Carol's Chickens

Today I saw an unusual looking moth on the patio outside the chicken run gate. I took a couple of photos and then googled it.

Moth

Leopard moth

It is a leopard moth. It has a wingspan of 35 – 60 mm. It is nocturnal but adults can be found resting conspicuously in the daytime. The larva feed on the wood of deciduous trees. It is common in Southern England. Adults fly in June and July.

Well all of the above facts fit perfectly apart from the fact that I couldn’t know what the larva feed on.

The caterpillar is hairy and black with red stripes. We have seen these in the garden and I think I have done a post before and then looked up the moth but hadn’t seen the moth itself before so this time it’s the other way round.

I guess they have always been around our garden but it’s just a case of luck to see one out during the day.

We certainly have a lot of wildlife in our garden. I think it’s because we have a good variety of plants and also woodland behind us. I love seeing all the different creatures.

At this time of year we have loads of baby birds in the garden. On the suet feeders we have baby tits of all kinds and on the ground we have baby dunnocks and baby robins. Yesterday I got up close to two baby robins. The second one looked too young to have fledged.

Baby robin in the chickens’ strip

It’s quite young as it has hardly any tail yet.

Closer

A bit of a drama followed. You can see Ebony taking an interest in the baby robin. After I had taken this photo the baby squeezed through the weld mesh into the chicken run. Oh no! I ran into the chicken run with my leg protector (pan cover) to try to guide the baby out as I know that we mustn’t touch baby birds, as if we put our scent on them, their mothers will abandon them.

Ebony ran towards the baby robin and I shouted “NO”. Baby robin flapped and Ebony ran from the baby and hid in the wooden shelter. What a woos! I am glad of that though and baby robin escaped back through the weld mesh with no help from me needed. Ebony stayed in the shelter for a few minutes which she never does. Just goes to show size means nothing!

The baby robin flew off and the next time I went up the path I saw an even younger baby robin. This one has no head feathers yet and a really baby beak.

Even younger baby robin on the path

Closer

I am a bit concerned that this little guy is too young to be out of it’s nest. There is nothing that we can do though as it’s too young for us to leave food for it and it’s always best not to touch.

A few minutes later it had disappeared. I am not sure if it will survive as there wasn’t any sign of a parent bird around. It’s so sad but there isn’t anything that we can do. I just hope it’s mum found it but I guess we will never know.

Half our marris peer crop of potatoes on our garden veg plot have blight. We have never had blight on potatoes before it is usually just tomatoes in late summer that get it.

I googled it and it is caused by wet and warm weather which is what we have been having. Luckily the same crop at the allotment are not effected. It is so open and often windy up there that the ground drys out whereas here everything is now water logged.

When I googled it it said that if you remove the yellowed foliage you can dig the potatoes up and they will be fine to eat but if you leave it the potatoes will go black. I dug up the new potatoes and there was enough for one meal.

New potatoes

It’s such a shame because they look as if they would have been a good crop. They were really easy to scrape though and were delicious with butter. We had them with salmon and salad.

I have a feeling the other half of our marris peer may go the same way. The red fir apple potatoes haven’t been effected though. At least we will still have potatoes from the allotment.

Yesterday there were three little gem lettuces ready for picking at the allotment. My husband picked them and took one each round to the other two couples we share with. It was great to be able to have one each.

It was so tasty that we ate the leaves whole with our fingers just sprinkled with salt. We had scampi and chips and had lettuce leaves instead of peas. No need for dressing or mayo as they were lovely with just a sprinkle of salt.

There are enough cabbages and broad beans to have with our Sunday roast this weekend. It is great to be getting some produce.

Yesterday we re read the instructions (for the hundredth time!) that came with the automatic door opener. We checked the wires and they were wired correctly. We followed the instructions again. We have done this many, many times over the last few days.

First we needed to calibrate the door. The door was going down too far exposing a gap at the top and I had to stop it with my hand. It was then going up to high and jamming. I tried again this time stopping it from going up too far with my hand.

This hadn’t been happening before so I thought that something was adrift. After the door is calibrated the instructions say that you need to scroll through the menu until you find sensor then select sensor.

I scrolled the menu and sensor no longer appeared. I think that what has happened is that the sensor is no longer working and therefore can’t be selected. If the opener is working it is supposed to slowly blink a red light to let you know it is working. This is no longer happening.

We decided that we would have to give up on it and buy a new one. This is frustrating as they are expensive however an automatic door opener that doesn’t open or close is completely useless.

I have ordered another one which is due to arrive the next day. I will leave the pop hole open overnight until the new door opener is installed. In the unlikely event that anyone new reads this my run is roofed and completely predator proof so I am able to do this.

Last night I kept popping out to see how the girls were getting on. The little girls have quickly got the hang of it and go in easily and go to the their perch straight away. I had to put Marmite in as she is still broody and even if I close the nest boxes she sits on the patio in front of the nest box.

The reason I put Marmite in the corner was because it was darker there and I thought it would stop her going back out again. When I don’t need to put her in the girls may spread out a bit more as there is plenty of space on the left end of the perch.

I kept the nest boxes closed for two days but Marmite would just sit in front of them so I decided to give up as the other girls need to get in to lay.

All the little girls are on their perch

What surprises me is that the little girls have had no problem finding the new pop hole and the new perch and yet the three bigger girls are clueless! They were walking around the patio area and looking in the old pop hole.

Eventually I pushed them all through the new pop hole. Once inside Ebony jumped straight up to their perch but Speckles and Flame just stood there looking confused. These girls can be awfully dim at times. Eventually I lifted them to the perch.

I helped the bigger girls in

All the girls are in

I hope that over the next few nights the three bigger girls will get the hang of it.

We had a really full on, busy, weekend but we did manage to get the chicken shed finished in between.

The new shed is finished and in position

I am pleased that all three nest boxes still fit and there was no need to move the storage cabinet (which is screwed in place). I had the nest boxes closed and broody Marmite was sat on top of one. I opened them to take a photo and she is already about to jump in.

We will block off the pop hole in the old shed later, when we have more time, so for now I have just blocked it temporarily to stop the girls going in there. I have emptied it and hoovered it.

The automatic door closer is on

The perches are in place

The wider perch is opposite the pop hole, as before, for the bigger girls. It only needs to fit the three girls so didn’t need to be too long. The longer, narrower, perch is opposite the door for the little girls.

The black square is black plastic glued in place to block the lower vent as I didn’t want a draft directly behind where the girls will be perched. There is another vent above the door and a slight gap around the left edge of the door due to our alterations. There are also small holes (pound coin sized) beneath the peaks of the roof. I hope that this will be enough ventilation. If it turns out we need more we will add more as the shed doesn’t need to be water tight as it is under the dry area.

Spangle is the first to investigate

We sealed the cut edges of the plastic for the pop hole with strong white masking tape and I sanded the plastic strip at the bottom so that there are no sharp edges for the girls to stand on.

I went out several times last night to see how the girls were getting on. All the little girls went to their perch which I was really pleased about. They all fit comfortably. The three bigger girls were obviously confused by the new arrangements. All three ended up on top of the nest box outside the plastic shed.

I am not too disappointed by this as at least they chose to get as near to the new shed as possible. I think I should be able to train them over the next few nights.

The disappointing thing was that the automatic closer didn’t work. I checked  it several times, the last time being at half past ten, when it was dark and it was still open. As it is really warm at the moment I left it open and we are going to look at the wiring inside today. The wires came out when we moved it and we think we may have them wired up wrongly.

If we can get that sorted out the shed will be up and running. We will see how tonight goes and I will report back in another post.

We are continuing to modify the new chicken shed in the afternoons. I was at home today as I didn’t have deliveries so decided to get tough with the broody girls.

Vanilla laid her first egg since her broody break of ten days. It was a whopper for a serama egg. Jasmine also laid, so two eggs today, hurrah.

Vanilla’s egg on the left and Jasmine’s egg on the right

I checked on my egg record and found that Ebony has now been broody for four weeks. In fact just a little longer because it was four weeks ago that she last laid but she laid the last couple of eggs after she went broody as the girls often do. It only takes three weeks to hatch an egg so this is ridiculous.

Flame has been broody for a week and Marmite has been broody for a couple of days. I thought that I may have been mistaken with Marmite as she took longer and longer to lay each of her last two eggs and then that was it, broody and in the nest box all day.

With all three nest boxes clogged up with broody girls it is causing the laying girls to be very vocal with some of them not happy to share a nest box with an angry broody.

I decided enough was enough! Vanilla and Jasmine had laid their eggs. Cinnamon and Salmon had laid the day before and only lay about once a week at the moment. Smoke hasn’t yet laid since she came out of being broody. Spangle lays very rarely and Speckles isn’t laying at the moment. This meant there would be no girls wanting to lay so I decided to close the nest boxes.

Because I know that Ebony and Flame will sit on top of the nest box if closed I stacked two nest boxes on top of each and took the third nest box outside.

When I next checked the girls this is what I found.

Ebony and Flame on top of the stack of nest boxes

After a whole month how can Ebony be this determined! I then bought the third nest box back in and added it to the stack. That stopped them getting up there. It will be interesting to see what happens at bedtime as I hope this will force them to go in the chicken shed. They may decide to sleep outside instead but I am used to moving girls around at bedtime.

I will leave the nest boxes like this for tomorrow morning too. Vanilla is the only girl likely to want to lay tomorrow. I will keep an eye on her and open up a nest box if she looks like she needs one.

To the plastic shed we fitted the runners for the pop hole door and some brackets for the perch at the back for the bigger girls. We used silicon sealant to seal all the joins so it will be be harder for red mite to hide anywhere.

All that is left to do now is to fit the automatic door closer and the brackets for the little girls’ perch and then to fit the perches. We hope to get this done tomorrow. We are nearly ready for the girls to move in.

Edit

All the broody girls went into the chicken shed at bedtime, hurrah!

We have been quite busy with work and have functions to cater this weekend both on Saturday and Sunday, plus there is a classic car show we want to go to on Sunday afternoon, with our car.

This has meant that there hasn’t been much time to spare for putting the new shed together. My husband has been putting together some of the parts after work some days this week. We decided to take our time as we didn’t want to rush it and make mistakes. We have also been at the mercy of the weather and have only been able to continue on dry days.

Once we had the base together we tried it in the run for size. We then tried one side of the shed, on the base, to check the height and realised that it wasn’t going to fit. We decided that the only thing to do was to cut it down a bit. We decided to cut the bottom “plank” off which reduced the height by seven inches.

This meant a lot of work because the frame is steel and all the frame work had to be cut down. We also needed to cut out the pop hole before we could put the shed together. The shed would have been fairly straight forward to put together if we hadn’t had to make alterations which effected everything.

Despite this I am so pleased that it isn’t so high as this means we will be able to move it around which means I can sweep around and underneath it and wash it and position it differently if I want to. If it had been jammed in height wise we wouldn’t have been able to move it.

Once we had made all the alterations we moved all the parts inside the run and started to put it together. As we had read in the reviews on line the roof was the tricky bit. It was one of those things where you get one side together and another side pops out. Eventually we got it together.

A trial run at putting the shed together

The shell of the shed

The shed is together inside the run

The shed isn’t in it’s final position as I need to be able to get the old shed door open at the moment so that I can still get in there. Once this shed is up and running it will be pushed back in front of the old shed and I will then decide where the nest boxes will end up.

The pop hole has been cut out but we need to attach the door and the automatic door closer. We also need to put in perches. For now the girls can get used to it being here. I have blocked the pop hole so that they are not tempted to explore inside and possibly poop in there.

There is still more work to be done but for now it is up and it is inside so that is a good start.

A few days ago I said that I thought that Marmite was going broody but I was mistaken. Marmite was just taking a very long time to lay her egg. However that same day Flame went broody and has been broody for four days now. Ebony has been broody for three and a half weeks which is ridiculous!

Speckles last laid six days ago and has gone back to drinking lots of water and doing sloppy poops. This was pretty much what I expected if this is a hormonal problem and I think she may take eight weeks off and then start laying again if she follows her previous pattern.

This means we have no bigger girls laying and our two best laying little girls are not laying since their broody break so egg production has dropped dramatically. We are getting one little egg a day at the moment.

Another thing that has changed is that Flame has stopped pecking me, hurrah! When she first went broody there were a few times when I knew that she was sitting on Marmite’s egg. I reached under her to remove the egg and was most surprised that she didn’t peck me.

The next thing I decided to try was to see if I could lift Flame from the nest box and again she didn’t peck me. I have been lifting Flame several times a day along with Ebony and she hasn’t pecked me.

I am amazed and extremely pleased by this change in Flame. It makes it so much easier to be able to handle her. I wonder what has brought about this change. None of the girls are pecking me now so maybe it has just taken this long for them to accept me handling them. I can’t say how much nicer it is to have no girls pecking me, especially Flame.

I lift Flame and Ebony out of the nest box several times a day

They are like a pair of bookends

They sit like this for a few minutes and then run off and scratch, preen or dust bath and then have food and water before returning to the nest box.

At bedtime I close the nest boxes but it makes no difference to these two girls as they just settle on top of the nest boxes.

Bedtime

I lift them to the perch once the pop hole has closed. I will be glad when these two girls have come out of this. I only hope that Flame isn’t going to stick at it as long as Ebony. I am wondering if Ebony is ever going to come out of this!

Yesterday we went to the allotment. This plot is beautiful. We aren’t sure if it’s just been left or if it’s been purposefully seeded with wild flowers but the effect is stunning. I suspect it must have been seeded.

A beautiful wildflower plot

On to our plot.

Lettuces and radishes looking great and carrots on the right

Potatoes looking great

Broad beans

Cabbages

First of the ripe strawberries

Grandchildren in the background

Having a go at mowing

We are really pleased with how everything is coming along. We have so far been harvesting rocket and spinach although the spinach is bolting and going to seed. Everything else is looking great.

Today I found the tiniest egg, so far, in the middle of the run. I think that the girl who laid it was unaware and just dropped it in the run. This one is the first one without a yolk. It’s a bit of a mystery as to why a girl should lay a tiny egg at this stage.

By a process of elimination I think this egg is from Salmon. The reasons for this conclusion are as follows. Cinnamon hasn’t laid for two weeks now but these tiny eggs are a feature of my latest breeder’s girls so Cinnamon is out of the running.

Smoke is out of the running as she is firmly broody and it can’t be Vanilla as she has just come out of being broody.

It isn’t Jasmine as she laid her first egg since her broody break, today, in the corner of the chicken shed.

Spangle laid today and lays torpedo shaped eggs. Marmite laid yesterday and today and today has gone broody. Yes, yet another broody girl!

That just leaves Salmon who last laid a week ago and yesterday looked a bit poorly as if about to struggle to lay. Her last couple of eggs had thin shells but for the last couple of days she has been going to the grit. Today she had bounced back again.

The odd thing is that this tiny egg obviously wouldn’t have been a struggle to lay (I wouldn’t have expected her to look out of sorts) and I wonder why it’s been produced at this stage. It’s as if it has been laid before being fully formed.

The latest tiny egg

This egg is not much bigger than a black currant and about half the size of a grape.

Tiny egg on the egg ramp

Left is Flame’s egg, next is Marmite’s and on the right is the tiny egg.

This tiny egg has no yolk

It is very odd.