Carol's Chickens

The day before yesterday we had our first, five egg, day of the year. Jasmine actually went to the nest box to lay her egg this time. It is her fourth egg and is a week after her last one. Spangle, Ebony, Marmite and Smoke also laid. That is all our current laying girls on one day.

The next day Marmite started to behave like a broody. She was raising her tail and was settled in the nest box at bedtime. I had to lift her to the bedtime perch. She didn’t lay that day. It’s typical that we have just got Smoke laying again in time for the next girl to go broody. I suspect we won’t have another, five egg, day for a while.

Today Marmite went to the nest box after the morning sunflower seeds. I lifted her out a couple of times. At one point she was sitting on Smoke’s egg.

A bit later she actually laid her own egg. Smoke was the same and laid a few more eggs after starting the broody behaviour.

Broody Marmite

A fully fanned tail

Out of the nest box

I am now so familiar with broody seramas that I recognise the fanned tail as a signal of a broody. When Freckles first went broody I thought there was something wrong with her!

Both Smoke and now Marmite have plucked out some breast feathers. I found a little heap of her feathers in the nest box. They sometimes do this by instinct to get their warm skin against an egg. It is a shame to see her feathers in the nest box and this is the first time I have come across this myself although I had read about it.

At bedtime tonight Marmite was in the nest box again and once more I moved her to the perch in the chicken shed. The good thing is that she doesn’t peck me and is easy to handle.

I am now resigned to the fact that if I have seramas I have to just get used to having broodies. It is all part of serama keeping and keeps me on my toes. At least now with a bigger flock there will always be enough eggs even with some broody girls.

What I love about giving the girls this sort of treat is that I can get a few photos of the entire flock together.

Yogurt for the girls

Plenty of yogurt beaks

I love their enthusiasm and their little yogurt beaks and I love seeing them all together like this. They do love a yogurt treat and at the end of the day the dishes looked as if they had been licked clean!

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentines Day. We started the day exchanging gifts and cards.

Valentine gifts and cards

We are quite traditional with our exchanges. We always get each other a card and my husband always buys me red roses and chocolates and I always buy him a D.V.D. and chocolates.

Red roses are my favourite and I think the most romantic so although he buys me other flowers at other times it is always red roses for Valentines. We both love chocolates so that gives us something to share for lunchtime desserts and we both enjoy films so that gives us something to watch together in the evening.

We always have our Valentines dinner at home. We both feel that going out on Valentines Day means overpriced set menus and quickly turned couples tables and if distance is involved a taxi too.

We take turns at making something special at home.

I decided to go for a seafood theme. I found these frozen langoustines at Tesco which I hadn’t seen before. I had never cooked them before but it said to defrost them then cook in boiling water for five minutes.

I also bought a pot of luxury crab meat and some gravadlax smoked salmon with a mustard and dill dressing. My purchases were paid for with one of my fifteen pound Tesco vouchers so it is a free meal making it even better.

I decided to serve it with Marie Rose sauce, mixed leaf salad and crusts off brown bread and butter. I also got some chocolate mouse desserts which were on offer at four for a pound.

Langoustines before I cooked them

Langoustines after they were cooked and shelled

I was amazed how small they were after cooking and shelling. They looked lost on this plate so I decided to serve them like this.

Langoustines in individual dishes

I decided to serve the cab meat in the same way

Gravadlax smoked salmon and a mustard and dill sauce

Salad leaves

Brown bread and butter and Marie Rose sauce topped with a sprinkle of paprika.

With my voucher it hasn’t cost anything and with only five minutes cooking the langoustines it has also been an easy meal.

We also had a bottle of fizz left over from Christmas and New Year which we decided to save for Valentines so it has been really low cost this year.

Valentine table

I don’t usually take photos of food but Valentines is an exception. A perfect table for two at home.

And … it was delicious. We are not big eaters these days but we ate every bit.  It was the perfect meal for us. A very enjoyable Valentines indeed.

There isn’t much news in the chicken run at the moment which is never a bad thing! So I thought that I would take some up to date photos.

Speckles

Although Speckles had virtually finished her moult at the end of the summer she has been dropping single tail feathers for a while to reveal her new tail feathers underneath. She has just one tail feather left to drop, longer than the others a little loose.

Ebony

Ebony’s feathers have changed slightly and developed pale tips. I think they may be the oldest feathers and will be moulted next year. Ebony doesn’t have the most attractive of chicken faces. She always looks quite fierce.

Flame back view

I struggled to get a photo of flame’s face as she kept turning away at the moment that I clicked.

Flame close up

But I managed to catch her here. She has an attractive face and beautiful plumage.

Dandelion

Dandelion is all feathered up again apart from a few pins on her head. She looks like a little ball.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is also feathered up apart from a few pins on her head.

Sienna

Jasmine

Silky girls

It was more difficult taking separate photos of these girls as they are always together. All the girls have round eyes except Jasmine whose eyes are quite narrow. It sometimes makes her look a bit unhappy.

Smoke

Smoke also has a few pins on her head. Smoke has quite a v in her comb compared to the other girls and her legs match her feather colour. Smoke is the best serama layer so far.

Vanilla

Vanilla has a red comb and face and looks like she should be laying but has shown no interest in the nest box so far. I had expected her to be among the first to lay and yet she is the last of the amigos to start.

Marmite

Marmite is the second best serama layer, very close behind Smoke.

Spangle

Spangle has the most magnificent tail of all the girls. She is third best serama layer.

Spangle front on

Spangle is so friendly and I couldn’t resist including this front on photo.

Salmon

Salmon is so pretty. She laid one tiny egg, mid January, and hasn’t laid since or shown any interest in the nest box.

Salmon front on

Salmon is also a friendly girl.

I think the current flock is the most varied and pretty flock that we have had yet and they all get on really well. I have also been surprised by what good egg layers some of them are.

It will be interesting to see what the nest box antics will be like this summer with them all laying and also to see how many broody girls we have. I am looking forward to an interesting summer.

Sunday breakfast eggs before cooking.

Sunday breakfast eggs

Marmite’s recent tiny egg is on the right.

Sunday breakfast eggs in the pan

Marmite’s tiny egg had a really hard shell. I struggled to crack it and so ended up breaking the yolk which is why it looks oval in shape. Her tiny egg was mostly yolk. They are all lovely eggs whatever size they are.

Yesterday for breakfast we had Jasmine’s egg and the shell was thin so I think both it’s size and thin shell were what made it difficult for her to lay. I have never seen her go to the grit and oyster shell. She has, so far, only laid her eggs two weeks apart so perhaps as she lays more often she will start going to the grit.

Yesterday Smoke laid her first egg since she took a two week break after going broody. Smoke’s egg on the right is white and Spangle’s egg on the left is beige. This is one of the reasons I can still tell the girls’ eggs apart at the moment, coupled with spotting them in the nest box, or missing from the run.

Smoke’s first egg after her broody break

Smoke’s first egg, after her break, is a bit smaller than she usually lays but I would expect them to get bigger over the coming days. It is good to have our best laying serama back in action.

It is lovely having plenty of eggs over the winter and all the eggs, big and small, are perfect!

These larger snowdrops are much later opening up than the smaller, frillier, ones that I have photographed recently.

Larger snowdrops

They are just opening up at last.

Jasmine didn’t look happy yesterday afternoon and I thought that maybe she had an egg problem. I wondered if she was about to lay a soft shelled egg. At bedtime she was perched in her usual spot but looked odd with her tail raised. I hoped she would lay an egg first thing in the morning and bounce back.

Jasmine didn’t lay this morning and still didn’t look at all happy. After the morning sunflower seeds she went to her bedtime spot in the chicken shed. Although she was on her bedtime perch rather than in a nest box I recognised this from when she laid her last egg.

Jasmine is not happy

Jasmine laid her first tiny egg on 18th January. She laid it early in the morning from her roost spot. A week later I felt she was about to lay her next egg but she kept going to this same bedtime spot from where she had laid her first egg.

I lifted her down and put her in the nest box where she stayed put. Later she laid another egg which was bigger than her first tiny egg but still smaller than the usual serama sized egg.

Today I lifted her down again and put her in the nest box but she didn’t stay and went to perch on the ladder where there was some sun. She sat dozing in the sun.

Jasmine dozing in the sun

At this point I was torn as to whether it was an egg problem or was mycoplasma. It seemed more likely to be an egg problem but sometimes the symptoms can be the same. Freckles would doze in this position when she had myco. I decided to wait and see if she laid today before making the decision to treat with tylan again.

Since the freezing temperatures at the weekend I had seen Dandelion with a bubble in her eye on one occasion for the first time this winter. She soon blinked it away and I decided to just keep an eye on her. Today Dandelion was on the perch above Jasmine and I noticed she had a slight crust over her right eyelid. This was something that used to happen last winter.

When I next checked Dandelion had scratched the crust away. This added to me being unsure if it was an egg problem with Jasmine or myco. I decided to treat with tylan tomorrow if Jasmine didn’t lay but at that point she went to the nest box.

Dandelion has a crust over her right eye

Jasmine in the nest box

To my relief when I next checked Jasmine was back out in the run looking her usual self again. There was an egg in the nest box of a bigger size than her previous egg. I think she had been struggling to lay a bigger egg but it had a good shell.

Today’s eggs

On the right is Ebony’s large egg and next is Spangle’s egg which is always a beige colour like Ebony’s. Next is Marmite’s pale egg and on the left is Jasmine’s, bigger and rounder, pale egg. This is probably why she was having difficulty getting it laid.

It is a week and a half since her last egg so she is obviously getting started slowly. Hopefully she will soon get the hang of it. Another crises has passed and hopefully all is back to normal once more.

Yesterday and today the weather couldn’t be more different than it was on Sunday when we walked to the allotment. Sunday was very cold but with the sunshine and a clear blue sky it was a lovely day. Yesterday and today have been milder but have been dark and wet and gloomy starting with some fog this morning.

The good thing is that it has cleared all the snow and it has stayed above freezing overnight. This means I don’t have to worry about the chickens’ water freezing.

On the way up to the girls with the bedtime corn I noticed that the snowdrops had water droplets on them. It looked like ice and although I knew it wasn’t I couldn’t resist touching a water droplet with my finger. It was odd how the droplets were just on the snowdrops and not on any of the other plants.

Snowdrops with water droplets

The snowdrops looked quite beautiful.

Yesterday we decided to take a walk to the allotment to see how long it takes. We had walked before but we were pushing our little grandson on his trike so it wasn’t a true test of how long it takes to walk.

From our door to our plot it took forty minutes of brisk walking. We haven’t been able to do anything more with the plot because of the weather.

Allotment plot in the snow

And from the other end

Despite frozen, crunchy snow, it was a lovely day. Cold but sunny with clear blue sky. It was good to get out for a walk.

Back home I thought I would take another photo of our snowdrops this time in the snow.

Snowdrops in the snow

The snow is gradually going. These snowdrops were completely buried and have gradually been revealed again. They look fragile but are so resilient.

I will be glad to see the back of the snow as it feels like enough now.

Marmite has laid a total of nineteen eggs since she started laying at the end  of December. Her first two eggs were really tiny and then her next one was normal sized. The day before yesterday Ebony, Spangle and Marmite all laid. The three girls were in the three nest boxes at the same time and all laid at about the same time.

While Smoke is taking a break, since going broody, these three girls are the only ones laying regularly at the moment.

Yesterday the run was quite dark due to the snow on the roof of the run and it continued to snow lightly on and off all day.

Dandelion and Cinnamon spent most of the day in the large wooden shelter. The rest of the flock hung around just beyond the patio area. It was the most inactive I have ever seen the flock.

Late afternoon Marmite was in her favourite middle nest box. She was the only girl to go to the nest box all day. I checked a little later just as she came out and her warm egg was in the nest box. The odd thing was that it was another tiny egg. Not as tiny as her first two eggs but not much bigger either.

I know that it was Marmite’s egg as she was the only girl to go in the nest box otherwise I would have put it down to another girls’ first egg.

Marmite lays another tiny egg

On the right is Ebony’s egg from the day before yesterday. To the left of that is Spangle’s egg and then left of that Marmite’s egg from the day before yesterday. On the left is Marmite’s egg from yesterday.

Marmite’s egg next to a pound coin for size comparison

Marmite’s first two eggs were tiny enough to sit on the pound coin so this is about double that size but still very small. It is interesting. I am guessing that her next egg will probably be normal size once more but we will see!