Carol's Chickens

I now have no doubt that Smoke is broody.

Smoke didn’t lay yesterday so she went into her favourite middle nest box first thing this morning as I expected. She was making the, chuff chuff, broody sound as she went in. An hour later she was still in there. I decided to leave her for two hours and then lift her out. Spangle was also in and out of this nest box causing Smoke to shout at her.

After two hours I lifted Smoke out and there were two eggs. Her own bigger, round, egg and Spangle’s narrower, darker, egg.

I put Smoke on the patio and she sat with her tail raised up. She made no attempt to move when suddenly the two silky girls attacked her. They pecked her and pulled at her with their beaks which sent her running. This wasn’t nice to see and I haven’t seen a broody girl get this treatment before.

Smoke did a big broody poop then perched in the sun and preened alongside the silky girls surprisingly enough. After half an hour she returned to the nest box.

I lifted her out again and put her in the run this time. Once again she just sat in the same position until Sienna and Dandelion lightly pecked at her and sent her on her way. Fifteen minutes later she was back in the nest box.

I decided to leave her be as it’s going to be impossible for me to break the broody girls with nine seramas in the flock. I can’t close the nest boxes in case other girls need to lay. This year I am just going to have to let it take it’s course.

Smoke in the nest box with her tail raised up

Smoke on the patio with her tail in a v shape

Smoke and Spangle’s eggs

I can’t believe I have the first broody before they have even all started laying. Smoke is the best layer too. She has laid thirty three eggs so far since she started in December.

In the summer I will try to dissuade Ebony and Flame from going broody as last summer it only took the removal of their eggs to do this. Speckles has never gone broody. The seramas I will just leave to their own devises apart from lifting them out peiodically to take a break. There  should be enough girls laying not to matter if some of them take a break.

Yesterday we had our first, four egg day, of this year. Up until then we had been getting two or three eggs a day most days. Jasmine has only laid one egg so far and that was six days ago so she hasn’t properly got started yet. This means that four eggs is a full house at the moment.

At the moment I can still tell the eggs apart but I am aware that may not last much longer. Ebony’s are obviously easy as they are the only large size eggs.

Smoke’s are easy as they are the largest and roundest of the little girls’ eggs plus she sits in the nest box for the longest and so is easy to spot when laying. Spangle’s are distinct as they are beige and narrow. Marmite’s are in between these two sizes and pale.

Side by side the difference in the width of the eggs doesn’t show up in a photo but it does show up in the egg stand because Spangle’s narrow egg drops through the hole.

Egg stand – four egg day

From left to right is Smoke’s egg, Spangle’s egg, Marmite’s egg and then Ebony’s egg. As I had seen all four girls in the nest box and had four eggs that day it was certain whose the eggs were even without me identifying them.

Since I have blocked the top of the store cabinet Spangle has been laying her egg in the nest box which is good.

I have decided to do an extra egg count at the end of January as I think that beyond that it will get really difficult to tell the eggs apart. By my end of year egg count I doubt I will know which girl laid which egg.

It is good fun still being able to name the eggs so far and it has been great seeing more girls start laying. Vanilla and Sienna both look ready to start soon as they have lovely red combs. I love having plenty of eggs and in the summer we should have loads.

For the last three days I have thought that Smoke might be going broody and yet for the last three days she has laid an egg.

I would notice that she had been in the nest box for a long time. At first all morning and then as her egg got later it would be all afternoon.

When I checked on Smoke she behaved like a broody. She puffed herself up, raised her tail, made an angry sound and went to peck me when I lifted her from the nest box.

When I lifted her each time there was her egg. Her eggs are distinct as they are larger and rounder than any of the other little girls’ eggs.  I sat her on the patio and she sat for a while like a broody girl does. After that though she went to the food dish and then out into the run as usual and didn’t return to the nest box.

Smoke with an angry gleam in her eye

Smoke in a broody pose

Smoke with her somewhat ragged tail feathers raised up

It’s as if she is almost broody but not quite. It is most odd. I will update as she goes on.

Late this afternoon it started snowing.

It had just started snowing

Outside our kitchen window

I love the contrast of the red berries and the snow.

The back garden half an hour later

It very quickly covered the garden but luckily an hour later it had stopped. I say luckily as it doesn’t take much snow to cause chaos on the road outside our house.

It does look pretty though.

Edit

It is now just gone five o’clock and the snow is coming down thick and fast. Oh dear!

It is now just gone half past five and there is a stationary queue of cars outside our drive.

The road outside is now at a stand still

I have on occasion seen Spangle fly on to the top of the store cabinet and then fly down to the run from there. She is the only girl that I have seen do this. The space between the top of the cabinet and the roof of the run is quite small.

Recently on a handful of occasions I have gone in to give the bedtime corn and when I have opened the store cabinet door Spangle has surprised me by flying down to the run. I hadn’t noticed she was there until she flew down.

Yesterday this happened again but this time she had her corn and then flew back up there again. She settled down to sit up there and I wondered what she could be doing up there.

Spangle is on top of the store cabinet

What is she doing up there!

She is now sitting up there

I decided to take a patio chair in to stand on and see what she was doing.

I climbed on a chair to see what she was doing

To my surprise there was an egg up there. The top of the cabinet is filthy! I lifted her down and removed the egg. I then swept the dirt and dust from the top of the cabinet.

A minute later Spangle was back up there again. She has never repeated going up there before. It was getting near to bedtime so I lifted her down again and put my broom up there to put her off while I went to look in the shed for something to block it with.

I put a broom up there to block her but that didn’t work

I lifted her down again and blocked it with a few items.

It’s now blocked with a box and a log

Spangle tried to fly up again and just dropped back down. I couldn’t understand why she was so determined to get back up there. I waited a few moments to make sure that she had given up.

I checked back a little later and the girls had gone in the shed. I always check the nest boxes just in case and there was Spangle’s, still warm, egg. I know Spangle’s eggs because they are a darker colour than the other girls and narrower.

This was obviously why she was determined to get back up on top of the store cupboard, She must have laid her egg up there a day or two earlier and was determined to get back to her new egg laying spot. Once I blocked it she must have gone straight to the nest box and laid her egg.

As it’s been so cold it doesn’t matter that the egg may have been there a day or two but it was filthy from being laid in the dust and we didn’t fancy eating it. Instead I scrambled it in a little olive oil and water and put it in the fridge to feed it back to the girls the next morning.

Scrambled egg for the girls

Spangle gets to eat her own egg – scrambled

Notice how red those combs are.

I am hoping that now the store cabinet is blocked off Spangle will return to laying in the nest boxes. There always seems to be some drama going on with these girls. They always manage to surprise me with some new behaviour. They are funny girls!

I thought a fish treat would be good for the girls as a bit of extra protein to help those feathers through for some of them. It also gives me a chance to get a group photo as they all come to the patio area for some fish. I put six small dishes on the patio.

Fish treat

Salmon was just hidden behind Sienna in this one.

The whole flock together

All twelve girls in shot.

The girls love the fish

I love seeing all the girls together. They are such a pretty flock.

We have our laptop on a corner of our kitchen worktop. Probably not a conventional position but it suits me. I pass it every day from any room to the cabin outside the back door which is our catering work space or from there to the front door if off on my deliveries.

It means I can constantly check if there are any new lunch orders and I can confirm them promptly. It also means I can write my blog or read blogs while keeping an eye on cooking our evening meal.

I also prefer to stand as both my husband and myself have spent our entire working life on our feet and we feel it’s good to continue that way. I am not comfortable sitting apart from eating meals and watching television in the evenings or reading in the sun in the garden in summer.

I hadn’t realised how low it was though and at Christmas when oldest son and I were working on a project together he commented that he didn’t know how my back could take stooping down to look at the screen. I admitted that it was sometimes uncomfortable.

My son said that the screen should be in line with my eye level and the keyboard should be on a level of my elbows held horizontally.

His job is in I.T. self employed and working from an office space in his home. He has a standing desk for a similar reason. He doesn’t want to spend his days sitting down at a desk.

This started me thinking that I should do something about this as I spend a lot of time on the laptop. I searched on line and found a simple stand which was inexpensive and adjusted to three heights. You alter the height by leaving the legs off for lowest height, slotting them in one way round for middle height and slotting them in the other way round for maximum height.

I decided to try it on maximum height as this fitted in with my son’s advice.

Our laptop on the kitchen worktop

I have a past flock as my screen saver. Sadly all those girls have gone now, the last one, being Emerald last summer.

Our laptop on the stand

The cooker is to the left and then my food preparation worktop to the left of that, so away from this corner, which only serves to house the vintage bread bin which stores potatoes and the utensils container and of course the laptop.

Yesterday was the first full day of using it like this and I am already getting used to it. At first the key board felt high as I have been used to having my hands down at hip height up until now. It is great though being able to watch the screen while standing perfectly upright rather than stooping.

I am amazed that I have managed for years like this without coming up with a solution. I think this will make a huge difference to me. Already I am very happy with the change.

Eggs are coming thick and fast at the moment. This morning when I poop picked the chicken shed I found another egg, this time under the silky girls’ perch. As Jasmine has been practising and I have never seen Sienna in the nest box I am concluding that it is Jasmine’s egg.

The egg is a normal size this time. As the morning went on Jasmine returned to the shed a few times as if she wasn’t sure she had laid it. This often happens on a first egg, from the perch, first thing in the morning.

And here are photos of these two lovely, newest laying, girls.

Salmon

Jasmine

Only Vanilla and Sienna to go now. We are going to have so many eggs which is lovely and something I didn’t expect at this time of year.

These tiny eggs seem to be a feature of the amigos starting to lay. This morning when I poop picked the chicken shed I found another teeny, tiny, egg under the amigos roost spot. I almost missed it amongst the shavings. It must have dropped from the perch because it had a little hole in it.

I know who laid it by it’s position under the perch.

Another tiny egg on a teaspoon

You can just see the tiny hole in it where it landed.

Next to a pound coin for size comparison

This one is nearly all white with the tiniest yolk

The shell was soft enough for me to break with my finger nails which must be why it cracked on landing in the shavings.

Only Vanilla and Salmon hadn’t started laying out of the amigos so that narrowed it down to two girls as the silky girls perch on the opposite side of the shed. I happen to know exactly where these two girls were perched.

The reason for this is that when I checked in on them at bedtime last night, before closing the door, I thought that there appeared to be only four amigos on their perch. There were no girls on the floor so I was a bit puzzled. I then swept my torch over the amigos and saw that salmon was sitting on Vanilla’s back! This isn’t the first time she has done this. There was no space either side of Vanilla as she was up against the side of the shed.

I lifted Salmon from Vanilla’s back and placed her on the other end of the perch next to Smoke and nearest to the pop hole. The tiny egg was under the perch next to the pop hole. This means that it must be Salmon’s egg.

These girls are all getting started thick and fast. I would have guessed at Vanilla being next as Salmon is the smallest of the amigos but it’s not always anything to do with size. I would also have thought that Jasmine may have started by now but she hasn’t shown any interest in the nest box since her practise.

It is fun seeing them start one by one as I haven’t ever had so many point of lay girls at one time before. I wonder who will be next!

Since I posted a few days ago about seeing first Dandelion and then Cinnamon having a dust up with one of the amigos I haven’t seen Dandelion do this again. It’s as if she is happy that she has proved her point and that’s done with.

Not so with Cinnamon. Cinnamon has continued to have spats with the amigos. Twice today I saw her take on the amigos two at a time. I am not sure if she meant to or if it’s their strategy that when she start a battle with one of the amigos another joins in as a safety in numbers measure.

I worry that Cinnamon is going to get hurt. She is the smallest girl in our flock but seems to have no conception of that or that she is outnumbered.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon tries to make herself look bigger by standing upright with her chest thrust out. Her chest seems out of proportion for her small size.

Cinnamon’s back view

Her wings almost touch the ground and she marches around full of purpose. I will be glad when she tires of proving her status as she is so tiny that I worry for her when two amigos manage to corner her.

Cinnamon is a tiny girl who imagines that she is much bigger than she is and is feisty and fearless!