Carol's Chickens

The day after Snow came back into lay Gold went broody. It really has been one in and one out constantly this year. I don’t remember such a broody year as this but I wonder if it’s because we have had such good weather early in the year which would be ideal for raising chicks.

So we are back to three layers being Snow, Cloud and Mango. Gold has laid seven eggs in ten days.

One thing about Gold though is that when I lift her from the nest box for a break she always goes for a dust bath. Her favourite place at the moment is one of the many large holes Red has dug all round the run. It’s the deepest one at the bottom end of the run.

I am hoping that Red comes back into lay soon. This really is a yo yo year.

Today Snow settled in a nest box. She had taken just under a two week break since she went broody.

Next time I checked Snow was back out in the run and her egg was in the nest box. I was so pleased to find that it was perfectly smooth and normal looking. No wobble in the shell at all.

It seems that Snow really is back to normal. Whatever had happened to her laying seems to have fixed itself.

Both Red and Storm have now come through their broody spell and we now have four girls laying, Gold, Cloud, Mango and Snow. Hurrah!

Yesterday I felt sure that Mango would lay soon and today she did. She spent a long time going in and out of the nest box before she finally settled.

When I next checked on Mango she was standing over her egg. Hurrah! We now have three girls laying, Mango, Cloud and Gold.

I had just bought some eggs as we were so low with only one little egg a day but now hopefully I won’t have to buy any more this summer. Well done Mango!

The day after Cloud came back into lay Red went broody. This means we are back to only having two girls laying that being Gold and Cloud at the moment. I have had to supplement our eggs this week with some shop bought eggs, sigh!

Red had laid ten eggs in sixteen days. She is determined this time. After the laying girls have laid I close the nest boxes and Red will sit on top of a nest box.

I saw Mango have a scratch around in a nest box today so I think she is very close to coming back into lay.

I am surprised that Mango hasn’t started back laying again as she usually follows close behind cloud. She has now had a month’s break since she last laid.

It will be good to have new girls to get some extra eggs as we are not getting quite enough at the moment. The new girls should start laying around October and should lay through the winter which would be great.

I have researched the new girls and while dutch bantam do go broody they are apparently really good eggs layers for a bantam. Even better Sebrights are not a broody breed at all. It would be so good to have one non broody girl in the flock.

Meanwhile, come on Mango, time to start laying again. Maybe tomorrow.

I have been researching for ages to find somewhere I can get some new girls. I really want to add a couple of girls to our flock. I have exhausted Pippinchick for now. I like “clean” bantams, that is no fancy head dresses, beards or feathered feet and I like to have all different colours in my flock as in no two the same. I know, I am fussy! I have had all the breeds that Pippinchick have to offer for now.

I called the farmer/breeder that I got my game girls from, that is Emerald, Toffee, Flame and Ebony. He no longer breeds game birds since covid. I called the breeder I got my ancona, Speckles and hamburgs, Spot and Dot from amongst other breeds in the past and she has cut right back due to the loss of parents and an impending move and has nothing for me at the moment.

I kept researching bantam breeders within a radius of us and there was nothing I wanted coming up. I then had a light bulb moment and put in to the search bantam breeders that offer a delivery service. Of course Pippinchick comes up first.

I then found Chickens To Your Door. I got quite excited but it turns out they deliver to your door if you have ten or more birds and the delivery service cost is quite high. However they offer a service where they deliver to collection points all over the country for you to pick up from and it’s free. The nearest one to us is Pangbourne, Theal, which is near Reading.

My husband, because of his failing eye sight, is no longer comfortable driving apart from locally and I don’t drive on motorways so with me driving it’s a fifty minute journey but that’s doable.

I picked out four breeds that I would like. When I called them there turned out to be only two breeds available this year. They were two breeds that have been on my wish list for a very long time. Sebright which I have long wanted is available in one colour which is citron and dutch bantam also available in only one colour which they didn’t have a name for but sent me a photo of. The colour is a cross between Cloud and Gold, being the front half of Cloud and the back half of Gold.

An added bonus is that sebrights are non broody.

I have ordered and paid for them. They are currently three weeks old and they deliver them at four months old so they have given me a collection date of 16th August.

I am so excited but it’s a wait yet until I get them. I will have to keep them separated and on growers for two months but that’s something I am used to doing. It is so good to have found a second breeder for the future. I have to be patient for now but can’t wait to pick up my new girls.

They will e-mail me two weeks before the collection date and then again one week before with a pick up time. I now just have to wait. It will be lovely to have new girls again. I am so excited and looking forward to it.

I have taken these two images from google to show what they look like. Beautiful girls.

I knew Cloud was getting ready to come back into lay as she squatted whenever I came up behind her. Today all the nest boxes were occupied. Broody Snow was in one and Red and Gold were getting their eggs laid in the other two.

Broody Storm prefers the chicken shed so I had blocked that off but left the nest boxes open for the girls to lay in. Cloud often lays in the shelter so that’s where she chose to lay her egg.

Cloud soon got her egg laid and Mango squatted when I came up behind so I think she may start laying tomorrow. Mango laid her last egg the day after Cloud so will probably come back in to lay the day after her too. These two are always in sync with each other.

Mango and Cloud have had a three week break since laying their last eggs.

Snow is very determined this time and with hind sight I think when I thought she was broody last time, but she only missed laying for two days, she wasn’t actually broody but just thought she needed to lay. This time round she is straight in a nest box at every opportunity.

We now have three girls laying and I am sure it will be soon four so it’s looking good.

Yesterday Gold came back into lay after a break of nine days. At the same time both Snow and Storm went broody. We seem destined to have only two girls laying which is currently Red and Gold.

Snow had laid seven eggs in twelve days since her last very brief broody spell. The good news is that her last three eggs were completely normal with the shape they used to be and no wobbles in the shell.

For Storm this is her first broody spell this year. She has laid twenty two eggs in two months.

Storm remains where I put her when I lift her from the nest box. Storm isn’t a very committed broody though. When I get her out for a break she will stay out for a while before going back in.

Hopefully the broody girls will come through it soon although no doubt another girl will then go broody.

Autumn came to us on 22nd June 2023 at three months old. Autumn laid her first egg on 3rd October 2023 and her last egg on 1st February 2024. She never laid again. We lost her overnight on 3rd May 2025. She was two years old.

Although we have only dropped from eight girls to seven the flock feels small at the moment. Autumn is missed, two years was too short a time. She was a beautiful girl.

Last night Autumn put herself to bed early. I got her back out for the bedtime sunflower hearts. She had some sunflower hearts and then returned to the perch in the chicken shed. This was about an hour before the pop hole closed. When I perched the girls that don’t go in themselves, Autumn was still perched next to Sugar.

This morning first thing Autumn wasn’t out in the run. I looked in the chicken shed with trepidation. There was Autumn in the middle of the shed. Autumn had gone overnight.

We knew yesterday that something wasn’t right but never expected Autumn to go so quickly. Autumn was exactly two years old.

I think at the back of my mind I had always known that a girl that doesn’t lay eggs must have something adrift. The good thing is that she didn’t have a long spell of going down hill. It was very fast. She had her last sunflower hearts at bedtime last night. There was no agonising decision to make or trip to the vets.

Autumn had laid forty five eggs in four months and then hadn’t laid in the fifteen months since then. After finding the weird string of tiny eggs in the run it seems that she wasn’t destined to ever lay again and in the end it was her downfall.

I will do a tribute to her over the next few days when I have been through my photos. I am feeling a bit shell shocked at the moment as this really wasn’t expected. It is so sad.

Snow had laid two days running. The eggs were the slightly odd shape that they have been since she started laying the odd eggs inside eggs. On the third day the weird three bits joined egg of my last post appeared in the run and I naturally assumed that was from snow too.

But the following day Snow was in the nest box and I really didn’t expect her to lay again. When Snow came out there was her egg and it was perfectly normal like her eggs used to be. It was not only smooth in shape but was the, long, torpedo shape that her eggs used to be.

The egg on the right was from two days ago and is the shape that all her recent eggs have been but with less wobble than they have had. The egg on the left is her most recent egg and is the shape that her eggs always used to be and is also smooth shelled.

We are now thinking that the weird one from a few days ago wasn’t from Snow after all. We are thinking that it was from Autumn. Autumn laid from October until the first of February last year and hasn’t laid since.

Also Autumn is looking a bit off. She has spent the day either standing or sitting. She isn’t active and she has a dead look in her eye. She has lost her sparkle.

Autumn has the look in her eyes that she had when she was stripping off her scales. We know these girls so well that we know something is adrift with her. Time will tell.