and Barley check out the nest box

Peaches and Barley always go straight to the nest box for an inspection. When I am ready to put the nest box back on I usually have to move them out of it first.

I then take the side panel off of the opposite end of the coop and proceed to clean there.

Peaches and Barley check out the coop

Has she missed a bit?

We can help her with this

How am I meant to see out from under this comb?

You can see by Barley’s open beak that there is always a running commentary going on.

A good job done we think

The entire time that I am cleaning up Peaches and Barley are helping me and chatting away to me. I say chatting, they actually squeak the whole time and I often call them “my squeaky girls”. It’s so sweet because I can feel their combs bobbing against my hands and I have to nudge their feet aside from time to time.

I am convinced that they think that I am doing the same thing that they are and it’s a shared mutual daily occupation. As soon as I put the side panel back on the coop they leave the coop and carry on with their day.

I will try not to keep going on about this but the extra bedtime perch has transformed the bedtime ritual from a bit of aggravation to an easy routine.

For now Toffee has decided that she wants the chair and this made Emerald vulnerable to being pushed away. Last night when Sparkle didn’t want her next to her on the perch Emerald stepped down to the new perch.

Emerald perches on the new perch

Emerald stayed there until the other girls had settled then stepped back up to the old perch. It seems that it’s while taking their places that the girls higher up the pecking order won’t tolerate the bottom girl close to them. Once they have settled down they become more tolerant.

Emerald moves back up to the old perch and is joined by Barley

Peaches manages to squeeze in next to Barley

I think the reason Peaches and Barley don’t have a problem is because they always perch up last when the other girls are settled. Emerald always goes to the perches first to try to secure a spot and gets moved around the most.

Now the extra perch has given a safe place to step on while the argy bargy is taking place and Emerald is no longer forced to the ground. A simple solution and a happier bedtime routine.