Carol's Chickens

I struggled to come up with ideas for Christmas presents this year and eventually hit on the idea of giving our close family a bespoke hamper. Over time I collected either luxury items, items we particularly liked or items I knew the recipient would like.

In my boy’s hampers I added a little brussel sprouts jigsaw which I thought would be fun!

After Christmas my youngest son sent a photo to my phone of the jigsaw completed.

A few days later I phoned him to arrange calling round with his birthday card and gift as his birthday is in the first week of January. I mentioned the jigsaw and he said that it wasn’t enjoyable but just really frustrating. He said they couldn’t give in without completing it but that it drove them nuts.

A few days later I called round with the birthday card and gift and I showed them the photo on my phone of the vintage cars jigsaw. My son gave me the brussel sprout jigsaw and said that he would bet that it was much more difficult than the car puzzle despite only having a hundred pieces.

As soon as I got back home I made a start on the jigsaw. The picture was on both sides but one side was shiny and the correct side was matt. There was no picture to follow and the outside edge was not straight but brussel sprouts shaped and of course all the pieces looked the same.

As with any jigsaw I sorted the outside pieces which were larger and curved and I managed to get the outside completed. There was a slight hiccup as not all the pieces fitted together but some just fitted side by side with straight or angled edges.

I then started to try to get the middle fitted and soon realised what my son meant. It says on the jigsaw that it is dastardly difficult and it certainly was!

This was as far as I could get on the first day and it took as long to find the few inside pieces as it did to complete the outside. I had to give up for now.

I came back to the jigsaw the next day.

At this point I just couldn’t seem to progress. I was very close to giving up. A lot of the pieces are the same shape so they fit but you just know they are not right. It was a lot of trial and error. At this point I knew exactly what my son meant about it being frustrating rather than enjoyable.

Whereas with the car jigsaw we looked forward to continuing with it this one just made me frustrated and I wanted to give up but I hate giving up. I also felt that if my son could do it then I could do it. I kept walking away and then returning to have another go.

At this point I knew that I could finish it. I was amazed at how difficult it was even this far along.

Hurrah! I was so pleased to have got it finished. That is definitely the most annoying jigsaw that I have ever done. I look forward to the next jigsaw being more fun. This one wasn’t fun it was just a challenge that I couldn’t give up on.

I never want to see this brussel sprout jigsaw again!

By “Christmas jigsaw” I mean that the jigsaw was a Christmas gift to my husband from his youngest son. It was very well chosen as it depicts vintage cars. It has a thousand pieces.

My husband decided we should have a go at it on the day before New Year’s Eve. It soon became very addictive. It was also very satisfying as it progressed.

The first day we got the edges completed. This took several goes through every piece in the box to find all the straight edges. We were very pleased with ourselves when we completed the edge and I took a photograph.

We spent a couple of hours together doing the jigsaw every afternoon. As I said it became very addictive. It took us five days to complete and I took a photograph each day at the end of our session.

First we did the easiest parts which was the body work on the different coloured cars. Once we had completed most of the colourful parts it became much more difficult as the windscreens were all a similar colour and the tyres and the background were all black or dark.

There were also quite a few red cars so it became difficult finding the right red pieces for the right car. At this point it slowed down and towards the end it speeded up again. The dark background was really difficult until that was all that was left. It then became a task of using the shape of each piece to find where it fitted.

We were immensely pleased with ourselves when we completed it and it is still sitting on our dining table as we can’t bear to break it up yet.

We have really enjoyed this jigsaw. It reminded us that that there are a couple more jigsaws in the cupboard from previous Christmases that had been forgotten about.

We will now get them out and do them. One has five hundred pieces and one has seven hundred and fifty pieces. Bring on the next jigsaw.

We went to a New Year’s Eve party with our allotment friends and their neighbours. It was such a fun party. They had amazing fireworks and we all sang and danced our way through until one o’clock this morning. It was so much fun.

I gave the girls a fish treat again this morning and I thought it would be a good start to the year to get a photo of them together. Speckles had other ideas though.

Speckles was having such a lovely dust bath that she couldn’t be tempted to leave it for some fish.

It was good to see the girls enjoying their fish but it was especially good to see Speckles enjoying a dust bath. Speckles caught up with the fish later in the day.

Happy New Year to everyone.

It’s been a sad year for losses in the chicken run this year. We have lost five girls and now have a flock of seven. This makes it difficult to do a monthly average of eggs so I am just going to give the egg totals for each girl and the overall total.

Smoke has been broody for eight days and today she has stayed out in the run all day so I think she is through it now. This is quite quick for her but I think that may be due to the time of year.

However as the girls always take a couple of weeks after being broody before starting to lay again Smoke won’t start laying for a while. This means I can do my end of year egg count now.

The total eggs laid this year was 791. This was quite a lot more than last year ( 431 ) but was due to having a bigger flock for a while.

I will start with the girls that we have lost.

We lost Dandelion on 13/4/19. Dandelion had laid 8 eggs.

We lost Sienna on 25/4/19. Sienna laid only one tiny “first egg” and then never laid again. It turned out that she had a heart problem and this explains why she never laid.

We lost Vanilla on 4/9/19. Vanilla had laid 65 eggs.

We lost Cinnamon on 3/10/19. Cinnamon had laid 28 eggs.

We lost Jasmine on 28/10/19. Jasmine had laid 65 eggs.

Now on to the girls that we have remaining in the flock.

Speckles who is our elderly girl laid 6 eggs. Speckles laid 1 egg in March and 5 eggs in June. We were surprised when she started laying again. It wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t lay next year but you never know. I wouldn’t predict more than 3 if she follows her trend of recent years.

Ebony laid 153 eggs and is our top layer. This is despite having some long broody spells.

Flame laid 114 eggs and had more broody spells than Ebony.

Salmon laid 60 eggs. Salmon has never gone broody.

Spangle laid 67 eggs and has also never gone broody.

Marmite laid 117 eggs and often went broody.

Smoke laid 118 eggs and she too often went broody.

This clearly shows that it is the best layers that go broody. Salmon and Spangle have never gone broody and have only laid about half the number of eggs of Marmite and Smoke who are frequent broodies.

Just imagine how many eggs Marmite and Smoke would lay if they didn’t go broody. Although it actually doesn’t work like that because it is good egg layers that go broody as they quickly lay enough to make up a clutch. The erratic egg layers don’t lay enough to make up a clutch in time to brood them.

I actually prefer the girls to lay less eggs and not go broody but of course we don’t get a choice about that with the breeds that we have.

My hope for the New Year, within the flock, is that we don’t have any more losses and manage to stay stable for a while. I am happier that I am now armed with tylan but of course with these girls we never know what may be coming next.

I am also aware that Speckles age means that I have to be prepared for her to go but she seems very well so I am hopeful that our creaking gate will continue to creak for a while yet.

Salmon is my other concern as she still has her wheeze. She seems well other than that though so I am hopeful that she may eventually stop wheezing. We can only hope for the best and I look forward to egg laying resuming in the New Year.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

We have just had our third Christmas dinner. We all had a lovely time apart from our grandson who wasn’t feeling well and slept through most of the day. This was such a shame for him and the family were going to stay over but decided it would be best to get poorly boy back to his own bed. He had a cold and sore throat and wasn’t up to eating anything.

Everyone else seem to make up for it by eating extra to cover his portion. Again lots of food and drink was consumed and another batch of presents opened.

The table is much the same with just a different set of serviettes and Christmas crackers. Once again there were seven of us.

My husband had amongst his previous gifts some fir cones that burn blue in the fire so he put the last of them on the fire to show the grandchildren.

We are now exhausted after all the Christmas entertaining. It’s all been lovely but very tiring and we are looking forward to getting back to normal.

Just New Years Eve to go!

It has become our tradition that the girls have a fish treat on Christmas morning.

Smoke had laid nine eggs and then went broody so I lifted her from the nest box to the patio area before putting the fish dishes down.

Soon all the fish was gone. I think they enjoyed their Christmas treat.

Merry Christmas all and enjoy your day.

We have three Christmas dinners. One with my side of the family, one with my husband’s side of the family and Christmas Day itself is just the two of us.

This year we had my side on Saturday and will have my husband’s side on Friday. There were my youngest son and daughter in law and my eldest son, daughter in law and delightful two and a half year old grandson with a second grandson due in April.

We had a really lovely time. We did the full on turkey dinner and have saved a few slices of turkey for our Christmas dinner so we don’t need to cook it again and have too much left over. We have parsnips and sprouts from the allotment for our Christmas dinner.

There was lots to eat and drink and then exchanging gifts after dinner. The eldest son’s family stayed over and left after lunch the next day. My little grandson didn’t want to go home and in truth I didn’t want him to go home either.

We had such a lovely time. We will have Christmas Day with just the two of us but with phone calls from all the family. For the third Christmas dinner my husband’s family have chosen roast beef.

Phew! Three turkey dinners would have been a stretch too far and we are looking forward to having a different third dinner.

It stretches our Christmas out and will soon run into the New Year celebrations.

I would therefor like to take this moment to wish all my readers, their families and their chooks a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We put our Christmas tree up yesterday. I decorated the tree and put the rest of the Christmas decorations up so now feel our house is already for Christmas.

We have a Christmas tree

The tree is decorated

Close up

The tree during the day

I am really pleased with this tree as we managed to find a narrow one that fit’s the space perfectly. Some years it has hung over the arm of the chair and in front of the television. I like the shape of it too and the fact that the lower branches completely hide the stand.

We are now ready for Christmas.

I thought it was time to do an update on the flock. They are all fine. Salmon still has a slight wheeze but it’s not as bad as it has been in the past. I would dearly love for her to stop wheezing altogether but she looks well so I just hope that one day it will completely disappear.

Speckles had a sort of shallow breathing for a while where we could see her feathers going up and down with her breaths. We assumed that this was due to her old age. We then noticed that after I had treated the girls with a course of tylan her breathing has returned to normal. We now wonder if due to her age she was having a slight respiratory problem due to the myco and the tylan has now cleared it.

Speckles is looking good although you can see her age in her eyes. She is also much slower to go to the treats but she seems fine.

Ebony is moulting again. Feathers are drifting from her and are under her roost spot in the mornings. She has lost her confidence with the moult which is something we have noticed often happens. Ebony was always first to the treats but now shows no interest although she did get a few worms when I dug the run over today. She slowly mooches about and has a sort of tilted down stance.

Smoke has laid six eggs in nine days and will probably go broody again before long. It is good to be getting a few eggs. All the other girls are the same as they usually are.

Speckles

Flame

Ebony with slightly downward stance

Salmon

Spangle

Marmite still has pins on her head

Smoke

They are such a lovely flock and I hope we can get them all safely through the winter as it’s been a tough year for loses. Fingers crossed that we can keep the flock this size for a good while.