Carol's Chickens

Last year I did the end of year egg count in January because Smoke and Shadow laid throughout December. Sadly we lost them both this spring. Snowflake stopped laying at the end of November and Sugar had stopped laying at the end of October so we have no girls laying now and I don’t expect any eggs until spring.

It’s been a sad year for losses with Shadow, Smoke, Spot, Flame and Saffron all departing. Only the three seramas remain from last year. New comers are Storm, Gold and Snowflake in February. We then got Dot in May and Diamond in August.

Last year Flame laid 77 eggs and this year in five months she laid 49. Flame stopped laying at the end of June and we lost her in September.

Last year Salmon laid 47 eggs and this year hasn’t laid at all.

Last year Spangle laid 31 eggs and this year laid 5 in April and May.

I think that at five years old Salmon and Spangle have probably reached the end of their egg laying days. I am not sorry if this means that they remain healthy and they are now the oldest seramas I have had.

Last year Sugar laid 57 and this year laid 53. She has been the most consistent due to her monthly broody spells. She averages 8 eggs per month.

Storm laid 55 eggs in three months as her breed has a short season. She laid in May, June and July.

Gold laid 86 eggs and stopped laying at the end of August.

Snowflake laid 137 eggs and is way ahead as our best layer.

Dot laid 20 eggs over a five month period while moulting in between. She is in her second year.

Saffron laid 17 eggs in one month before we lost her.

Diamond hasn’t started laying yet. I have read that when her breed matures late in the year they usually start laying the following spring plus she had gape worm when she came to us which took a while to get rid of.

Last year we had a total of 449 eggs. This year we have had a total of 442 eggs.

I have just been researching Diamond’s breed and it says that they don’t go broody and lay well. They lay pale brown eggs that are a good size for bantam hens. I am looking forward to seeing how she lays and am hopeful that she will take over from Flame with some bigger eggs.

I am really hoping that the flock will remain settled now and that we can keep these girls healthy and happy and won’t be needing to add more girls for a good while. Even with very few serama eggs we have enough girls to keep us in plenty of eggs next year and I am grateful for all the eggs that they lay.

I thought it would be good to give the girls some fish as a bit of extra protein on a frosty morning. It will help with those last feathers coming in and they love a bit of fish.

I think I can safely say the girls enjoyed their fish. It didn’t last long.

Sadly we have lost Saffron after only three months with us. She was such a beautiful colour and a good egg layer during her last month with us. I haven’t got a huge amount of photos of her but I have picked out the best ones. I wish now that I had taken more photos recently.

Her time with us was all too short but she won’t be forgotten.

Saffron hadn’t laid for three days. When she wasn’t out in the run this morning I checked the nest boxes. She wasn’t there so I checked the chicken shed. Saffron was laying in the middle of the shed floor and was cold.

I checked her over and there was no sign of anything obviously wrong but her comb was a muddy colour. She had appeared to be fine yesterday and at bedtime. We have had Saffron for three months and she was eight months old. She had been laying for a month and had laid seventeen eggs.

After worrying about Diamond from the start and bringing her back from the brink of losing her I hadn’t had a moments worry about Saffron. This is such a shock.

We buried Saffron in the chicken’s strip and added a plant on top and a wooden marker as usual. Sadly Saffron is now the ninth chicken in the chicken’s strip.

I will be doing a tribute to Saffron later today. Sadly I don’t have that many photos to look through. The chicken run seems quiet today.

About three days ago Sugar dropped her last remaining long tail feather. Underneath she has a short tail. I have been meaning to take a photograph and have only just got round to it. Sugar’s tail has grown already.

Sugar’s tail is about half the length it will soon become. She is the last girl to come through the moult. Sugar, along with her flock mates, will be fully feathered for the winter.

Diamond is clearly happy with her new found ability to get up high. From the first day that she found she could get up on top of the wooden shelter she has been up there every day.

Diamond also went from the bottom rung of the ladders in the run to the second rung and then to the third rung. Then today when I checked on the girls Diamond was on the high branch perch above the ladder. This is the highest I have ever seen her and is in fact one of the highest spots in the run.

I had watched Diamond’s progress up the ladder and then on to the perch to a spot in the sun. I wasn’t sure if she could get down again as she was up there a long time. Later I checked and she was back down again.

Sugar is the last girl to moult. Her last broody spell seemed to have triggered a moult rather than starting to lay again. She looks rather shabby with lots of loose feathers and only one remaining tail feather.

The moult seems to have gone on for such a long time this year. Seramas usually moult a bit at a time but I think Sugar is different because of her regular bouts of going broody. She has long pins already showing under her short tail feathers so should feather up again soon.

We continue to get eggs from both Snowflake and Saffron. I don’t expect Sugar to lay again this year. Sugar stopped laying at the end of September last year compared to the end of October this year so she has done well. She just needs to get her feathers back in for winter.

I can’t believe it’s two weeks since I last posted, I have got very lax lately. There again there isn’t much news from the chicken run which in itself is never a bad thing.

Saffron has now been laying for two weeks. She usually lays every other day, occasionally laying two days running. She has now laid eight eggs. Her first two eggs had blood streaks on but they have been clean ever since then. They have remained small considering her size.

Snowflake didn’t stay broody for long. Luckily she never commits to it and she resumed laying a week ago and also lays every other day but occasionally two days running. She has laid five eggs since starting again.

Considering how much bigger Saffron is than Snowflake it’s surprising that her eggs are smaller.

I broke Sugar out of her broody spell with two nights in the broody crate, two weeks ago, while the temperatures were still warm. That was enough to get her over it and I think she is getting ready to lay again. She has had a look in the nest box and is more vocal. So we may soon have three girls laying which would be good even though Sugar is limited to her maximum of eight eggs.

Yesterday I gave the girls some mash for a treat and also to get an up to date group photo.

Snowflake had had a partial moult and grown in new tail feathers. Recently she had a second partial moult and has now grown in new wing feathers. Snowflake is now looking pristine. Gold has also had a partial moult and grown her feathers back in and looks pristine.

Dot seems to keep moulting bit by bit. After recently dropping head feathers and getting pins through she has now dropped most of her tail feathers. Dot seems to be taking longer to get through the moult.

For the last three days Diamond has found a new trick. We have found her on top of the wooden shelter. This has been a surprise because I didn’t think she was able to get up so high. I haven’t yet caught her going up but assume she jumps to the metal table and steps across.

I was so surprised to find Diamond up here. I am waiting to catch her getting up and down. As she has been here three days in a run I assume that she is quite pleased with her new accomplishment.

That is all the latest news from the chicken run. Eggs are gratefully received and it’s good to have less feathers to pick up each day.

Saffron laid her first egg today. What a clever girl! I really wasn’t expecting her to lay until spring although first year girls can lay through their first winter. Saffron was five months when she came to us. We have had Diamond and Saffron two months now so Saffron is seven months and they usually start about six months which is why I thought she may not lay this year.

I have had seramas start laying at seven months but the bigger girls tend to be a bit earlier. Diamond is nine months and not laying but I am putting that down to her having had gape worm.

Sugar went broody four days ago and then Snowflake also went broody two days ago so we had no girls laying. Saffron went in a nest box yesterday and briefly had a peck at the shavings so I had been wondering if she was getting ready to lay.

Today Sugar was in one nest box and Snowflake in the one next to it. Saffron wanted to go in but kept trying first one nest box then the other. I decided to make it easier for Saffron by putting Sugar and Snowflake together in one nest box and leaving the one next door free for her.

Things never go according to plan though and Saffron now decided that she would like to join the broody girls.

At this point I changed tactics and lifted the two broody girls out of the nest box and settled them both in the one next to it.

I didn’t lift the lid as I didn’t want to disturb Saffron now that she was in her own nest box. Saffron was being very vocal. She sounded rather like a duck.

When I went back to check Saffron was out in the run and there was her first egg in the nest box. It was smaller than I expected but they will probably get bigger in time. It had the tell tale streaks of blood that first eggs often have and it was quite long in shape.

Saffron’s egg is on the left, Snowflake’s egg is in the middle and Sugar’s egg is on the right. These were Snowflake’s and Sugar’s last eggs before going broody. Saffron has timed her start of egg laying well as for now she will be our only egg layer.

It will be interesting to see when her next egg is and how good an egg layer she will be. Well done Saffron!

Dot has had a moult of two halves. She moulted her longer feathers through June and July and stopped laying. She looked quite good throughout and soon looked fully feathered again. She then started laying again throughout September.

At the beginning of October Dot started moulting all her tiny feathers and stopped laying again. This time it has been much more noticeable as she has moulted her feathers around her face, comb, head and neck. She soon had pins through but she looks very odd.

Moulting her head and face feathers has really changed her appearance but her pins will soon open and Dot will look beautiful once more.

In other news Sugar has gone broody again after laying her usual eight eggs in twelve days. As it’s the end of the year I think for now I will just leave her be. I will get her out of the nest box at least three times a day for breaks and will move her to the chicken shed at the end of the day.

I will consider breaking Sugar out of it if she goes on for too long but for now I will just see how she goes. Snowflake is now our only egg laying girl. She has turned out to be a really good egg layer.

Diamond now has a beautiful fluffy white bottom. She looks the best she has looked since we got her.

We have now had Diamond and Saffron exactly two months. Diamond is now nine months old and Saffron is now seven months old. They are very settled in the flock and tame around me. They now don’t mind the camera at all.

On the first day with us I noticed straight away when I put the girls in the run that Diamond had a mucky bottom. The breeder had put her straight from his box into my cat box without me seeing it. Over the next few days her bottom got muckier and muckier.

The breeder had told me that Diamond was a heavy bodied breed. From the start she was breathing through an open beak when sitting down or after any exertion including dust bathing. At the time it was hot and we had never experienced this breed or indeed any heavy bodied breed before so we weren’t sure if it was just the heat.

It was then that Diamond started making the cough/hiccup sound. At that point I became convinced she had a heart problem. I remembered Sienna making this sound before she had heart failure.

I had just finished worming the girls and we had had the new girls for two weeks when Diamond was sitting on the wooden block that she is standing on in the photo above. She was struggling to breath through her open beak and was now making a gurgling sound. I was convinced she was having heart failure and was ready to take her to the vet possibly to be put to sleep.

It was at this point that I her saw her snaking her neck and shaking her head. This caused me to research gape worm and sure enough the symptoms were diarrhea, laboured breathing through an open beak, coughing and finally snaking the neck and shaking the head. Gape worm is not common and the earlier symptoms were the same as a heart problem.

As I had just wormed the girls with flubenvet which is supposed to be effective for all worms including gape worm, I started researching again, how to get rid of gape worm. The advice was that it is harder to get rid of than all the other types of worms and needs double the dose of flubevet. It also advised a repeat treatment two weeks later.

I immediately added flubenvet to some chopped tomato and offered this to Diamond while she was still sitting on the wooden block. Almost as soon as she had eaten it her symptoms stopped. I continued for seven days with the double dose for Diamond and then repeated two weeks later with a normal dose for the flock and a double dose for Diamond.

From the day that I first gave Diamond the double dose she stopped the open beak breathing. She stopped snaking her neck and shaking her head. The cough/hiccup noise has become only occasional rather than all the time. She moulted her mucky bottom feathers and lovey new feathers grew in. She is now a different bird to the one that we had first taken.

I won’t be using that breeder ever again. I think his birds are rather on the large size for bantams but mostly I think it was pretty bad of him not to have noticed that Diamond had a mucky bottom or if he had noticed to still pass her on to us. Also I am totally not impressed to be sold a bird with gape worm.

I think Diamond struck lucky with us. I always do as much research as possible with any chicken problem that comes my way and I think I pulled Diamond back from the brink in the nick of time. Any longer and she would have asphyxiated.

As it is Diamond is now a beautiful girl and I hope she will go on to have a happy and healthy life with us. I have learned a lot about gape worm the hard way.