Improving the steps down into the chicken run

Star will be separate for one more day. She wants to come out but has one more day of flubenvet for worming and metacam for pain relief. After the first few days I switched to adding her metacam to sunflower hearts instead of syringing to her beak. This is less stressful for her as she didn’t like being picked up.

Star is still limping but it’s much less pronounced and she looks brighter in herself so I think she is healing. She is eating, pooping, preening and dust bathing which are all good signs.

Meanwhile I have re done the steps to make them safer. It’s a bit “after the horse has bolted” but “better late than never”. The steps had evolved over time. I started with one block pointing out into the run and then as the soil gradually dropped I added a second block. The first one had set as if in concrete over time which is why I hadn’t moved it before now.

I spent time chipping out the baked soil and removing any stones. I moved soil up towards the chickens’ patio and then dug the blocks in. I sloped them very slightly backwards, the first up against the patio and the second up against the first, so that they are stable.

The steps are now stable, level and shallow. And yes, Gold is now broody too. She went broody a few days ago after laying twenty four eggs in six weeks. We seem doomed to only have a couple of girls laying.

I am going to give Diamond her next beak trim and bottom wash. She is due her repeat round of the double dose of flubenvet in nine days time. I really hope she will then be clear of gape worm for good but only time will tell.