Carol's Chickens

When the weather is awful as it has been recently the girls spend a lot of their time in the shelter. It’s Sugar’s favourite place during winter and the rest of the girls tend to gather around her. Mango and Cloud’s favourite spot is standing on the shelf in the shelter.

Red joins them occasionally but Red is the busiest girl of the flock and is never still for long. Today the whole flock were together in the shelter including Red but when I returned with my camera Red was out and about again.

Red always has muddy feet because she will venture out into the wet parts of the run. While most of the girls stick to the dry areas Red always covers the entire run. It’s difficult to get a good photo of Red because she is always on the move.

Later today Red was in the nest box giving me a chance to get a better photograph of her.

Storm is the nosiest girl of the flock and she will always check on Red in the nest box.

Red has now been laying every other day like clockwork for the last two weeks. It is lovely to have one reliable egg layer at last. She will keep us going until the start of springtime eggs.

I have had to do this right at the end of the year this year as Red is still laying. Sadly we lost Salmon and Dot this year. We lost Salmon on 22nd February when she couldn’t lay her first egg after two years of not laying. We lost Dot on 17th July after laying prolifically for five months.

I will first show how many months each girl has laid before their total eggs laid.

Salmon – 0 months – 0 eggs.

Dot – 5 months – 75 eggs.

Autumn – 1 month – 8 eggs.

Gold – 6 months – 62 eggs.

Storm – 7 months – 68 eggs.

Sugar – 5 months – 38 eggs.

Mango – 4 months – 29 eggs.

Cloud – 5 months – 41 eggs.

Snow – 4 months – 46 eggs.

Red – 2 months – 19 eggs.

Total eggs for this year is 386.

Some of the lower egg totals are because of broodiness. Autumn and Red have low totals due to the short time they laid. With the days very gradually lengthening Red has started laying more frequently and is now laying every other day. It will be interesting to see how Autumn and Red do next year.

Storm is a much better layer than Mango and Cloud but that is due to the broodiness of Mango and Cloud. Sugar’s total also reflects her broodiness.

Snow didn’t start laying until half way through June so she will probably lay a lot more next year.

All eggs are very much appreciated.

And I wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

It’s become a Christmas tradition for the girls to have a fish treat on Christmas morning. We had smoked salmon omelette for breakfast and they had sardines in olive oil.

They look very happy enjoying their fish. They also have their daily spinach. Autumn is now fully feathered. Red is still laying on average every five days and has laid a Christmas day egg today! Autumn laid on Christmas day last year and Red this year so that is quite special.

Happy Christmas everyone, we hope you are all enjoying your day.

I would like to wish all my readers and their families a lovely Christmas and a very happy New Year and to thank you for reading my blog and commenting which means so much to me. XX

Autumn is unfortunate having such a heavy moult so late in the year. But she does have lots of pins and her bottom now has short fluffy feathers.

Autumn still looks really shabby but at least she is on the right side of the moult now. The feather dropping has slowed right down. And, thank goodness, she seems to have stopped pecking at her legs and feet.

Red is still laying but very sporadically. She laid nine eggs in a month in November. She has laid two eggs in nine days in December so far. She is currently laying every four days. But every egg is a bonus.

Autumn is having the worse moult we can remember. She looks very tatty, is still dropping feathers and is a mass of pins.

It’s been a few days since I stopped spraying Autumn’s legs and feet. So far she has left them alone and they look good. I really hope we have come to the end of this. Although she looks a mess she is back to normal in herself. She is eating and is looking happier. I look forward to seeing her all feathered up again.

Autumn is having the most tatty moult we have seen for many years. She is having the latest moult we have seen for many years too.

I thought Autumn was over the worst of her moult as the feather dropping seemed to have slowed down. Then over the last few days she seems to be going through another wave with feathers all over the chicken shed and run.

A few days ago I took this photo of Red and Autumn as it’s rare to see them perching together. This came about because Autumn was already perched and when Red spotted me she came up for eye contact. This is one of Red’s endearing habits. She always comes to the wire when we are outside and follows me when I am inside.

Autumn’s feet are now looking much better. I am continuing to use the spray that is every three days for three weeks until it runs out which will probably be over the next few uses. In the middle week I used the daily spray for a week. I am hoping that this combination has worked. So far she has left her feet alone. I hope this continues when I finally stop spraying.

It will be good to see Autumn feathered up again. She has lost her fluffy bottom but has plenty of pins so it shouldn’t be long before she is back to her former glory.

Red laid her third egg, this time round, two days ago.

Today to my surprise Red was in the nest box again. I checked back a little later and she had laid her egg. This is now four eggs in eight days. Maybe Red has finally hit her stride and will continue to lay without breaks. Well done Red!

Portraits of the girls in the order I that took them.

Red is very stop and start with her egg laying. An odd pattern seems to have emerged. She laid three eggs in a week then took a seven day break. She laid another three eggs in a week then took another seven day break. She has now laid another two eggs in five days so it remains to be seen if she lays one more and then takes a break again.

Snow’s tail has completely grown back in.

I have finished the daily, five day oil based, scaly mite treatment on Autumn’s legs and feet. Before that I sprayed her with the other spray for several days and used vaseline in between. I am now spraying with the other spray for a few more days as it’s almost empty. I am going belts and braces with this.

Autumn is looking much better apart from moulting. I was worried that she felt thin and wasn’t eating properly and thought we were in danger of losing her. Now that she’s obviously feeling better as her legs and feet have healed she is eating properly again and has gained strength and has been dust bathing. She is still moulting but it has now slowed down so I think she is over the worse.

If Autumn now stops pecking her feet I think she will be fine. It all depends if she starts up again. I have been uncertain if the pecking was down to scaly mite or habit. She does improve every time I treat her but so far has started up again at the end of treatment. I have been treating her almost constantly for four months now.

I have a possible theory. Dot and Sugar’s scales were really raised and I wonder if that made it easier for the treatment to get under the scales. Autumn never looked as bad and I wonder if because her scales were much less raised the treatment wasn’t getting under all of her scales.

This time I have used all the recommended treatments in turn and for longer. I also hope the oil may get under her scales better than the spray. I don’t know what more I can do and just really hope this time it has worked.

Autumn is now moulting big time. There are clouds of feathers wherever she has been. Trust her to wait until the start of the colder weather to moult. I decided to give the girls some fish to boost their protein which is supposed to help with growing feathers.

I am throwing everything I can at Autumn to treat her legs and feet. Three nights ago I started spraying with the scaly mite spray again. This is the spray that says to use every third night for three weeks but is almost empty so I ordered another spray. The next night I slathered Autumn’s legs and feet with vaseline. This is supposed to both smother scaly mite and help soften the scales making them more comfortable.

I have used two bottles of scaly mite spray so far with the constant treating of Autumn’s legs and feet. The new spray that arrived yesterday is a poultry scaly leg formula that you use every day for a week. This spray is oil based.

This afternoon I am going to bring Autumn in and wash her legs and feet as the vaseline has made the dirt stick to them.

I will then start Autumn on the new daily spray for a week. This is much quicker than the three week one.

I am treating Autumn again in case it is still scaly mites that are causing her to peck at her feet. I have done endless research on feet pecking and scaly mites. I read other chicken keepers’ stories on the forum – Reddit. I have discovered differing information on scaly mites.

Most people say scaly mite is an easy problem to sort out. They say one treatment gets rid of the mites. I would have agreed with that myself up until now. Dot had scaly mite last year and one treatment sorted out the problem. Sugar also had scaly mite last year and again this year and one treatment sorted her out both times.

But then I read someone’s story that they had scaly mite on one hen and found it, the devil of a job to get rid of, their words. This made me think that perhaps that’s what is going on with Autumn. Maybe she is that one case that’s really hard to get rid of. That’s why I am going to continue to treat her. She has stopped pecking since I have started treating again.

I also read terrible stories of hens pecking their scales off down to the bone and one case of a hen pecking her foot off. This is horrifying and I would have a hen put to sleep before I would ever let it get that bad.

Some people said that they were sure their hen didn’t have scaly mite as the scales were smooth and not raised. The comments said that maybe it was early and didn’t show yet. Others said the pecking started after treatment for scaly mite like with Autumn. I wonder if just one mite or one egg gets left behind and starts the whole thing off again.

So after treating Autumn three times in the last three months I am treating again and hoping a different spray might do the job. I can only keep trying and hope for the best.

The good news is that Red is back in lay again. She laid today on the third day after her last egg. We will be having her eggs for our weekend breakfast.

The bad news is that Autumn is back to pecking her legs and feet. She is even worse than before. It is frustrating because she stops for a while then starts up again.

Autumn started doing this again a week ago. I have repeatedly sprayed her for scaly mite and feel sure she doesn’t have them. There is no sign of them, no grey residue. I think she has just formed a habit of pecking at her scales. For the past week she hasn’t left her feet alone. She has pecked them to the stage where she was limping and she spent all her time on the perch over the hatch in the run and was looking miserable.

This morning Autumn escalated the pecking. She was stood on one of the nest boxes pecking at her feet. Next time I checked on her she was sitting on the perch in the chicken shed. Her feet were bleeding. There was a lump of scales on the nest box that she had picked off.

Autumn has also started to moult which seems very late in the year and I had begun to think she would miss moulting. I am constantly spraying her wounds with the healing and skin repair spray but nothing is going to help if she keeps doing this. We have never had a girl self destruct before and we really think this may end with us losing her.

Her feet are such a mess and she has also pecked off a strip at the back of her leg.

I ended up leaving Autumn in the chicken shed because I felt she was less likely to peck in there, although I can’t be entirely sure and at least her feet would stay clean. Her feet are much more vulnerable to dirt getting in the wounds and I worry about infection.

I don’t think Autumn is eating properly either. She is eating the treats but I haven’t seen her go to the pellets and her poops are sloppy and white.

Later I sprayed Autumn’s feet again and she came out of the chicken shed. I gave her sunflower hearts, chopped tomato and mash. I will do all I can to keep her eating. I have also put vitamins in the water.

As always I have done loads of research on the internet on this. Whatever chicken problem we have other people have too. I found a few people that have the same issue. They said after treating for scaly mite one of their girls started doing this and the photos showed the same as Autumn.

They also said the bird no longer had mites and would stop pecking for a while and then start up again. They had, like me, tried all the different sprays to no avail.

This is disheartening because I am not sure there is a solution. I know from the past that once a girl gets a habit it can be impossible to break.

I really don’t know how this is going to end. If she would just stop pecking she would heal and be okay. If she won’t stop pecking she may go down hill to the extent where she will have to be put to sleep. Usually when there is a problem it can be treated but this isn’t something that can be treated. I am so saddened by this situation.