Carol's Chickens

It’s been unusually hot and dry this summer. Most days this week have averaged 32 degrees/90 degrees. We haven’t had any rain since May. Parts of the country have had some rain but we have missed it here in the south. It’s been the hottest summer since the summer of 1976 and is in line to break a few records.

It has become impossible and impractical to water the garden. We have even given up on parts of the veg plot. We are trying to keep the potatoes, courgettes and tomatoes watered to give us some crops.

We got two portions of broad beans and they had tough skins so needed to be skinned. We got about two portions of dwarf beans and they needed stringing which they don’t usually. We did have an early abundance of runner beans and I picked and cooked about eight portions and put them in the freezer. After that the remaining beans were tough and twisted so we stopped watering them also.

Luckily we have no lawn. Our garden is too large to water apart from the pots on the patio. We have even given up on the two hanging baskets. At times like this it’s survival of the fittest. We are too busy to be a slave to our garden. Only the toughest plants survive.

We have lost some of the more delicate and most recently planted things. Some things don’t look great and we have cut them back in the knowledge that they will rise up again next year. Then there are some hardy plants that seem able to survive anything.

The view up the garden isn’t too bad

We have left the dead broad beans in the back (on the left) of the veg plot because it keeps the cats off. Since we stopped watering them they are brown stalks.

The path way looks good

It’s become too hot for me to sit in the garden so this is the spot I sit in at the end of the day when it has cooled down and this is my view from my garden chair.

The anemones look great

Anemones just need leaving to their own devises and once they have matured they can withstand the harshest winter and the hottest summer and always do just fine.

The hibiscus looks great

Hibiscus is another plant that once established can also withstand the coldest of winters and the coolest or hottest of summers equally.

The hollyhock has started to flower at last

We put this one in this year as we had lost the ones we planted in the past. The leaves developed orange dots as if it was diseased. I kept cutting the worse ones off and now it has surprised us by finally flowering. The flowers are beautiful and it has a lot more to open yet. How long we will keep it is another question.

There are pockets of the garden that are either brown/yellow (autumnal looking) or bleached. The hostas are completely bleached but there are parts of the garden that still look good. The way I look at it is that it will all come back next year.

You can never tell in this country what sort of summer we will get and next year could be completely different. The garden will always return and evolve year after year so there is no point worrying about it. Like a lawn it will always come back.

Yesterday Speckles laid an egg in the high nest box. This nest box is currently the favourite with the bigger girls. She hasn’t laid for two months and this is the first time she has ever come into lay after her moult.

I wonder if it is because she laid so few eggs earlier in the year that she has come back into lay again. This has been such a surprise.

Speckles egg in the middle

On the left is Dandelion’s tiny egg and next is cinnamon’s which is really large for her tiny size. In the middle is Speckles, long, white, egg. Next is Ebony’s darker egg and Flame’s egg is on the right.

This is all the laying girls’ eggs as the chicks are too young yet. I love that I can still tell which girls’ egg is which as they are all so different.

When I added some new girls to the flock I hadn’t expected to get an influx of eggs, nor a nest box problem, which I think we have now solved.

After eating our own eggs for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday we still have a full egg roller for the first time in ages.

A full egg roller

I love all the different sizes. The tiny one in the middle is Dandelion’s egg. We are now picking out two medium sized eggs each as in Cinnamon’s eggs or one large and one small one each as in a game girls’ and Dandelion’s egg.

I put the bigger eggs in a pan and when they are almost ready I add the tiny eggs. Perfect eggs of assorted sizes!

For the last couple of days Speckles has been have a twirl round the nest box. I thought it was just curiosity because of the extra shavings that I have added.

This morning when I went out to the girls she was missing. I checked the run, the nest box on the patio area and the chicken shed. There was only one other place she could be. Sure enough she was in the new higher nest box.

It’s Speckles turn in the high nest box

Look at her red comb and wattles. It looks as if she is coming back into lay after a two month break. Her comb had shrunk and gone pale and she was moulting. She has now finished her moult and I wonder if she is about to start laying again. This has never happened before.

She came out a little later without laying an egg but Speckles often needs to practise first and then lays the next day. It will be interesting to see if she lays tomorrow.

Speckles seems to have grown in confidence with the realisation that she is now, for the first time ever, top girl. She is another girl, like Emerald before her, that has risen from the bottom to the top.

When Ebony came in Speckles took no notice of her. When Flame came in Speckles took no notice of her either but Ebony soon showed Flame that she was below her in the pecking order. Over the last couple of days Speckles has been chasing Flame around the run a bit.

It is as if she has suddenly realised her new status and is showing that she is now top girl. It is interesting to watch the dynamics of the flock altering. It is also unexpected to have an abundance of lovely eggs.

I think we have finally sorted out the egg laying requirements. It seems that it was both height and depth that the new girls wanted.

I topped up both nest boxes with a really deep layer of shavings and the same for the corners of the chicken shed. Monday morning Ebony went into the high nest box and this time she settled straight away.

Flame stood in the run and shouted her head off. We knew the neighbours would be at work by now so we decided not to stress about it. As it happened Flame stopped after a short while so hopefully this will settle down. We have to remember that the new girls have only been with us for a week.

Ebony in the high nest box

It wasn’t long before Ebony had got her egg laid.

In the afternoon I was surprised that Flame went into the high nest box. She had already laid the day before.

Once again Ebony started shouting her head off but once again as the neighbours were at work we decided to leave her too it. This time she soon stopped so maybe things are finally settling down.

A bit later I checked again and Flame was back out in the run. She had laid another egg so that’s two days in a row. I think we are finally getting the egg laying sorted.

We are really struggling with the new girls getting their eggs laid. Yesterday morning Flame wanted to lay her egg. She kept going in the high nest box but would scratch around and then come out again.

Once again she was making a mournful sound and looking stressed. For a while she stayed in the high nest box but while she was in there Ebony was shouting her head off. We can’t understand why she was doing this.

Flame is in the high nest box

Again we worried about the neighbours. It was a hot Sunday morning and nothing we could do would quieten her. We tried corn and spinach and attention but on and on she went and she is the loudest girl we have yet to come across.

We were getting really stressed ourselves. In the end we decided to shut her in the chicken shed. We hoped that Flame would soon lay and then we could let her out. I didn’t want to disconnect the automatic door as this one is really complicated to reset so I blocked the pop hole with the bag of straw.

I went back to check a little later and Ebony had pushed her way out of the shed and Flame was back in the run looking stressed again.

Then Flame went into the chicken shed and started scratching around in two of the corners. I had already pushed the shavings into a heap in both the back corners. She eventually settled in the left corner where Ebony had laid her egg the day before.

Flame sits in the corner of the chicken shed

It’s distant because I took this photo through the pop hole. I was afraid that if I opened the door it would disturb her and it had taken so long for her to settle.

A little later Flame was back out and her egg was deep within the shavings. We have now realised that we were right earlier in our assumption that it is the depth of the shavings that these girls want.

I had run out of shavings when I topped up the nest boxes so I will buy some more and make the nest boxes and the corners of the shed even deeper. Both Ebony and Flame went back into the high nest box in the afternoon as if checking it out. We think maybe if the shavings were deeper they would prefer this nest box but we are also happy with them laying in the shed as long as they can choose somewhere and get on with the job.

We are now certain that it is the depth that they want. They both scratch out a really deep hole and then get down to the wood if the layer of shavings isn’t deep enough.

Dandelion sits with the chicks

It was heartwarming to see Dandelion so close to the chicks. As the chicks can no longer be called the three amigos I have decided that once they are no longer chicks I will call them the silkie girls.

Later in the day all the girls were dust bathing and Cinnamon was dust bathing right next to Ebony. I didn’t get a photo as I didn’t want to disturb them and they were under the metal table which is a difficult spot to get photos.

Sunday morning we found ourselves wishing that the new girls would soon come to the end of egg laying for this year.

It’s such a shame, when they are all getting along so well, that we have been having this problem. I am sure it will settle soon though, once we get the right combination for them, and they get used to the new laying spots. Here’s hoping so.

Thank goodness the game girls are laying their eggs on alternate days or I don’t know how we would cope.

On the first day that Ebony laid she had been stressing for quite some time so I think that when I put the nest box in the run with a pile of straw in it she was so desperate that she went straight in and laid her egg.

The next time she was ready to lay she was behaving in the same manner and I herded her into the chicken shed and shut her in. She settled in the corner and laid her egg. I thought that this would mean she would now know that she could either lay in the nest box or the shed.

But no! On the third day that she wanted to lay she would stand outside the nest boxes and shout her head off. My goodness she was loud, louder than a cockerel. It was Saturday and sunny and we started to worry about the neighbours. Even if they weren’t in the garden they would have their windows open and we could hear her from indoors.

I had to resort to shutting her in the shed again where she settled and got her egg laid.

I have been thinking of what made their previous nest boxes different from ours. At first I thought it was that they were used to straw. I then thought that they liked deep nests. I then realised that it was probably the height of the nest box position.

At the farm they were in a barn. There was a wooden shelf at about table height with a row of wooden nest boxes on it. We decided to try putting one of the nest boxes on top of the wooden shelter.

We need to solve this problem because we can’t always be here to watch over them and we can’t have this amount of disruption every day. We have to keep trying different things until we find a nest box that they are happy to use.

New nest box position

It will now be a matter of waiting to see if this works. I really hope so.

Meanwhile I was surprised to find the chicks on top of the other shelter for the first time.

The chicks are on top of the shelter

How did they get up here!

I was surprised that they could get up there. In the meantime both Ebony and Flame have investigated the new nest box position so I am hopeful that this may work. At least they know where it is. Time will tell.

We had even more difficulty with Flame finding out where to lay her egg than with Ebony. This a problem that I had never expected.

Chicks or point of lay hens just seem to find the nest boxes. I am always amazed that the girls’ first eggs have always been laid in a nest box or a corner of the chicken shed. They just seem to find the right place to go quite naturally.

I am now learning that this isn’t so when you take an adult hen from one environment to another. These game girls have been used to their set up and seem to be finding it really difficult to get used to our set up when it comes to where to lay their eggs.

By late afternoon yesterday I realised that Flame wanted to lay her first egg since joining us. She was stalking around the run and was making a melancholy sound almost as if she was crying. I recognised that sound from Toffee every day when the corn had been consumed and she realised that it had ran out.

I herded Flame to the patio area. I showed her the nest boxes with the lids open and with the lids closed. I put her in a nest box but she ran straight out again. I herded her into the shed but she came back out. I shut her in the shed briefly but she was crashing about in distress so I had to let her out again.

I put a nest box in the run but Flame wasn’t interested. Dandelion liked the nest box in the run. Dandelion kept settling in there and I would move her to the nest box on the patio but she would march back to the one in the run. I felt this would deter Flame from using it so we played this game for a while. After four times I gave up and moved the nest box back to it’s usual spot on the patio.

Dandelion was not pleased at me spoiling her fun and proceeded to shout and then laid her egg in the run. What has got into these girls!

Meanwhile Flame  kept exploring the wooden shelter so I piled some straw in there. I put the cat box in the run with straw in it. I put a washing up bowl of straw in the run. I put piles of straw in corners. The problem with this was that if Flame did sit briefly on any given heap of straw the other girls would come along and turf her off.

All of the girls scratched in the straw and soon had it spread over the entire run. We tried closing off the triangle part of the run with the wooden shelter. I heaped straw in there and shut Flame in on her own. Once again this distressed her and she spent her time pacing up and down the wire.

By now it was nearly bedtime so I opened up the run again. I knew that the little girls would soon go in the chicken shed and Speckles and Ebony would perch on the branch perch and then Flame would be free to settle.

Sure enough she settled on the straw in the wooden shelter. When I went back a bit later her egg was on the straw and she was perched on the perch above the hatch. Phew! What a drama.

Flame lays an egg

Flame’s egg is on the left and is lighter in colour than Ebony’s egg next to it. Next is Cinnamon’s egg and on the right is Dandelion’s tiny egg. Dandelion laid after a weeks break and her egg is even smaller than usual.

I hope these girls soon get used to our nest boxes because we are worn out by all this drama. I never imagined it was going to be this difficult. It’s as if they are making up for settling in so well by causing mayhem with their egg laying antics.

At the moment I can’t quite believe how easily the new girls have settled in. Ebony briefly chased Flame but I think that was just to show Flame that she is below Ebony in the pecking order. Now that that has been established Ebony is taking no notice of Flame.

At bedtime last night I used my usual strategy on the first night of waiting until it was almost dark before putting them in because Flame wouldn’t know where the chicken shed was. As I expected Flame perched on the branch perch next to Speckles and Ebony.

The three girls on the branch perch

You will have to excuse the quality of these photos. I didn’t realise until I looked at these that I had a spot of dust on the lense.

It was easy to pick each girl up one at a time and put them on the back perch of the chicken shed. Tonight I will move on to the next stage of herding them in so that in the future Flame will know where to go.

The three girls in the chicken shed

Today Flame was having a lovely dust bath but when I went back out with my camera she was just shaking herself. I decided to keep this action shot.

Flame has a shake after a dust bath

As you can see here these two girls are no longer bothering each other.

Flame is quite calm when I get close to her

I think that Flame looks younger than Ebony. All we need now is for her to find the nest boxes and then she will be completely initiated into her new surroundings.

When I collected Ebony I was very tempted to take another girl too as the other variety of game bird the farmer had were so beautiful. We decided to stick to the plan though as we felt that two girls coming in together would already have a bond and Speckles would still be left on her own.

The farmer and ourselves agreed that we could come back later for another girl and taking another one about a week or so later would put all three on a more equal footing.

As it has gone so easily with Ebony I started thinking of adding another one sooner rather than later. I rang the farmer today and he said that he was away Friday and Saturday so we could either go today (Thursday) or Sunday. My impatience kicked in and I opted to go today.

I am so glad that I did because our new girl is so beautiful. I have called her Flame. I went with the same strategy of putting Flame straight in to the run. To my surprise the only one that chased her was Ebony.

All the other girls accepted her but Ebony had obviously had enough of five days as bottom girl and was going to be bottom girl no longer. Flame is the new bottom girl, not counting the chicks, as they too young yet for joining in with the pecking order.

New girl, Flame

Speckles and Flame are quite comfortable together

Her shape is identical to Toffee, our past brown game girl, but there is a lot more gold in her. She is a stunning girl and has the game girl gentle nature. Toffee was bottom girl for a long time and I think Flame will be the same.

She also has a red face so we should be getting eggs from her too. Extra eggs are just an added bonus at the moment.

After a lot of sadness in my flock recently I feel uplifted by the addition of the game girls. The flock feels as if the joy has been put back into it.

Last night I decided to herd Speckles and Ebony in to the chicken shed half an hour later so that it would be a quicker process. I went out at half past nine.

As soon I walked towards to their branch perch Speckles jumped down and Ebony immediately followed. I am sure that they know I don’t want them out there at night! Herding them in was a much quicker and easier process as they are more receptive when it’s a little later.

This time Ebony jumped straight to the spot she had perched on the night before on the end of Dandelion and Cinnamon’s perch. She is obviously a creature of habit. I decided to take charge this time and lifted her to the back perch but not too close to the corner. It will be better for her to get into the habit of perching on the back perch because it is wider and more suited to their bigger feet.

Speckles then jumped to her usual spot in the corner and they very quickly settled.

Speckles and Ebony at bedtime

This is a much better arrangement and I hope that tonight Ebony will automatically settle here.

Ebony has settled in so quickly which is amazing. She has very quickly grown in confidence and now runs to greet me and knows the rattle of the treats and also that the patio area is where the greens and fruit will be. She loves the morning spinach and the afternoon apple.

It is almost as if she has been with the flock for ages rather than just four days. I do have to stop myself from calling her Emerald though.