{"id":15039,"date":"2016-04-24T13:25:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-24T13:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=15039"},"modified":"2016-04-24T13:28:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-24T13:28:33","slug":"here-we-go-again-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=15039","title":{"rendered":"Here we go again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Butterscotch has been broody for a week now. I get her out of the nest box three or four times a day for a break. She is a docile and easy to handle broody girl. She accepts me taking her out with good grace and not a murmur.<\/p>\n

She sits until I move her on then runs off and frantically scratches, takes a quick dust bath, poops and has some food and water, then returns back to the nest box.<\/p>\n

While she has a dust bath Barley always helps her. She seems fascinated by Butterscotch and is always by her side while she has a dust bath. Barley scratches and pecks the dirt around Butterscotch and pecks specks of dirt from her feathers.<\/p>\n

\"Butterscotch<\/a>

Butterscotch takes a dust bath<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Barley<\/a>

Barley is always on hand to help<\/p><\/div>\n

\"barley<\/a>

Barley with Butterscotch<\/p><\/div>\n

I then noticed that Barley would peck at the pins on Butterscotch’s head and I would chase her off. Yesterday I noticed that Butterscotch now has a bare patch on her neck.<\/p>\n

I worried that Barley may have pulled feathers from her. I dreaded the thought of this happening again.<\/p>\n

\"butterscotch<\/a>

Butterscotch has a bare patch<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Butterscotch<\/a>

Butterscotch is missing feathers<\/p><\/div>\n

I then realised that Butterscotch has pins on the bare patch. You can just see them on the photo above and below.<\/p>\n

\"Butterscotch<\/a>

Butterscotch has pins<\/p><\/div>\n

I think what is happening is that Barley is trying to pull these pins. The white pins on black skin really show up and Barley probably thinks she is being helpful trying to remove these specks.<\/p>\n

It’s good news that she isn’t pulling feathers but bad news if she pulls out the pins as this would leave Butterscotch with a bare patch.<\/p>\n

I really wish her pin feathers would hurry up and open. Luckily she is in the nest box most of the time and I am watching over her when she comes out. The problem is that while she is constantly either laying eggs or broody her feathers are opening at a painfully slow pace. This leave the pins vulnerable to being pulled.<\/p>\n

There is nothing more I can do though so I just have to hope enough feathers open to give her some covering. Butterscotch has had the longest and slowest moult of any chicken I have ever come across. I hope she has new feathers soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Butterscotch has been broody for a week now. I get her out of the nest box three or four times a day for a break. She is a docile and easy to handle broody girl. She accepts me taking her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15039"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15058,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15039\/revisions\/15058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}