Carol's Chickens

Sometimes after the moult the girl’s feather patterns change. Last year after the moult Amber’s feathers came back in with a lot more black speckles on her back. This year Honey’s feathers have come back in with black speckles on her breast where there were none before.

Honey now has speckles on her breast

I quite like seeing their feather patterns change and find the speckles quite pretty.

Meanwhile Amber’s neck feathers have very nearly filled in.

Amber’s neck is almost filled in

This is the best Amber has looked for a long time and I am hopeful she will be fully feathered at last. Even if she doesn’t get any better than this at least she no longer has patches of bare skin showing.

Finally Sparkle has got her fluffy bottom back.

Sparkle has a fluffy bottom

Topaz is two toned

Topaz now has light and dark gold feathers. I am not sure if she will stay two toned or if the dark ones will gradually drop out. I don’t mind either way as looks pretty like this.

Emerald has a white tipped feather

Emerald now has a white tipped wing feather. She has such glossy black feathers shimmering with green and purple but this is the first time she has had a bit of white.

It is always a lovely surprise to see how their new feathers look and I am so pleased to see them all feathered again.

At the beginning of this winter we had rats coming into the run again. It took a while to track down where they were coming in. The good news is that they haven’t managed to dig in this year. Last winter we put tiles down vertically then chicken wire horizontally with another layer of tiles horizontally over the wire then a layer of soil on top. This seems to be working well.

After searching every where I found that a hole had been chewed through the fence behind the coop. I blocked the hole with weld mesh and a heavy paving stone in front of the mesh.

My temporary block of the hole in the fence

The problem we have is that the neighbouring garden has decking behind this fence. This has two main drawbacks. The first is that rats love to nest under decking as it is safe and sheltered for them. The other thing is that as the deck is right up against the fence with no barrier, the fence is constantly sodden and the wood becomes rotten and easy for rats to chew through.

When we built the chicken run three years ago we replaced the rotting fence with new panels even though it is the neighbours fence. It has only taken three years to return to this condition again.

After I had blocked this hole I put rat poison in the small gap under our water butt where nothing else can get at it and it disappeared then slowed then stopped being taken meaning we had got rid of this wave of rats.

A few days ago we noticed that a new hole had appeared overnight in the fence, this time in the open where it was easily spotted. I blocked it with weld mesh and a brick.

Another temporary block of a new hole

You can see by how dark the fence is that the wood is sodden.

The next morning I went into the run to find that the hole had been extended over night to beyond the brick. It was time to do something more permanent .

The extended new hole

The rounded bit on the left is the new part of the hole. I think what we can see beyond the hole is rubble that had been put under the decking.

We have new neighbours that have moved in recently and we don’t want to mention this to them. They are a really nice couple (understanding of our chickens) and have just had to have a new boiler shortly after moving in. We don’t want to bother them with any further problems.

My husband came up with a plan. He suggested as we still have some chicken wire that we staple chicken wire to the fence. He would then nail some thick planks of wood in front of the chicken wire. This would make it very difficult for the rats to chew through.

First we stapled the wire to the fence

Then we nailed a couple of planks to the fence in front of the chicken wire

Bottom plank nailed in place in front of the next panel

Top plank nailed in place

The entire patio area fortified

I then put poison under the water butt again and it is disappearing each night. I am hopeful that we will soon be rid of this latest batch of rats. I am also hopeful that this will stop the fence being chewed in future and will also add strength and a dry layer on our side.

So that is the latest of our seemingly never ending improvements to our run and I am sure it won’t be the last!

A few days ago I did a post about how close Peaches and Barley are. Today while all the girls had a dust bath this was demonstrated again. All eight girls were having a communal dust bathing session but they were all evenly spaced out except for Peaches and Barley.

Peaches and Barley always dust bath together just like they do everything together. They roll over each other and flutter their heads under each other and preen each other. They couldn’t get any closer.

All eight girls are dust bathing

Peaches and Barley are the only ones dust bathing together

The other girls are all spaced out in their dust baths

Peaches and Barley writhe around together and preen each other

Amber in her dust bath

Emerald in her dust bath

These two couldn’t get any closer

It is so lovely to see this close bond between these two, they really are best friends.

Yesterday morning Barley went into her favoured nest box (right hand little coop) and laid her fourth egg.

Peaches meanwhile spent all day scratching around in all three nest boxes and chucking pine shavings out every where. I wondered if we were going to get an egg each from these two.

By late afternoon Peaches had settled in the right hand little coop. When I next checked there was her first egg, hurrah! Two eggs in one day. It was shorter and rounder than Barley’s egg and I am glad to say it only had the tiniest streak of blood on it, hardly noticeable at all.

Barley’s egg on the left and Peaches first egg on the right

Well done peaches! Her first egg is exactly two weeks behind Barley. It will be so good to have these two girls laying through the winter months. My two youngsters are proper grown up girls now.

While photographing the girls over the last few days to get up to date photos of their new feathers I realised just how inseparable Peaches and Barley are. Every set of photos had these two girls side by side or head to head.

Peaches and Barley

Always together

In perfect synchronization

They peck at the spinach together

They are never far apart

If one girl does something the other must join in even if it’s just pecking at the pine shavings

They are together at the food bowl

They are together at the water bowl

They always roost together which ever perch they choose

They are so much more together than any of the other girls in my flock. I think it’s because they have been together from hatching and hanging out with their mum to joining my flock at six weeks old. They are now six months old and they are totally bonded to each other. They remind me of Pepper and Dotty which is why it was so important to me to re-home those two together.

Honey and Amber are the next closest pair but they are not inseparable like these two and although they used to spar when little I have never seen them peck at each other ever, again, like Pepper and Dotty. Honey and Amber peck each other to show who is currently top of the two of them and occasionally fight and fall out.

I can’t imagine that happening with these two. They are so sweet in their total togetherness.

This winter the moult seems to have taken forever but I think it’s probably because I have eight girls this winter as opposed to five last year.

Over the last three or four days I have been trying to collate some photos of each flock member to show where they are at during this moult but they haven’t been terribly cooperative. I have many ridiculous shots so thought I might start with one out take.

An out take

Yes, this is what I am up against. Just as I click the girls either turn away, rush too close (Emerald) or simply jump (Peaches). As it was such an action shot I couldn’t resist including this one out take!

The other thing that I realised when looking through the shots was how together Peaches and Barley are. Every set of shots had them totally synchronised unlike any of the other flock members. I decided that will be my next post as there are so many photos.

But I will start off with my star pupil in front of a camera.

Barley is always up for a close up

Peaches

Peaches is not the attention seeking poser that Barley is so this is the best I could get. Being the youngsters they only had their baby moult so are looking pretty pristine.

Sparkle’s now fluffy bottom

Sparkle was the last to moult but isn’t looking quite so shabby now

Topaz still has a ragged tail

Topaz is also two tone. Her new feathers have come in much lighter than before and the darker wing feathers are the old ones which are still falling out.

Amber is still missing a few neck feathers

I was so frustrated that Topaz pulled out some of Amber’s pins from her neck but she is looking much better and only has a small gap now. I think I can see some new pins on her neck so am now quite hopeful that she may actually become fully feathered after all.

Amber has all her head feathers

Honey has all her feathers and her tail feathers have grown

Emerald is still losing feathers

Toffee looks good

Toffee seems to be completely finished whereas whenever I think Emerald is finished she loses another wave of feathers.

All in shot

I couldn’t resist ending with this one as once again despite all doing their own thing all the girls are in shot together and they are all looking so good now. It’s great to see all the new feathers and very special to me this year after the feather plucking problems of the past. I am so proud of my beautiful girls.

Barley has laid her first three eggs this week. We were hoping for another so that we could have two each for Sunday breakfast but never mind, it’s not the first time we have had one and a half eggs each for breakfast.

I usually poach our breakfast eggs but as these were Barley’s first I thought I would fry them and get a photograph.

They had good hard shells and lovely coloured yolks. They are a little bigger than Sparkle’s eggs were, with the same size yolk, but more white. Sparkle’s eggs have the smallest amount of white I have seen on any eggs.

Just to give perspective this is my smallest frying pan at only eight inches across.

Barley’s first eggs

A lovely addition to our Sunday breakfast

They were lovely and here is the lovely girl herself.

Barley, my little poser

I have been trying to get photos of all the girls over the past few days as I want to do a post showing them pretty much feathered up again. However it’s not been easy as they don’t stay still and often just as I click they will turn away. Barley though is easy to photograph. I have never come across a chicken that is such a poser.

Wherever I am Barley is there in front of me and whenever I point the camera she poses or photo bombs the shot and she is beautiful! Just look at her magnificent comb and wattles.

Thank you for our breakfast Barley.

On Sunday I posted about what I thought was Barley’s first egg. We now think it was her second egg. Today I just happened to be bent over while changing from my coop boots back into my outside boots when something white under the right hand little coop caught my eye.

I lifted the coop and found a little white egg with quite a bit of blood on it. We think this must be Barleys first egg and I haven’t ever had one with this much blood on it before. I felt quite sad for her laying it but her second one was fine so I guess it’s just because it was her first egg.

I thought perhaps she had been on top of the coop when she laid it and it had rolled off but I was surprised that it wasn’t cracked.

Unbeknown to me Barley had laid two eggs

The egg on the left is the one I found today under the coop. The floor of the coop is only about two inches off the ground. The egg on the right is the one I found in the right hand coop on Sunday.

I went back a few minutes later and Barley was in the right hand coop. I decided to hold off writing this post and see if she laid her third egg.

I checked back a few times and she was still in the coop. The next time I checked she was out in the run so I went to check for an egg. There was her egg at the bottom of the ramp to the right hand little coop. She must have laid too near the ramp and it had rolled down. We now think this must be what happened with the first egg and then one of the girls may have nudged it under the coop out of reach. This would explain why it hadn’t broken.

Barley’s first, second and third egg

The egg on the left is a medium sized shop bought egg for comparison. Today’s egg is on the right. It is slightly bigger than the second egg and a little less clean for landing outside.

I am sure Barley will soon get the hang of it. If we get another before the weekend we will have two eggs each for Sunday breakfast. Well done Barley! I am looking forward to tasting these eggs.

Barley has been getting ready for egg laying for weeks now. Every morning she is very vocal and goes into the right hand little coop and scratches around. Every time I checked she had made a well in the shavings but there was no egg.

Barley and Peaches chatter all the time but it is more of a squeaking sound than the chatter of the other girls. The last two mornings Barley has been shouting which sets off Peaches and sometimes the rest of the girls. I felt she was trying out her egg shout and therefore getting near to laying her first egg.

This afternoon we went out and when we got back I checked all the nest boxes, as I do every day, just in case. In the right hand little coop there was a perfect, tiny, white egg with a little blood streak on it. I knew it was Barley’s because the other girls are all moulting and last year resumed egg laying in February and Peaches hasn’t yet shown any interest in the nest boxes.

I felt so proud of her and so pleased at the thought of having eggs again. We have had no eggs at all since Sparkle stopped laying three weeks ago. Well done Barley!

Barley’s first egg

Barley is six months old (exactly twenty four weeks) so the right age to start laying. It will be interesting to see if she lays another one tomorrow and also how long it will be before Peaches starts laying.

When we first got Peaches and Barley, Peaches was slightly bigger than Barley (which was how I would tell them apart before their combs developed). Once they were fully grown Barley caught up in size but Barleys comb is now bigger than Peaches and she seems to have developed faster.

Barley is on the left and Peaches on the right

Barley has a slightly bigger comb than Peaches and it’s this that makes it easy for me to tell them apart as well as their combs flopping in opposite directions. It’s not so easy to see straight on and is more noticeable from a side angle but I took this photo of them side by side for comparison.

Brown leghorns are supposed to be good egg layers so it will be interesting to see how they do and lovely to have our own eggs again. Well done Barley, you are a proper grown up girl now.

It’s only two weeks since I visited Jackie’s girls when they were in a sorry state of moulting. Jackie e-mailed me to let me know how quickly they were getting their feathers back and invited me to visit and see for myself.

Today I went to see the girls armed with my camera.

Jackie’s girls today

They look so good compared to only two weeks ago.

Blossom

Blossom has her little crest back.

Clover

Clover looks totally different to two weeks ago with most of her feathers back in.

All looking good

They all have fluffy bottoms.

Blossom is almost back to her former glory

Okay, so she is still a little tatty, but she is getting there.

Her neck is no longer bare

It’s the first time Blossom has had neck feathers since the early days when she was part of my flock. She hasn’t had neck feathers for two years until now. I am so very glad that Jackie adopted her and that she has settled in so well with Jackie’s flock.

It’s so lovely that I can visit her, that Jackie loves her and that she is happy and flourishing in Jackie’s care. I know it won’t be long now before she looks really pristine again and I will be back with my camera to update.