A summary of my first year of chicken keeping (quite a long essay!)

I collected my chickens on the last weekend in June (on a Friday) a year ago today. This has been quite a journey!

I started out with three dominiques, Poppy, Pepper and Dotty. Within the first month Pepper developed a pendulous crop and Poppy turned out to be a cockerel. We took them back to the farm in Dorset where we had got them from and the farmer tipped Pepper and emptied her crop. It has never been a problem since.

Poppy on the left and Dotty on the right

We love peas, Poppy on the left, Pepper in the middle and Dotty on the right

Pepper on the left with her pendulous crop, Poppy on the right

Poppy has long legs and the upright stance of a roo (cockerel)

He took Poppy back to breed from and suggested that I take two more hens of a similar size and age. I came home with Treacle a long town brown and Bluebell a chalkhill blue.

We like to sit close together, Pepper on the left, then Bluebell, Dotty and Treacle on the right

Pepper had been top hen up until now and for a while Dotty bullied Bluebell. As Treacle matured she took over the role of top hen and from then on Dotty stopped bullying Bluebell. Treacle was the largest of the girls and the first to start laying in November, her eggs were dark brown. Bluebell was next to start laying in December and her eggs were blue.

We like to perch together, Treacle on the left, then Dotty, then Bluebell and Pepper on the right

Treacle likes to get on to my shoulder

After the excitement of getting our first eggs we were disappointed to find that the eggs had a strong mouldy taste and we couldn’t eat them. We changed the girls food, then corn, then the dried meal worms and the sunflower hearts. We changed their bedding, we researched the internet and chicken keeping forums and all the time were throwing out the eggs. It was so incredibly frustrating! Then one day my husband tasted the leaves of the jasmine growing in their run and found them to be really bitter. The girls had been stripping the jasmine leaves. We dug the jasmine out and gradually over the next two weeks the taste of the eggs faded away. After two weeks we had normal tasting eggs at last, just in time for Christmas.

Towards the end of December Pepper started laying, her eggs were a pale cream colour.  Dotty is a month younger than the other girls and still wasn’t laying at this stage.

We then encountered our next problem. There were rats getting in to the run. Despite removing the food at night and blocking up all the gaps they kept coming in. We spent a couple of months rat proofing the run. We blocked up every gap we could see. We then found they were digging in from under next doors decking so we laid concrete at the end of the patio area and put a layer of vertical tiles inside the fence, down into the ground. We then discovered they could squeeze through the chicken net over the run so we redid the roof with a double layer of chicken wire. At last they could no longer get in and we eliminated this problem.

We battled with the rain and mud and had to extend the roof over the dry patio area. We then put a plastic sheet over the garden corner of the run to give some dry over the garden as well as the patio. Later we added some corrugated plastic panels that could be close during wet weather but opened when dry or sunny.

Then came the worst event of all, Treacle suddenly became ill. She stopped laying and appeared to be partially moulting. She wasn’t her usual active self and would spend time standing by the water or under the bush. I then realised that she wasn’t eating the pellets. By now I was really worried about her. I gave her a bath with some epsom salts and was hand feeding her anything she would take, fish, tomato, scrambled egg. I rang the vet and took her in.

The vet examined her and listened to her heart and lungs. There was nothing obviously wrong. He gave her a steroid injection to kick start her appetite and gave me a course of antibiotics for her. I also wormed all the girls to be on the safe side.

Treacle seemed back to normal for a day but then declined again. I took her back to the vet and this time he x- rayed her. He couldn’t see anything on the x- ray apart from a collection of grit in her crop. He gave her another injection and said to continue with her antibiotics.

The injection had no effect this time and she wouldn’t eat anything at all. We were having to syringe her medicine into her beak along with some sugared water. She then went and sat in the nest box which she had never done before. When the other girls wanted to lay their eggs I took Treacle in doors and sat with her on my lap. It was pitiful, she would sit on my lap and cry and kept gaping her beak open which I knew meant she was distressed.

I couldn’t bear to let her suffer any longer. I knew if she wouldn’t eat she had given up and she felt so thin. I knew that I had to have her put to sleep. I held her on my lap all the way to the vets and talked to her and cried buckets. I held her while she had her injection and quickly slipped away and I cried and cried. We will never really know what was wrong with her but it seems most likely that it was something internal.

Treacle was put to sleep on valentines day and the next morning Dotty laid her first egg. The circle of life goes on. I missed her so much and so did the girls. They all looked for her the first day, checking every corner of the run and the coop several times over. They had all been together since babies and she was their leader. Pepper resumed the roll of top hen and I am sure it was the stress of Treacle’s loss that led to our next problem.

The girls started pulling feathers from each other. Pepper pulled them from Dotty and Bluebell’s neck and Bluebell pulled them from Pepper and Dotty’s bottom. Before long Dotty’s neck and head was bare, Bluebell’s neck partially bare, Peppers bottom bare and Dotty’s bottom partially bare.

Dotty’s bare neck and head

They didn’t do it in a bullying way, more a friendly shared experience during dust bathing sessions and when sitting snoozing together. I tried everything to stop it, telling them off and spraying with water when I catch them at it, several anti peck sprays and coloured sprays, lots of boredom busters in the run, lots to peck at and play with, added protein (although they weren’t eating the feathers), nothing worked!

The girls seemed happy with the situation but were spoiling their looks. Dotty’s head feathers grew back in then were plucked out again. Every day I picked up feathers. I researched this too and found articles saying it is one of the most difficult habits to break.

After the loss of Treacle I had considered getting more chickens but thought it best to let my little flock settle without more changes. With the constant battle of trying to stop the feather pulling I wondered if adding to the flock might concentrate their minds elsewhere. I had always liked the idea of having some bantams and began researching breeds available in our area. I found a farm nearby that had two bantam vorwerks. We went to visit and I fell in love with them.

The last weekend in April we bought home our bantam vorwerks, Honey and Amber. I had researched integrating chickens and most people do it gradually but some said bantys are good at getting out of the way and as long as there are places for them to escape and hide they can be integrated  quite quickly. The lady at the farm said to put them in the coop at bedtime and they should be fine.

Honey in the back and Amber in the foreground

The next morning I went out at first light and soon realised it wasn’t going to be that simple! The big girls attacked them, grabbing them by their necks. I water sprayed the big girls and the little girls hid behind the bush. I soon realised they would have to be kept separated. We divided off a portion of the run for the little girls and I got a separate little coop for them. It was to be a further five weeks before we got them together full time.

Bluebell, our most docile girl, who had never pecked before turned into the most aggressive hen. She didn’t want to slide further down the pecking order and would grab the little girls by the neck, pull feathers from them or peck their comb and draw blood.

It took five weeks before we were able to put them all together and even then the little girls both had bleeding combs several times. Next came Ambers first eggs. Two tiny eggs followed by two soft shelled eggs which she struggled to lay. Honey was laying normal eggs every other day. I put the girls on limestone flour in their mash to improve their shells and dried and ground up their egg shells to feed back in their treats. Amber started to lay normal eggs but Honey started to lay less often and looked unwell each time she was about to lay an egg.

I didn’t know why Honey was struggling to lay her eggs and hoped with practice it would get easier. Then one day Honey wanted to lay in the nest box at the same time as Pepper and Pepper pecked her comb until it bled. I installed the spare little coop as a second nest box and a few days later Honey went on to lay an egg in it. She laid the egg in the little coop two days after her previous egg and without looking unwell.

A few days later Bluebell laid her egg in the little coop. The following day Bluebell, Pepper, Honey and Amber all laid their eggs in the little coop. It now seems to have become the preferred nest box with only Dotty showing no interest it. The little girls are now laying eggs with hard shells and without looking unwell so have finally got the hang of  egg laying.

That sums up the problems during our first year but there is of course also the other side. These little girls have worked their way into my heart. They run to greet me when I go up the path towards them, follow me round the run, they jump on my back and chatter in my ear. They are fascinating to watch while they scratch and peck, dig huge holes, dust bath and run around chasing each other for tasty morsels and generally get into mischief. They are so endearing and I sit and watch them every evening and chill with them whenever I can. They are constantly entertaining. They allow me to pick them up and get close to them and they mill around me, allowing me to be their flock leader. They are my little flock and despite all the tribulations, I can’t imagine life without them now. I love my little flock and know we will have many more adventures together!

My flock of five perching together