Carol's Chickens

Yesterday my husband went to the allotment to collect the remaining strawberry plants that he had potted up from the runners and to dig out three more raspberry plants now that we have taken out our runner beans.

He surprised me with a huge bunch of flowers. They were the flowers from the jerusalem artichokes. They had been blown over by the wind plus we don’t them to drop their seed but it seemed a shame to waste them. They filled two vases and look wonderful.

I planted the strawberry plants and raspberry canes in what is now our fruit plot.

We now have strawberries one side and raspberries on the other side with an asparagus plant at the patio end of each side. The fruit plot will remain all year round and as it matures should yield a good crop of fruit and we will still have plenty of veg from our two shared allotment plots.

I am looking forward to seeing this plot mature and to having lots of lovely fruit in the future.

Smoke went broody a few days after Sugar. With no girls laying I am keeping everything closed up and just opening the chicken shed at bedtime and closing it again in the morning.

Seramas usually moult a bit at a time but this year they are having a full moult. I put it down to having such a cold and cloudy August. They stopped laying at the end of August whereas they usually continue to lay through September and sometimes October.

I think this triggered the moult. I have never picked up so many serama feathers from the run including some longer tail and wing feathers. Salmon currently has no tail. I have never had a serama with no tail before. This usually only happens to the bigger girls.

Sugar and Smoke are the least tattered and I think this is because of the constant broody spells then laying again which means they have moulted more gradually although Smoke is missing her middle tail feathers.

They look the untidiest flock of seramas we have ever had. It seems to be taking ages too but I am still hoping that they will all be fully feathered before the cold weather arrives.

It will be good to see them with their lovely new feathers in place.

Sugar has now set the record by going broody after just six eggs in eight days. The serial broodies usually lay for two weeks so one week laying is ridiculous!

Smoke has laid eleven eggs in sixteen days so is probably going to go broody soon and in fact has laid for a few days longer than she sometimes does.

They had both been laying for two days then miss a day then two days again. Because of this I closed the nest boxes and blocked the pop hole yesterday as it was Smoke’s day to miss a day.

This then means that Smoke will lay first thing in the morning after her missed day. Therefore I closed the nest boxes and pop hole just leaving Smoke’s favourite nest box open in the hope that sugar wouldn’t go in while Smoke was in there.

Sugar settled near by the bottom of the ramp to the nest box that Smoke was in. I checked back just as Smoke had laid so closed the nest box before Sugar could go in.

My plan is that once Smoke goes broody too I will keep everything closed. I would really rather not have these two sitting in nest boxes when it’s getting colder. I think they would be better moving around in the run.

It’s looking like it’s time to start buying eggs!

On the last three mornings I have found a heap of feathers under Flame’s roost spot. Flame doesn’t look too bad considering how many feathers she is dropping. I think her new feathers have been quietly coming in underneath.

Flame has dropped her tail feathers but instead of the, tail less, look that she has sported in the past she has a short tail where the new feathers are already in place.

All the little girls are looking a bit tattered. Salmon, Spangle and Shadow have pins on their head and Salmon and Shadow have pins on their neck too. At the moment Shadow is looking the most tatty.

It will be good to have the girls fully feathered before winter. At the moment only Smoke and Sugar are still laying and they are the least tattered. I think their periods of broodiness cause them to moult in more gradual stages and also to continue laying later in the year.

The corn cobs at the allotment are coming to an end and yesterday I gave the girls some that were not good enough for us.

The girls love the corn cobs. As usual nothing from the allotment is wasted when we have chickens to hoover up anything that we don’t eat.

The girls should be looking pristine again very soon and will be ready for winter.

I think both bigger girls have finished laying for this season. Flame definitely has as she last laid a week ago. Last year she stopped half way through November.

Ebony laid her last egg three days ago but had been laying every other day so I am less certain with her as yet. Last year she stopped half way through October.

It hasn’t been such a good summer this year which is probably why they have stopped earlier.

Smoke on the other hand started laying again a week ago after three weeks of not laying and has now laid four eggs since then.

Sugar has laid her first egg today after four weeks of not laying. I suspected that as Sugar has turned out to be a serial broody like Smoke that she would also continue to lay through winter between broody spells.

We have switched from only the two bigger girls laying to two little girls laying. At least Smoke and Sugar are both laying together so we will still get a few eggs.

Yesterday I saw a slow worm on the path. It was small and thin so I think it is one of this year’s young ones. It stayed long enough for me to get my camera.

I love the fact that we see some young ones every year. They are breeding and thriving in our garden.

I am finding heaps of, little girl, feathers in the chicken shed each morning and in the run especially in the dust bath holes. Yet the little girls don’t actually look much different.

But there is a change in them when they are not involved in egg laying. They hang out together in a tight group either dust bathing or preening. They seem to like to hang out under the metal table.

Another thing I have noticed is that Shadow and Sugar have been having little spats. They raise their ruffs and run at each other breast to breast.

This is surprising considering how attached to each other they were when they were chicks. Shadow wins these little spats and Sugar is firmly at the bottom of the pecking order.

The order is Smoke at the top then Salmon, next Spangle, then Shadow and Sugar at the bottom. I have come to realise that even the closest of girls have to make sure that the pecking order is in place. The first time I was surprised at a pair of inseparable girls doing this was with Amber and Honey.

Ebony is top girl. Flame is mostly in second place but does allow Smoke to get the better of her sometimes.

Flame and Ebony are the only girls laying, usually every other day. They are dropping a few feathers but not really moulting at the moment.

I think the two bigger girls have been moulting in partial stages. They did a partial moult after they each had a broody spell and since then just a few feathers at a time. This is better than a complete moult in one go. It will be interesting to see if they are done now if they have more to come.

I also wonder how much longer they will lay. Any eggs are a bonus at the moment.

We have had the worst August that I can remember. It has been cloudy and cold the for the whole month with drizzle some days and no sun at all.

This weather seems to have triggered an early end to eggs and an early moult for the seramas. They usually stop laying half way through September but all the seramas stopped laying half way through August this year.

For weeks now I have been finding feathers in the chicken shed and in the run. Salmon and Shadow are looking a bit tatty but the rest of the girls don’t look much different despite the amount of feathers I am finding.

Smoke came out of her broody spell after a week. As only Ebony and Flame are laying and both lay on the same day, every other day, I decided to break Sugar out of her broody spell. Sugar had been broody for two weeks.

I closed the nest boxes and Put Sugar in the broody crate for two nights. This was enough to break her out of it so we are once again between broodies for now.

The girls have been hanging out together in a close group with lots of preening going on.

The good thing is the girls will be through the moult before winter. I expect Smoke will lay through winter as she usually does and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sugar lays through winter too. Time will tell.

Our veg plot at home is no longer productive. Over the years we have lived here the garden has matured. The planting surrounding the veg plot blocks out a lot of sun and the roots have invaded the plot.

This year the only veg that was successful on our garden plot were the runner beans and they are pretty much the easiest veg to grow. Also we share two allotment plots which produce an abundance of veg so we don’t really need a veg plot at home.

However our single raspberry cane produced well. Our strawberries got eaten by slugs before we got to them. We have enjoyed the strawberries and raspberries from the allotment and can never have too many unlike some of the veg which produces a glut and we end up giving a lot away.

So we have decided to change the veg plot into a fruit plot. We decided to make the right side that has one raspberry cane into a row of raspberry canes down the centre of the plot to the asparagus plant at the patio end of the plot.

We decided to continue strawberries plants on the left side from the few at the top of the plot down to the other asparagus plant at the patio end. We decided to mulch the whole plot with tree chippings which will keep weeds down, moisture in and hopefully deter the slugs.

We will be able to do all this for free. We are digging up raspberry canes from the allotment plot that have crept outside of their patch. We are potting up the strawberry runners until they root and then bringing them home.

At the allotment there is a mountain of tree chippings for people to help themselves to. Conifer chippings have just been added to the pile and we have been bringing them home in our strong log bags and adding them to our plot.

It is a work in progress. We cleared the plot apart from the runner beans as they are still producing. We will wait until they are over then remove them and add another three raspberry canes in their place.

We will gradually keep adding strawberry plants until they fill their half of the plot.

The strawberry plants are small and look a bit lost but they will soon grow. We like the fact that the plot will be perennial rather than annual.

The raspberry canes and strawberry plants will mature along with the two asparagus plants and it should be a great plot in the future.

Sometimes things need to evolve in a garden and we love the idea of having our own fruit patch. It will also be good not to have it empty in winter.

When the runner beans are removed and the plot is filled with raspberry canes and strawberry plants I will do an update with more photos.

For now it is a work in progress but we are happy with the way it is coming on and it has all been for free which is a bonus.

Yesterday Smoke went broody, four days, after Sugar. Smoke has laid ten eggs in thirteen days. That is two more eggs in two more days than Sugar. These girls are both serial broodies!

Salmon, Spangle and Shadow are all taking a break from laying. With Sugar and now Smoke out of lay we only have Ebony and Flame laying. It is eight days since Shadow last laid, ten days since Spangle last laid and eleven days since Salmon last laid.

I am now just lifting Sugar every time I go in to the chicken run like I do with Smoke. Sugar has now settled into a more normal way of being broody so I hope that she won’t need to go in the broody crate.

Sugar now accepts being lifted from the nest box and stays out long enough to have water, food and a dust bath instead of just rushing straight back in. The other change is that she is accepting me putting her on the perch at bedtime instead of dropping down to the corner of the shed floor.

As long as Sugar doesn’t go on beyond a normal time of being broody I am hopeful that this will be enough. I am hoping that she has mellowed into being a normal broody rather than being obsessive to the point of starving herself to sit all the time.

Yesterday afternoon Salmon, Spangle and Shadow were dust bathing in a patch of sun. I lifted Sugar and Smoke from the nest box for a break and they joined the other little girls in the dust bath.

It was so lovely to see them all dust bathing together that I fetched my camera. Flame was dust bathing a bit further along and it was only Ebony that didn’t join in and was strolling on the other side of the dividing wire.

I love to see the girls dust bathing together. In the past Sugar would have gone straight back to the nest box within seconds but she seems much more chilled now.

At this time of year our hibiscus is amazing. It is opposite the chicken run and towers over the chicken run height wise and has a mass of blooms.

We picked one corn cob from the allotment today to see if they are ready and were stunned to see that it is just perfect.

And in chicken news Ebony started laying again five days ago and has laid three eggs since then. That’s two and a half weeks since she went broody.

Today Sugar has gone broody again after laying eight eggs in eleven days which seems to be her maximum. We had just four days of all the girls laying before Sugar went broody once more. Sigh!