Carol's Chickens

Last night I delayed going out to the girls until just before the automatic door closed. To my surprise Sienna and Jasmine had perched next to Dandelion and Cinnamon so I didn’t need to move them and even more surprising the five new girls had gone in on their own, hurrah! They were settled in a heap in their usual corner behind the pop hole.

It was only the third night of the new regime so I was really pleased. We have only had the new girls a week today and they have settled in so well. I am sure that they will go in on their own every night from now on.

Five girls perch together

I managed to catch them perching in a line this morning on the high branch perch. I love how confident these girls are which has made mixing the flock so easy. I feel that our flock of twelve is now quite settled and complete.

I am amazed how quickly the new girls have settled in and how adventurous they have become. We have only had them a week tomorrow and yet they have now explored every corner of the run, every perch, both grit boxes, all the dishes and even the patio area which is always the last area for new girls to explore.

They seem totally unfazed by the other girls or by me or even by my camera. All they need to learn now is how to put themselves to bed at the end of the day but I am sure that won’t take much longer.

Last night I herded them towards the pop hole once more. They are so unfazed by me that it actually makes the herding more difficult as they resist me. They will press against my hands rather than move away from them and will occasionally turn and peck at me, cheeky girls!

Once inside the pop hole instead of settling like past girls they try to escape. I ended up blocking the pop hole with my hands until it closed. I am herding them in just minutes before I know it will close. They push against my hands as if they could move me by brute force! After the pop hole has closed they twitter away quite loudly.

I am hoping that as they have fully explored the patio area this afternoon they may be less resistant to going in tonight but time will tell.

It is a bit more tricky taking photos of five girls so you will have to excuse missing heads or blurred heads. This is the first time we have ever added five and it makes taking photos more difficult but I wonder if it also makes them more confident as there is safety in numbers.

The new girls master the ladder and the high branch perch

You can just see Salmon’s head behind Vanilla and Spangle has her head under her wing.

They check out the patio area

They check out the corner by the pop hole

Smoke checks out the grit and oyster shell hopper

They check out the big girls food dish

I am just loving how easy this integration has been and if it takes a few more nights for them to get the hang of bedtime I am happy with that. Compared to past integrations this has been a delight.

Last night once the main flock had gone to bed I moved Sienna and Jasmine to the perch with Dandelion and Cinnamon. I am going to do this each night to try to train the silkie girls to perch there.

My reasons for this are that if the new girls perch they won’t have to compete with Sienna and Jasmine but can have the perch to themselves and if they don’t perch but huddle in the corner they won’t get pooped on.

The bigger girls are at last starting to go in on their own as the days are getting shorter and cooler.

I moved Sienna and Jasmine next to Dandelion and cinnamon

The three bigger girls had already settled in the back corner. Jasmine and Sienna moved to the end of the perch. They obviously didn’t want to be right next to Dandelion and Cinnamon.

We then herded the new girls into the chicken shed. They were not at all happy with this and kept coming back out. I resorted to putting them in their usual little coop and returned to move them once the pop hole had closed.

I picked them up one by one and put them on the perch.

I put all five new girls on the perch

A few seconds later they all jumped down and were in heap in the corner

I tried lifting them back up again but they all jumped straight back down. I think perhaps I am trying to rush things a bit so I have decided to let them settle in the corner for a while. I am sure that they will perch up when they are ready.

If I can get them to go in the chicken shed tonight without popping out again I will be happy with that. It usually takes a couple of nights for new girls to get the hang of it but I am sure it won’t take long.

I have decided to put a mix of chick crumb and growers pellets in the three dishes out in the run and a mix of growers and layers pellets in the dish on the patio area. Once the girls stop laying I will put growers in all the dishes until after the winter. By this time the new girls will be ready to go on to layers.

The new girls have already grown in confidence today and have been using the entire run and the perches. I am happy with the progress and integrations of late have been so much easier than in the past.

I have been feeling that the new girls were ready to integrate with the main flock but we had family staying for the weekend so I decided to leave it until they had left so that I could spend time keeping an eye on the flock.

I intend to try to get the new girls to go in the chicken shed at bedtime so I moved their coop back to it’s usual nest box position on the patio area.

I added a few more feeding stations with chick crumb and water dishes. The problem was that the new girls were now imprinted on their part of the run and I couldn’t get them to move from there.

The new girls stayed in the area they were used to

I tried herding them to the other part of the run but they would just run straight back to their part. I decided to remove the feeding station and close off this part of the run so that it was like it had been before but with the new girls on the other side of the gate.

The new girls are in the dryer top part of the run

Jasmine was the only one to chase the new girls from the food. As usual it is the bottom girl who wants to assert herself and move up the pecking order.

I put a feeding station either side of the wire as Jasmine couldn’t be in both places at once and added one more dish of chick crumb by the little shelter. I thought this might encourage them to use the shelter.

While in their part of the run the new girls had found all of the perches so I am hopeful that they will perch in the chicken shed at bedtime. I think that once they have spent a night in the chicken shed they will become more used to the top part of the run.

I will open up their part of the run tomorrow but with no feeding station in there. It will give them more places to get away but will hopefully get them used to the rest of the run where the food and water is.

I will report back tomorrow on how it goes at bedtime.

Before we got the new girls we put new tarpaulin over the triangular part of the run. The heat wave summer had caused the tarpaulin to go brittle and crack and then one windy day chunks of it blew away. It had been hot and dry for three months so we weren’t too worried.

I would like to put something more permanent here but it is such an awkward shape. Suddenly the weather changed and the rain came. One day it rained heavily for hours and that part of the run became very wet. I knew we needed to sort this out before I could think of getting new girls.

We found a much thicker, stronger, tarpaulin and re did it. We are hoping that it will last longer and shouldn’t need doing again for a few years.

Yesterday I also bought another “small animal house” as a third nest box. I think in the future with three bigger girls laying we will need three nest boxes.

Speckles stopped laying after she had re started and had laid a further four eggs. She had never laid so late in the year before. As soon as she stopped laying she started moulting again quite heavily.

Speckles is moulting quite heavily

It looks like this under her roost spot every morning at the moment and also around the run and in her dust holes. Sometimes the feathers waft from her as she moves.

Speckles checks out the top of the new nest box

It is a bit orange but I am sure it will soon tone down.

Dandelion tries out the new nest box

Dandelion laid her egg in here today so it seems that the new nest box has passed inspection.

Cinnamon is laying again

After Cinnamon’s three weeks broody she had one further week back to normal and then resumed laying with her first two eggs two days running. She has now settled back into laying every other day.

Ebony continues to lay most days

Flame is still manic

For a week Flame has been rushing about like this looking for eggs. She patrols the patio at speed and checks every corner of the shed and watches over any girl that is laying. The weird thing is, that while she is doing this, she is also still laying most days. We seem to have experienced all the different types of broody girls and this has been a new one for us.

I continue to remove the eggs immediately and once the girls have laid I close the nest boxes to limit her to the shed. I had expected her to give up by now but I am now wondering, if like Cinnamon, she is going to keep this up for three weeks.

Sienna and Jasmine are always together

The silkie girls are never apart and do everything in perfect unison.

I had hoped the new girls would find their own way into the little coop last night but like the night before they were still outside at dusk and chirping loudly. I managed to direct them towards the coop though, instead of picking them up, so that’s a move in the right direction.

I am hoping that maybe tonight they will get the hang of it.

A heap of chicks

They still like to hang out very close together. I have been grinding up growers pellets with my pestle and mortar  but found that they were eating the powder and leaving any whole pellets behind so I decided to buy some chick crumb.

I think these girls would be easy to integrate as both flocks have taken no notice of each other but I need to keep them separate until they are eating pellets. What I may try doing is letting the girls mix for periods of time, while I watch them, so that the new girls get used to the layout of the rest of the run.

It might be possible that if I put several dishes of chick crumb around the run maybe they would just eat that for now. It would be good to start integrating soon and once the bigger girls stop laying I could just feed all the girls growers pellets.

I will play it by ear a bit and see how it goes but at the moment I am happy with the progress. It will be interesting to see what happens at bedtime tonight.

Our current breeder had told me that she often has bigger girls to sell by September. I had been waiting to get some events behind us before calling her. The wedding we catered for, a funeral, a weekend away and then a weekend afternoon tea.

Now I was ready to call her but she beat me to it with a text saying that she had saved me a black serama and a blue one as they were colours that I had said I would love to have. I knew she worked during the week so asked if we could go over at the weekend but she replied that she had Wednesday and Thursday off.

I said we would go over Wednesday afternoon and that I would like to choose a few more girls if she could spare them.

I was excited to see that she had a variety to choose from and asked if I could have five. They were all straight feathered as the silky girls she had were the same colour as Sienna and Jasmine and the few frizzle girls were already spoken for.

I am happy with straight feathered girls as it’s the variety of colour that appeals to me the most. I said I would take the two she had saved for me which she had been hiding so that no one else would see them and want them and then I chose three more from her other stock.

I separated off the bottom part of the run rather than the usual corner as the corner has the high nest box which the game girls use. I set up a feeding station and little coop/nest box plus a water bottle.

The new girls stayed very close together. I tried to show them the water bottle and the food dish but they weren’t interested. My husband suggested putting Sienna and Jasmine in with them to show them the food and water. This didn’t actually work but was good as there was no hassle between them. The silkie girls took no notice of the new girls. There is probably a certain safety in numbers but this was a good start.

Five new girls

Staying close together

I am sticking with my theme of descriptive names and have called them, Marmite, Smoke, Salmon, Vanilla and Spangle. Closer photos with their names further on.

The silkie girls join the new girls

Sienna and Jasmine take no notice of the new girls

By bedtime the new girls didn’t know where to go and were sounding distressed. I picked them up one by one and put them in the coop.

Bedtime

This morning I was awake early so I opened their coop and left them to come out in their own time. They have gained confidence today and explored their part of the run. This morning all the new girls were at the water bottle which I was relieved to see.

I ground up some growers pellets for them to make it more like chick crumb. I was pleased to see that they soon found the food dish and the water dish. I think they will probably find their own way into the coop tonight now that they know where to go.

In the food dish

Marmite

Vanilla

Smoke

Salmon in the middle

Spangle

I think they have settled in really well and I hope to integrate them quite quickly.

Our courgettes have been rather small during the heatwave and drought we experienced in June and July. August has bought rain in downpours and suddenly the courgettes are producing again.

On Sunday I harvested courgettes big and small.

Sunday’s courgette harvest

Not bad for one picking. I roasted the large one for our Sunday dinner topped with a little cheese sauce. The rest I cooked and put in the freezer.

Some I cooked and topped with cheese sauce and some I cooked with garlic and sun dried tomato puree. I have got quite good at finding different ways to use courgette. It looks like there will be many more to come yet.

Flame has now spent three days looking in every corner of the shed, on and off, all day. I wonder how long it will take her to accept that there are no eggs to sit on.

The day before yesterday Dandelion laid her tiny egg in the patio nest box. I swear broody girls have a sixth sense because when I checked Flame was in the patio nest box. She has never been interested in this nest box before apart from the day that she threw all the shavings out of the chicken shed and both nest boxes. I shooed her out and there was Dandelion’s egg. She must be desperate to sit on such a tiny egg.

Today Dandelion sat in the patio nest box again but this time she didn’t lay as sometimes happens. She has the odd false alarm. Flame had been checking the corners of the shed once more but had also been keeping an eye on Dandelion in the patio nest box.

When Flame was missing again I checked the patio nest box and to my surprise she had just laid her egg there. I wonder if she was checking for Dandelion’s egg and was caught a bit short to lay her own egg. Flame had laid before Ebony the day before but Ebony didn’t lay until after Flame this time. The day before it had been first thing in the morning in the chicken shed and I had expected that to be her last for now. My other broody girls do sometimes lay one or two more eggs at this time.

Next it was Ebony’s turn to lay her egg and the sixth sense kicked in again. Flame stood on guard waiting for Ebony to lay her egg.

Flame spent another morning looking for eggs in the chicken shed

Flame spots the potential for a possible egg to sit on

Flame watches over Ebony as she is about to lay her egg

When I next checked Flame was sat on Ebony’s egg. I shooed her out once more and removed the egg. I closed both nest boxes as all three laying girls had now laid and that at least restricts Flame to just checking the corners of the chicken shed.

I really hope Flame soon gets the message that there are no eggs to sit on. The difference here though is that at least she isn’t sitting with no eggs. I keep thinking that she must surely give this up soon.

Flame is broody, or actually not quite, she wants to be broody. All day yesterday she was manically running up and down the patio area and in out of the shed. She was no longer digging or flicking out the shavings or going to the other nest boxes.

Flame did this for the entire day and didn’t lay an egg. This morning I found her egg under her roost spot. There was no deep hole dug out or any shavings scratched out of the shed. It appears as if her mania the day before stopped her laying and she had just dropped her egg first thing in the morning.

Ebony went on to lay her egg in her usual nest box a little later this morning. Neither girls had laid the day before.

We then realised that Flame was for looking eggs. She was running into the shed and looking in each of the corners. We now think that all the digging out shavings was nest building and she is now looking for eggs to sit on.

The difference between these game girls and my other girls is that they have been used as broodies by their breeder. They have been used to sitting on a clutch of eggs and then hatching them.

Cinnamon has never had an egg to sit on and was responding to her instinct and hormones. She wanted to perch in the shed and wasn’t deterred by the fact that not only were there no eggs to sit on but the perch wouldn’t make a suitable place to sit anyway. I am tempted to say “bird of little brain” despite how much I love her.

Flame on the other hand has sat on a clutch of eggs. She knows that she needs to find some eggs to sit on. She is making a mournful little sound while looking in all four corners of the shed. It seems almost cruel not let her have eggs to sit on but we don’t want to encourage broody behaviour.

I hope that after a few days she will give up and probably stop laying too. She will then get over it and settle down. At least we know what her problem is now.

Flame – are you looking at me!

Is my egg here?

Or is it here?

Is it here?

Is it in this corner?

I feel happier now that we know what is going on with her and it will hopefully soon pass. Chickens! There is always something.

This is totally in hind sight as things often are. It wasn’t until after our recent water problem that we suddenly noticed something about the plants growing against our neighbour’s fence.

It’s been an exceptionally hot and dry summer with a few plants suffering as you would expect.

Our honeysuckle after a heat wave summer

It’s looking a bit brown and some leaves have turned yellow and dropped off but it will come back next year.

In the other direction everything is lush and green

How did we not notice the contrast of these plants which are looking their best ever. We now think that they may have had their own irrigation system from the leak which may have been trickling away long before we became aware of it.

Here is our unfixed stop cock on our unspoilt patio, hurrah!

The guy managed to get this flat again and it looks much the same as it ever did with our patio remaining intact. We are so happy with this result.