Carol's Chickens

The day before yesterday Marmite laid and then yesterday she went broody. Marmite has laid fifteen eggs in twenty eight days compared to Smoke who laid thirteen eggs in seventeen days.

Smoke is the best, little girl, layer and the most broody. Marmite is the second best, little girl, layer and the second most broody.

Spangle and Salmon are both fairly erratic layers but have never been broody.

Usually, these days, I just leave the broody girls to get on with it. I lift them three times a day for a break and I had to lift both Smoke and Marmite from the nest box to the chicken shed at bedtime last night.

During the current circumstances the girls’ eggs are much more important to us. It wasn’t so bad having one broody girl but having both the best laying, little girls, broody at once isn’t so great.

I decided that I would try to break them from being broody to get them back to laying more quickly. If I leave them to it they won’t lay for three to four weeks. If I can break them out of it they will start laying again between one and two weeks.

Also the sooner I start this process the shorter time it takes to break the broodiness. Smoke has been broody for two days and Marmite only for one day.

As it happened Flame laid yesterday, late afternoon, for the fourth day in a row which is the most days in a row this year and Ebony also laid yesterday and she lays every other day at most. Salmon and Spangle who are more erratic both laid this morning. This meant it was the perfect time to close the nest boxes as none of the girls would need to lay. I closed all three nest boxes and blocked the chicken shed’s pop hole.

I will unblock the pop hole just before bedtime. Smoke and Marmite will probably settle in a corner of the chicken shed at bedtime but once it’s dark enough I will lift them to the perch.

I hope that I can stop their broodiness fairly quickly. At least I am home all the time to keep an eye on proceedings. The other reason this would be good is that I worm the girls in March and it will be easier to do this with no broody girls. While spending their days in the nest box they may not get their share of mash with flubenvet mixed in.

To brighten up a post of just text I thought I would add a photo of our winter hanging basket. It seems to have suddenly gone from no blooms to a mass of blooms.

It is lovely to see all the signs of spring in the garden during these difficult times.

A few days ago we noticed that Marmite was looking poorly. She spent all day in one spot. Her stance was, the humped tail look, that seramas have when all is not well and her eyes were closing.

I didn’t think it was myco but looked more like an egg related problem. I couldn’t understand why she would have an egg problem though as she had been laying with no problems up until now.

The first day she looked like this she did join in with the bedtime corn but the next morning she didn’t join in with the morning sunflower hearts which wasn’t a good sign.

Marmite then went into the nest box and I thought that if it was an egg problem it would be a good thing if she laid and then bounced back. A while later she was back out of the nest box but there was no egg. However there was a little pile of black feathers.

I wondered if she was going broody as sometimes they pull out some breast feathers ready to warm an egg. It seemed at odds though to be poorly when about to go broody as that’s not usual and also she hadn’t returned to the nest box. I was puzzled.

The following morning when I cleaned the chicken shed there was a little heap of black feathers under Marmite’s roost spot. The penny dropped and I realised that she was moulting. Seramas moult, a little at a time, all year round rather than at the end of summer like the bigger girls. Moulting can often make a girl look a bit off colour.

Today Marmite got her egg laid and that too was surrounded by little black feathers. Marmite had bounced back to normal. Crisis over!

At the same time that Marmite was beginning to look better Salmon looked a little off colour. She had the same humped pose and also her eyes were closing.

Salmon didn’t look as poorly as Marmite did but wasn’t her usual self and I always worry about her more because of her wheeze. I always think that Salmon is our most vulnerable girl.

Whereas Marmite looked off colour for two days Salmon only looked off colour for one day and then bounced back. I had noticed the odd loose feather sticking out from Salmon so I think she is moulting a little too.

I am now feeling happier that this was just a slight moult making these two feel a little out of sorts. The good thing is that they all have lovely red combs so that helps to reassure me that they are okay.

Meanwhile in other news Smoke has gone broody again. Smoke had laid thirteen eggs in seventeen days before going broody.

This is the favourite nest box and broody Smoke accepts any other girl laying their egg next to her. Once Flame had laid Smoke rolled the egg underneath herself until I came along and removed it.

You can tell Smoke is broody by her tail feathers coming forward when I open the nest box lid. She also has the usual angry glint in her eye.

It’s a shame that our best layer will be back out of action again for a while but I am just glad that the poorly looking girls have bounced back with no illness after all. I really don’t want any poorly girls in the current difficult times and am just crossing my fingers that they all stay healthy.

Every single blog I follow is talking about Coronavirus and I have so far held off mentioning it but it has come to the point that I can’t any longer.

This is having such a huge impact. For us as self employed caterers our business ended abruptly. Every single lunch or event we had in our diary has been cancelled. All our corporate companies have informed us that they won’t be having catering until this has passed.

We had two events booked for April which would have given us a boost but both have now been cancelled. Our diary is empty which is really weird.

However we are very lucky that we were already downsizing towards eventual retirement. We are debt free and have some savings so we will sit it out. We feel very sorry for businesses that will be much more badly effected. This last week with no work has felt like a practice retirement.

A few years ago when we had a mortgage, overdraft and a loan on the vans this would have put us terribly in debt. We have worked hard in the past to become debt free so we would be able slow down and thank goodness this has now put us in a position that means we will be able to cope. Our hearts go out to all of those that will be very worried at the moment.

Because I have had a week with nothing to do I have been shopping for ingredients and cooking every day to make meals for the freezer. We have a large work freezer with no work in it so it seemed wise to fill it with healthy home cooked meals.

We are preparing for the possibility of having to stay indoors soon. At the moment we have only ventured out to go to the shops while we still can. We are doing no socialising but are keeping in touch with family through phone calls and e-mails.

I have also stocked up on chicken supplies. We do have the advantage of a supply of eggs from the girls.

These are very worrying times and I hope everyone is doing what they need to to stay safe. I wish for everyone to stay healthy while we wait for this pass.

I thought that Salmon was getting ready to lay as she was at the grit yesterday and quite vocal and once again went in the nest box by the gate for a few minutes.

Yesterday Marmite laid her egg at bedtime and at dusk I had to lift her from the nest box to the chicken shed and her egg was in the nest box beside her. It is the first time this year that she has laid two days running.

This morning Smoke was in the nest box first thing and laid her egg which is the usual large size for a little girl.

At lunch time I checked the nest boxes and Spangle’s torpedo shaped egg was in her usual nest box and there was another egg in the nest box by the gate. This could only be Salmon’s as all the other little girls had laid. It has a good shell but has quite a pointed shape.

I am so pleased with this as it is a good sign that all is well with Salmon.

There isn’t an egg from Ebony as we ate it for breakfast yesterday!

We now have all the girls laying apart from our old girl Speckles so this is all good. I am so pleased that Salmon laid a good egg with no problems. I think her eggs will probably be normal from now on.

This morning I found another tiny egg in the chicken shed. I now know that it is Salmon laying them. Yesterday afternoon Salmon was very vocal and sat in a nest box for a few minutes then gave up. I felt sure she was ready to lay.

Ebony and Flame are laying. I don’t really have any expectations about Speckles this year. Smoke, Marmite and Spangle are all laying regularly now. That only leaves Salmon.

Salmon has been wheezing since last summer. I have treated with tylan three times and it has had no effect on her wheezing. Yet Salmon looks healthy and is doing all the usual chicken things and she has a beautifully red comb and face.

I wonder if her wheeze is why she is laying these tiny eggs and yet I am not altogether sure that is. Salmon has always had difficulty laying and laid several soft shelled eggs last summer. Salmon used to look poorly before laying which isn’t the case now so as long as these eggs stay tiny I think that it isn’t causing her any problems.

It is most peculiar though and I have only come across these tiny eggs before when a girl is laying for the very first time. The shell is soft and when I picked it up it dented which is why the top is flat in the photo below.

At least I now know these eggs are from Salmon. It will be interesting to see what her next egg is like. If Salmon’s comb was pale I would be worried about her but as long as her comb remains red like this I don’t think there is anything to worry about.

For the first time in ages we had some sunshine today. It sparked off a massive dust bathing session.

It was lovely to see all of the girls enjoying a dust bath. Spangle and Salmon were so close together that they look like one girl.

Egg laying has also picked up now. All that is except for Salmon. Salmon has only laid two eggs and they were two weeks apart. I can’t help thinking that her permanent wheeze is the reason she is not laying although she continues to look well.

Spangle has now laid six eggs. Marmite has laid seven. Smoke has laid three in four days since she has started again. Ebony has laid four in seven days since she started again. Flame has been laying every other day since she started at the beginning of February.

We have now had our first two, four egg days, today and two days ago. The first one was Flame, Ebony, Spangle and Marmite and today it was Ebony, Spangle, Marmite and Smoke.

For the first time this year I was able to give a few eggs away to our new neighbours. They are lovely neighbours which is a great relief and they have been round to be introduced to our flock.

I planted some savoy cabbages at the allotment late last summer as they were reduced to a pound to get rid of them. I thought it was probably too late for them to come to anything and it was. They didn’t heart up and ended up getting a bit eaten by caterpillars.

However my husband bought them home last week for the girls. I gave them a couple each day and they loved them. They stripped them until there were just stalks left by the end of the day.

Marmite has now laid six eggs this year. From the first one she has settled on top of the nest box instead of inside it. I have blocked the gap between the store cabinet and the nest box, with my box of disposable gloves, just in case she lays here so that her egg wouldn’t roll down the back and break.

For the first three of Marmite’s eggs I ended up shutting Marmite in the nest box in the hope that it would help her get the right idea. After that I decided to leave her to it as I don’t want to have to do this every time. To my surprise she laid the next three eggs in the nest box.

It seems that Marmite has developed a habit of sitting on the nest box until she is ready to lay and then she moves into the nest box to lay her egg. I am pleased that she is laying in the nest box but I can’t imagine why she has to sit on top of it for a while first.

Who knows what goes on inside that little bird brain! I am not going to worry about it now that I know she will go inside to lay. I shall just leave her to do as she wishes.

Then the next odd thing happened. Yesterday morning when I cleaned the chicken shed I found a tiny egg. It was just like the first eggs that these little girls laid at the very start of egg laying. It was really surprising as Salmon, Spangle and Marmite have already started laying.

I can only wonder if it belongs to Smoke as she hasn’t been laying since going broody. Smoke was broody for two weeks and it’s now been a further week since she came out of broodiness so I would be expecting her to start laying again soon. This has never happened after being broody before though. It is most odd and I guess I can never be certain which girl laid it.

This is a mystery. It will be interesting to see if Smoke lays over the next few days. If not I have no explanation for this.

And in other news Ebony has laid an egg after a month’s break. Hopefully this means she is back laying again. It seems that she started a month earlier than Flame and then took a month off to catch up.

Whatever the reason it will be good to have two bigger girls laying. The boost in eggs means that I no longer need to buy any eggs. At the moment there are enough eggs for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays and one mid week breakfast too. Hurrah!

Six weeks ago we bought our new leather settee for the sitting room and started looking for a leather chair to go with it. It didn’t matter about matching it as the other chairs already in our sitting room are all different.

However we looked in every furniture shop in the surrounding area to us and we couldn’t find anything that we liked. We then started looking online and found a chair that we thought would be right. It is a chesterfield shape with Queen Anne legs and the leather is aged to look vintage. This hopefully means that wear won’t notice on it as it looks old already.

We have never bought anything as big as furniture online before and were nervous about buying a chair without seeing it in the flesh and trying it out but as we couldn’t find anything we liked in the shops we decided to go for it. It was also a better price than any of the chairs in the shops.

We were given a one to three week delivery slot. We decided to get rid of the old chair as we really didn’t like it and didn’t want to look at it any longer. We broke it up and and put the bits in our bin.

The three weeks passed and still no sign of our chair. I got in touch with the company and didn’t get a reply at first and started to feel uneasy. Then I got a call saying the chair had been dispatched to the delivery company and they would text me with a date for delivery soon. Another week passed and just as I was about to get in touch again I got a text saying it would be delivered today, Saturday. It was now five weeks since I had ordered it.

The corner of the sitting room had looked empty and sad for all these weeks. We had probably been too quick to get rid of the old chair but hadn’t expected the new one to be so long arriving.

In truth it isn’t as we had pictured it. It is bigger than I had imagined it. It is also more different in colour to the settee than I had imagined it although I had expected it to be lighter in colour. Both the settee and the chair are described as tan but are totally different shades. Maybe it’s just making the transition from only seeing it as a photograph and seeing it in the flesh.

I think also having looked at an empty corner for so long makes it seem odd to now see it filled again whereas if we had just removed one chair for another it may have seemed less odd.

I think it’s just going to be a matter of getting used to it. I had hoped that I would love it straight away but we are both agreed that we haven’t seen anything else we like so we just need to allow it to grow on us.

I realised that I haven’t put out a post in a while. There were a few more posts as egg laying commenced and then there really hasn’t been much happening which is certainly no bad thing. I can do without dramas!

Spangle laid her second egg of the year three days after her first. This egg was smaller than her first one and had no blood streak on it. It was her usual torpedo shape and slightly darker colour. I think because the first egg took longer for her to lay it was slightly bigger for her and that was why it had the blood streak.

It’s a week ago since Salmon laid her second egg of the year. Salmon isn’t a frequent layer. Marmite has now laid four eggs in six days so not bad at all. Flame continues to lay every other day and Ebony still isn’t laying.

I wonder if it’s because Ebony started laying so early in the year that she isn’t laying now. She started half way through January. Flame started laying half way February both this year and last year. Ebony laid all through the winter last year so she was obviously in her first year. This means I don’t have a comparison.

Spangle is my friendliest little girl and as I went to take a photo of her coming out of the nest box she looked straight up at me for a close up.

Marmite’s egg is on the right and Spangle’s egg is on the left. This is her usual beige colour and elongated shape. This is why I have always found it relatively easy to tell the girls’ eggs apart.

I am very happy with the girls this winter. Despite it being a horribly wet winter there haven’t been any problems with the girls which is great and long may it continue.

Today Spangle settled in the nest box again. A few times she had a false alarm and would come out of the nest box shouting and I would check and there would be no egg. The next time she came out shouting she had finally got her first egg of the year laid. Well done Spangle!

Spangle’s egg had slight streaks of blood on it but this does sometimes happen on the first egg, especially when it has taken a long time to be laid, so I am not worried.

Flame’s egg is on the right, Salmon’s egg is second from the right, Marmite’s egg is third from the right and Spangle’s egg is on the left with a little streak of blood on the shell.

At the same time as Spangle laid her first egg of the year Smoke gave up being broody. I felt that Smoke was getting ready to come out of broodiness as she had been coming out of the nest box more often and staying out for longer over the last couple of days.

It has been exactly two weeks since Smoke went broody. Today Smoke stayed out of the nest box all day. I wondered what she would do at bedtime as I had been lifting her every evening from the nest box to the perch in the chicken shed.

I went up to check after dusk and was very pleased to find Smoke on the perch in the chicken shed. Hurrah! That means Smoke is definitely finished with being broody.

After a bit of break Smoke will start laying again which will be great as she is our best layer. Well done girls!