Carol's Chickens

Yesterday for the first time Snow went in and out of the nest box/little coup a few times throughout the day. She has gone from being totally quiet to making a twittering sound. I felt she was getting ready to lay. I managed a couple of photos of her on the ramp.

Today Snow was in and out of the nest box several times. She would then settle on top of the nest box and then in the corner beside the nest box where they settle at bed time. She didn’t seem sure where she should settle but eventually she did choose to sit in the nest box.

I wasn’t expecting eggs just yet because somehow I thought the girls were about a month younger than they are. I checked the note I had made on my egg records. We got them on the 10th of May. Suzanna had told me that Red was 14 weeks and Snow was 18 weeks. This means Red is now 20 weeks (5 months) and Snow 24 weeks (6 months) so that is about right for Snow to start laying.

A little later I checked again and Snow was out. There in the nest box was her first little egg. It had the usual little blood streak on it.

Well done Snow! What a clever girl to lay her first egg in the right place.

Cloud has come back into lay after a 2 week break and has laid 3 eggs so far. I have no idea why but she has taken to laying her eggs in the corner between the new girl’s part of the run and the chickens’ patio. She had been putting bits of shavings on her back.

I could tell that Sugar was getting ready to lay again today. She has had a two week break which is the usual and was quite vocal and going in and out of the nest box. I kept checking on Sugar and after about an hour she marched out of the nest box and went straight to the water.

I checked the nest box and there was another tiny egg. As we have known for a long time things are not quite right with Sugar but as long as she keeps getting her eggs laid that is a good thing.

Sugar seems fine after laying it apart from her usual sitting on the ground a lot.

Mango has started molting after her last broody spell. I have been finding her feathers in the shed and run and when I pick her up I can feel her pins.

It was Mango’s first year last year (along with Cloud and Autumn) so this is her first molt. I don’t know if she will molt and then come back into lay or if this will be the end of her laying this year. It seems rather early to be molting. We will just have to wait and see.

Storm has also just gone broody after laying 9 eggs in 2 weeks. Luckily now that Snow has started laying we should get eggs from her regularly and possible through the winter. Red should start lying in a months time and also may lay through the winter but as Autumn stopped laying on 1st February you just never know with these girls.

I really need to get the new girls integrated now. Sugar is no longer hormonal and has gone back to taking no notice of the new girls. But Dot has now taken to chasing Red. Dot has moved up from the bottom of the pecking order to near the top and she has grown in confidence and wants to make sure the new girls are below her.

The problem is that Red is really timid and nervy. Dot chases Red and Red not only runs but she panics and tries to get back into her space. If I close it off she jumps at the wire or hatch and if I leave it open she stays in the corner behind the nest box.

I can’t bear to see Red so anxious and end up letting her back into their part of the run again. Recent integrations have been so easy but Red is much more skittish than any of our recent girls. I know that we have to move past this but I still feel we don’t need to rush it.

Now that Snow is laying I am going to do a half and half mix of growers and layers pellets for a couple of weeks as suggested by the breeder’s partner who delivered the girls.

I will use these two weeks to try to mix the girls a bit more and I hope that as Red matures she will grow in confidence. They always get mixed in the end so I don’t mind going a bit slower than usual.

Edit – The next day

Sugar laid again and this time her egg was her usual size. Snow also laid again and this time no blood streak and the egg was slightly longer and narrower than the day before. Well done girls!

Mango and Cloud gave up being broody after three days. Storm came back into lay after a two week break and has laid five eggs in the last week. At the same time as Storm started laying Sugar went broody after laying six eggs.

We constantly seem to have one girl start as one stops so that we have only three girls laying most of the time. At the moment it’s Dot, Gold and Storm laying. I decided to break Sugar out of it straight away as I didn’t want her sitting in a nest box for a very long time. I gave her a couple of nights in the broody crate and she gave up.

I have been trying to continue giving all the girls time together but some days it has been too wet to spend time in the run. After the main flock taking no notice of the new girls things changed when Sugar went broody. She is always angry with the other girls when she is broody. Hormones! It has caused her to have a few spats with Snow.

At this point I usually put the girls back on their own sides. I am hoping that with time Sugar will calm down again. Snow responds by fighting back with Sugar, which is horrible to see, whereas Red is much more timid and runs away if any of the girls approach her.

Three days ago

Today

Up until now it has been as if there was an invisible barrier in front of the chickens’ patio. Today this was at the point that Sugar and Snow had a spat. In the background you can just see Snow moving away from Sugar. This caused Red to run in the other direction and finally jump up to the patio area. She didn’t get any further because Mango and Cloud were there. I had sprinkled a few sunflower hearts to try to encourage the new girls to go there but Mango and Cloud found them first.

It is slow progress but there is no rush as I want the girls to stay on growers pellets for as long possible before getting to the age when laying is imminent. As Snow is a month older than Red I plan to wait until Snow is ready to start laying/ has started laying before letting them have layers pellets.

I will continue to give them some time mixing until this point but sometimes it doesn’t all come together until they are together full time and going in the chicken shed together at bedtime. It always works out in the end so I am happy to take it slowly.

It always seems that just as one girl comes back into lay another goes broody. Today Gold has come back into lay after a two week break.

At the same time both Mango and Cloud have gone broody together again. These two are just too in tune with each other. Cloud had laid fourteen eggs and Mango had laid nine eggs. It doesn’t seem to matter how many eggs they have laid as it seems that as soon as Cloud goes broody it triggers Mango to go broody too. It’s a bit of nuisance because when they are broody together they are harder to break out of it.

Storm hasn’t laid for ten days. I don’t know why she has just stopped although I did think she was going broody for about half a day and then she seemed to give up so maybe that was enough.

When Sugar started laying she laid five eggs then took a break of eleven days. She then started laying again and has now laid four eggs. She is laying every other day and her eggs have good shells. Sugar laid soft shelled eggs last year. I feel as if she has sorted this problem out for herself. Since before she started laying this year Sugar was going to the grit and oyster shell.

Sugar has been constantly going to the grit and oyster shell since then. She is always flicking the oyster shell out and picking through it. It is as if she knows that was what she needed. Her egg shells now even have little calcium bubbles on them. Because she is laying good shells she no longer has any problem laying her eggs.

But Sugar is still the same in that she is sitting in the run a lot with her wings slightly held away from her body and the humped shape before her tail. It’s as if she has worked out what she needed to lay good shelled eggs but the underlying problem with her is still there.

When Sugar is up and about she looks perfectly normal and she has been digging holes in the run with the rest of the girls. But she still sits for ninety percent of the time and still has the strange posture. I thought at first when she started laying her posture was worse but I don’t now think it was. I think I just noticed it more. Her posture has remained like that when she is sitting.

Whatever is adrift with Sugar she is managing to live with it so we will just accept that this is Sugar and see how she goes on.

We hardly ever have more than three girls laying at the same time. It will be good when we have the new girls laying to add to the numbers laying at any one time. They are keeping us going with eggs though so we are not complaining.

Edit

Three days later Storm is back in lay after a two week break and Sugar has gone broody after laying six eggs.

Yesterday I decided to mix the girls for a while. Most of the main flock took no notice of the new girls. It’s always the bottom girls that are the ones to watch as they want to insure the new girls are at the bottom so that they can move up the pecking order.

Top girl Sugar doesn’t find them a threat and accepted them alongside of her. Autumn has been the only one taking notice of them through the wire but yesterday she was so busy digging in the new girls half of the run that she didn’t notice them. Dot chased Red when she got near her. But it all went smoothly and I think it’s going to be easy to integrate them when the time comes.

The main issue will be the new girls being confident enough to get to the food dishes but as usual I will put extra feeding stations in the run for a while. It’s going to be a while before Red is old enough to have layers pellets but the more I mix them now the easier the eventual transition should be.

I am very happy with how their first time together went. I will keep giving them some time together every few days to let them get used to each other.

I have never had two girls more bonded and in tune with each other as Mango and Cloud. They went broody together and they often lay their eggs together. Today they did this again.

When I checked back on them their eggs were side by side in the nest box. They are inseperable.

In other news Gold has come out of her broody spell. Sugar laid yesterday after an eleven day break. The egg was a good shelled egg and her usual small size but not tiny like her last one.

I have probably put similar photos of our roses here every year. May is the month when our rose arches up the garden path look beautiful. I can’t resist showing them again.

It is so beautiful but doesn’t last long especially with the rain causing the petals to drop. But for a short while it is spectacular.

Before I start giving all the girls time together I always switch both lots to the other side first. I like to let the new girls get used to the other side of the run before I start any mixing. I took away the new girls food and water so that it didn’t get dirt scratched into it. I closed their little coop so that the main girls don’t scratch out the shavings.

Usually the main flock love to get into the area with the shelter but today they were more interested in the bottom of the run. I think it’s because it’s been wet and the soil was easy to scratch and dig.

Red looks back at me as if to ask what I am doing.

By now they had had half an hour so I decided that was enough for the day. The new girls clearly wanted to get back to their side.

It is always the hardest bit getting new girls to the patio area as it is different to the rest of the run. They need to find the patio area though as that’s where the food, water and treats are plus the nest boxes and chicken shed.

I thought it went well for a first time though. I would rather get the new girls used to rest of the run gradually and then start mixing them gradually too, just a little at a time.

There is no rush as the new girls need to stay on growers for a while yet.

I thought a tomato treat would be a good chance to photograph the girls. The new girls have now cottoned on to all the treats. They love spinach, sunflower hearts and tomato.

I took the photos of the new girls through the wire because they would move away if I went in plus holding a camera while opening their gate and trying to keep the main flock out is a tricky business.

The new girls are now used to their bigger space and have settled in well. They are dust bathing, sitting in the sun and eating and drinking well plus they love the treats.

Sugar hasn’t laid since the tiny egg in my last post five days ago. I am quite pleased she is taking a break because she usually lays six or seven eggs then goes broody. I am hopeful that she may continue not to lay but we will have to wait and see.

It has been good not having Sugar broody. I had been undecided what to do if she went broody because left alone she has in the past sat for up to a month before I broke her out of it. This was why I didn’t like to leave her broody. It takes three weeks to hatch chicks and I think Sugar would continue to sit for as long as I let her.

I feel that sitting in a nest box all the time is worse than sitting in the run. I had decided that I might leave her to sit for two weeks and then try to break her out of it. So now she has stopped laying before going broody I don’t need to do anything. I hope the tiny egg was her last one.

Cloud came back into lay again ten days ago after a two week break after going broody. Mango came back into lay again four days ago after a three week break after going broody.

I think Gold is going broody again because she is spending a lot of time in the nest box but she is still laying at the moment. She has laid fourteen eggs since her last break.

We are still getting plenty of eggs from Dot, the three game girls and at the moment Gold although maybe not for much longer.

Next year we should potentially have three more egg layers those being Autumn, Red and Snow. You never quite know though. Autumn laid in October, November, December and January then laid her last egg on the first of February and hasn’t laid since.

The weird thing is that Autumn still goes and sits in the chicken shed or a nest box every day but doesn’t lay. We haven’t come across this before although we did have Topaz (bantam gold laced wyandotte) who only ever laid an ocasional egg despite the fact that wyandottes are supposed to be good layers. I did mention to Suzanna at pipinchick that Autumn had stopped laying and she was surprised.

We always seem to get girls that are a law unto themselves so we will just have to wait and see how Red lays and if Autumn starts laying next spring. Either way we have enough girls to give us plenty of eggs.

Before putting this post out I decided to check on Gold to see if she has laid an egg today. She hasn’t as yet but cloud was in the nest box with her. I thought they looked so cute together that I decided to add a photo of them.

I love seeing the different sized girls sharing a nest box. At the end of the day Gold hadn’t laid so I think she is definitely broody.

Sugar has now laid four good eggs, laying every other day. Her eggs are very small, smaller than the game girls’ eggs. We still absolutely know that she is not right though and she seems worse for laying again.

Sugar has a lovely red comb. Twenty percent of the time she appears perfectly normal. She runs to the treats, she dust baths, she stretches out in the sun and she preens.

But the other eighty percent of the time she sits in the run which is not normal for a chicken. Before she lays her posture is like this.

Next time I checked on her she was up and about again.

The twenty percent of the time that she looks normal I think we must just and wait and see how she goes on. The eighty percent of the time that she sits, even when her posture isn’t as bad as at the moment, I worry about her quality of life.

We just have no clue what to do about her and keep coming back to feeling we must just wait and see.

Edit

About an hour after I had put this post out Sugar got her fifth egg laid the day after her fourth egg. It is super tiny like some of her eggs at the beginning of last year.

This is just adding to the mystery of Sugar. There is definitely something adrift with her. We have never come across this before.

The new girls have now been with us for five and a half days. Their space is quite small so I decided to separate off the rest of their half of the run and give them more space.

I did this in the morning and once I had opened the hatch I left them to it and waited to see if they would explore. By lunch time they still hadn’t stepped over the threshold.

After lunch I decided to encourage the new girls to go out into the new space. I wafted them through the hatch with my hands. I took a couple of photos through the hatch then went through the gate to take a couple more.

At this point I went back through the gate and the new girls went straight back to their space. For the rest of the day they stayed in their space.

I have decided to leave them too it and wait until they get braver and venture out by themselves. They obviously feel safe and comfortable in their smaller space for now.

Edit

The next morning when I let the new girls out they went straight out into their new space. They have been spending half their time out there ever since and are often next to the rest of the flock on the other side of the wire.

They have also started drinking from the water dish so I have now removed the water bottle. They seem to be coming on really well.