Carol's Chickens

At the moment we only have Dot and Cloud laying. They both laid two days ago and they both laid again today. First Cloud laid in the nest box. Then Dot went to her favourite corner of the chicken shed.

When I returned to check Dot was just leaving the chicken shed. At first I thought there wasn’t an egg and then I spotted a tiny egg. Dot has never had any egg laying issues before so I was very surprised at this.

The egg shell was really hard and it took several hard cracks on the side of the dish to break it. It has a yolk which I think got broken when I was trying to crack the shell.

I asked google why an older hen would lay a tiny egg when she has always laid normally before. It said that it can happen in older hens at the end of the season just before they go into the moult. This is what I had thought it may be.

It will be interesting to see if this is Dot’s last egg for this year or if she lays any more and what they are like. These girls can always throw a surprise at me.

Sugar started off this most recent broody spell by not being as committed as usual. But as time went on she gradually became more committed. She would no longer perch in the chicken shed at bedtime and no matter how many times I put her back on the perch she just dropped back down again.

I decided the time had come to put her in the broody crate overnight for a few nights. The odd thing is that she accepts sitting on the perch at night in the crate. It only usually takes a few nights to break her out of it.

This morning when I took Sugar out of the broody crate I saw that there were worms in her poop under the perch. I usually worm the girls in March and September and this was a timely reminder to do it straight away. I usually like to worm after new girls have come in as well so this would be a good time to do them too.

I will as usual put flubenvet in dishes of mash for seven consecutive days as this is the easiest way of doing it. This morning was the first day.

In other news there is now a lot of moulting going on. There are loads of feathers in the chicken shed in the mornings and in the run during the day. Most of the feathers are from the three game girls with a smaller amount from Autumn too.

I am quite surprised how much Mango and Cloud are moulting as it’s their first year. Storm didn’t moult at all last year although she is this year but not as much as Mango and Cloud at the moment.

It will be good to get the girls through the moult before winter and also good to get them wormed.

Both Gold and Storm went broody together five days ago. I just kept them out of the nest boxes and after a couple of days they were over it.

Sugar laid egg number seven four days ago and it was the third one that had a soft patch and a bit of crazing on the shell. To my surprise she still wasn’t broody at this stage.

Then an odd thing happened. Cloud came back into lay the next day which I wasn’t expecting. Sugar was missing and when I checked Sugar was sitting on Cloud’s egg. Sugar had gone broody but it’s the first time she has gone broody when it hasn’t been straight after laying her own egg. It seemed that seeing Cloud’s egg triggered her into going broody.

The other odd thing is that Sugar isn’t as committed as she usually is. I found that if I kept removing her from the chicken shed she would stay out for a few hours before returning. Also at bedtime whereas she wouldn’t usually stay on a perch I found that as long as I returned her to a perch at dusk she would stay there.

This means I don’t feel the need to put Sugar in the broody crate. I am keeping the nest boxes closed as both Dot and Cloud lay in the chicken shed anyway. I am removing Sugar from the chicken shed several times a day and am perching her at bedtime. I am hopeful that this will be enough to deter her after a while.

Cloud’s first two eggs on the left, she has laid a third one today. Dot’s two eggs on the right and she has also laid again today. We have been quite lucky that each time some girls stop laying another girl starts.

When I lift Sugar from the chicken shed she will scratch and dust bath then return to sitting like this and then eventually return to the chicken shed.

Mango is moulting much more than Cloud so I don’t expect her to come back into lay. When I pick her up she feels full of pins.

Autumn is now five and a half months old and over the last week her face has turned red. I think she may start laying soon. It may be that as the rest of the girls stop laying for winter Autumn starts laying. This would be really good to keep some eggs coming over winter.

Despite a bit of moulting the girls are looking good. It’s just Cloud and Dot keeping us going with eggs at the moment but any eggs are gratefully received.

Today Sugar laid her sixth egg. She didn’t look poorly before laying this time. The shell was the same as the last one. It had a soft spot in the middle with a bit of crazing round it. She has now laid six eggs in eighteen days. Last time she laid six eggs in nine days so she is taking longer to lay them which I think is better for her.

Sugar also isn’t broody as yet so she may lay a few more this time. She used to lay eight eggs each time until she started having problems this year.

Once again I scrambled Sugar’s egg in a little olive oil and water, added some chopped tomato and gave it back to the girls.

I thought I would take the opportunity to get some group photos. I had to snap them really quickly as the egg and tomato mixture lasted seconds. It is the girls’ very favourite treat of all.

I think we can safely say the girls enjoyed that albeit only for a few seconds.

There is a bit of moulting going on at the moment but not too heavy. Mango has been dropping fluffy baby feathers and has some loose ones sticking out. Cloud has a ragged tail but doesn’t seem to be dropping feathers. Storm dropped a few tail feathers but still looks good.

Autumn is dropping, fluffy baby feathers, but doesn’t look any different. Dot dropped a tail feather in the chicken shed overnight. Gold still has her weird under feathers showing at the base of her tail. Salmon and Sugar don’t seem to be dropping any feathers yet.

Gold, Storm and Dot are laying as usual. Sugar is still struggling with her eggs. She used to lay every other day but now lays less often. When she came back into lay she laid her first two eggs with a day in between and they had normal shells.

Sugar then laid six days later with a soft shell which was broken under her roost spot in the morning. Two days later I found Sugar’s broken soft shelled egg out in the run. It must have taken her by surprise and afterwards she sat in the nest box for a while as if she didn’t realise she had laid it.

Today which is three days later she has laid an egg in the nest box which is almost normal. It just has one soft patch and a bit of crazing on the shell. I will scramble it and feed it back to the girls.

Behind Mango is Gold and you can see that she still has her weird explosion of feathers at the base of her tail. This must be typical of her breed because I checked in on Pipinchick’s web site recently to see what chickens they now had for sale, purely out of curiosity! Their photo of a bantam ardennaise could have been a photo of Gold. It had the exact same feathers as in this photo. It reassured me that this must be normal for her breed.

Sugar hadn’t moved from her position next to the food and water for a few hours before she took herself off to the nest box. She always looks uncomfortable and I feel so sorry for her.

Sugar usually lays six eggs before going broody and she has now laid five. This should mean she will stop laying again soon. Her eggs have been laid over a longer period of time, this time round, so I don’t know if she will lay more because of this.

Only time will tell how Sugar goes on. Any time we have her with us is a bonus as we really didn’t think she would still be with us this summer, after her difficult start in the spring. I feel that if she can get to the end of her egg laying this summer she will be okay for the winter. It will be next spring that could be troublesome for her.

Only time will tell. At the moment, although I hate to think of her being uncomfortable while laying, she bounces back and seems happy in between. As long as she is having a good quality of life we will let things take their course.

We are also realistic and know that Sugar isn’t likely to be long lived with whatever problem she is having but for now she keeps bouncing back.

After what I said in yesterday’s post I was amazed that we had four eggs laid today. Sugar last laid seven days ago so I thought she had finished but today she laid again without looking poorly and the egg had a good shell.

Storm last laid eight days ago so I thought she had also finished but she too laid today. Dot laid four days ago and also laid today. Gold laid yesterday and again today. These girls can always surprise me.

On the left is Storm’s egg. She lays a good sized egg for such a small girl and her eggs always have a pointed shape. Next is Sugar’s egg which is small and oval. Next is Gold’s egg which is white while the rest are beige. On the right is Dot’s egg which has little brown freckles.

I really wasn’t expecting to get a, four egg day, again this year. Well done girls, what a bonus!

After digging the run over this morning I thought I would get some group photos while all the girls were scratching together. They love a bit of newly turned earth to scratch in.

But each time I was ready to take a photo one girl walked out of shot. First it was Storm and then it was Autumn. The flock are very much together at the moment and seem a really tight group which is lovely.

Gold laid her first egg today after a two week break. Dot has slowed down to laying every three or four days. Last year both Dot and Gold stopped laying at the end of August.

Last year Storm stopped laying at the end of July but this year both Storm and Cloud stopped laying at the end of the first week in August. Mango stopped laying at the end of July. I think this is it for the game girls as they have a shorter season although this year Storm actually started laying in February so she has laid for six months which is not bad at all.

Sugar laid a normal egg eight days ago and then a soft shelled egg six days ago. Before she laid it she looked really poorly for the day and once again we thought we were going to lose her. She took herself to bed early and in the morning a broken, soft shelled egg, was under her roost spot. Sugar was out in the run and had bounced back again.

Sugar hasn’t laid since then, whereas she usually lays every other day, so I am really hoping that she may have come to the end of her laying. I checked back on my records and Salmon laid for three years and stopped at this same time of year after laying a soft shelled egg. Sugar has also laid for three years and laid a soft shelled egg at almost the exact same date so I am really hoping that, like Salmon she won’t lay again, which would be so much better for her. It would end the discomfort of laying and the constant broodiness.

Salmon laid 178 eggs in three years and Sugar has laid 134 eggs in three years.

Autumn has grown and has gone from being smaller than Dot to bigger than Dot. She is now our biggest girl but she has a gentle nature.

I have tried to get a snapshot of all the girls.

Sugar looks perfectly normal half the time like above and is sitting half the time like the previous photo of her. Salmon is always on her feet and only ever sits if she is sun bathing or dust bathing. I know something is not quite right with Sugar but she hasn’t got any worse and she has a good quality of life.

I think if she has stopped laying she has a good chance of going on like Salmon but if she continues to lay it will be her downfall in the end. But I didn’t think Sugar would still be with us this summer so we just have to wait and see and hope for the best.

I am biased but I do think we have a very lovely flock and any eggs are just an added bonus.

I gave the girls some chopped tomato which is an absolute favourite of theirs.

It just happened that in the above photo the flock had split themselves into two halves. On the right are the five girls that I got from pipinchick. The three on the very right are this year’s girls and the next two last year’s girls. The flock now has five out of eight pipinchick girls. That’s an interesting progression.

Autumn loves all the treats and comes running to the patio area whenever I go through the gate to the run.

In the next bit of broody news Gold went broody five days ago. She is not very committed and has now come out of it again. That means we are back to three laying girls. We have Dot, Storm and Cloud laying at the moment.

It always seems that as one girl starts laying again another stops. It’s enough to keep us in eggs though so I am happy with that.

Mango gave up being broody four days ago. Unfortunately after Cloud had perched herself in the chicken shed for the four nights that Mango was broody this changed as soon as Mango gave up being broody. Once Mango started not going in at bedtime Cloud stayed out with her.

I really don’t know what to do to get Mango and Cloud to go in at bedtime. They usually settle on top of the nest box so for two evenings I blocked the top of the nest boxes by draping tarpaulin over it. They still didn’t go in and were just wandering on the patio area after the pop hole had closed.

I am out of ideas now and just resigned to putting them in each night. I am just hoping that when the darker, colder, nights of winter approach they might decide to go in. That is my only minor complaint though and I am happy to have a happy flock.

The garden is looking amazing at the moment.

Cloud came back into lay four days ago after a two week break after her brief broody spell. Storm also came back into lay four days ago after a break of three and a half weeks after her brief broody spell. I think it has taken Storm longer because she had a partial moult in between.

Mango went broody three days ago after laying twenty eggs.

I would lift Mango from her corner in the chicken shed and put her in the run where she would stay until I moved her on.

Five days ago Sugar went broody after laying six eggs in nine days. For the last three nights I have put Sugar in the broody crate as it is only by doing this that I can stop her being broody for ever, or at least, for an unlimited time. She is now done with her broody spell.

While Mango is broody she will only sit in the chicken shed so as long as I keep that closed the other girls can lay their eggs in the nest boxes and Mango doesn’t bother going in those. She settles in her corner of the chicken shed at night but once the pop hole has closed I lift her to the perch and she stays there.

Gold and Dot are still laying and Dot is the only laying flock member never to have gone broody.

All of the flock are now on layers pellets. It is advised to keep young ones on growers until they are between sixteen and eighteen weeks. I wanted to keep Autumn on growers for as long as possible but my growers pellets ran out when she was seventeen weeks. They ran out quicker with all eight girls having them. It wasn’t worth buying more as they come in such a big bag that most of them would be wasted so I decided to switch to layers.

We have had Autumn for five weeks and I mixed her with the flock two weeks ago. She has been going in the chicken shed from the first night that she joined the flock. She would sit in the corner and I would lift her to a perch each evening. Last night for the first time Autumn jumped to the perch herself.

While Cloud was broody and going to her corner of the chicken shed at bedtime, Mango stayed out in the run on her own. I was still having to put Mango in each night. But since Mango has gone broody Cloud has gone in to the chicken shed each evening. Not only that but from the first night Cloud has perched with no help from me. Progress at last!

It remains to be seen what happens when Mango stops being broody but I hope the habit of going in will continue. For the last three nights Cloud has gone in and perched.

Mango and Cloud are inseparable. They dust bath together, they sun bath together, they both go to the food dish together and they both go to the water together.

Autumn is such a beautiful girl. She also has a lovely nature and is very friendly. She has been totally excepted by the flock and none of the girls bother her at all. It so lovely to have a harmonious flock.

Today it has rained heavily, non stop, all day. I wasn’t happy that Autumn’s half of the run had quite a lot of wet parts. I decided that it would be best to speed up integration and mix the flock from today.

At lunch time I let the girls mix. I put lots of extra feeding stations around the run and changed all the dishes to growers pellets. There are now five spots with food and water.

After a couple of hours I took my camera to the run.

Before bedtime I will close Autumn’s half of the run so that she has to stay on this side. It will be interesting to see what she does. I am hoping that she may follow the flock in to the chicken shed. That would be amazing but we will have to wait and see how it goes.

Bedtime

To my amazement at bedtime Autumn went into the chicken shed. She followed the other girls in and settled on the floor in the middle. She looked as if she wanted to jump up to the perch but wasn’t quite brave enough. I lifted her to the perch and she settled there. What a clever girl! Meanwhile Mango still didn’t go in until I opened the door for her. Sigh!

I am so pleased with Autumn and so not sure that Mango will ever get the hang of it. It’s been a very successful day for Autumn and I feel that the flock will be fine together now.