Carol's Chickens

After the harshest winter for many years we have now had record high temperatures for April. It has felt like summer this week. The garden is bursting with flower.

Tulips in bud

These tulips have been like this for ages just waiting to open. Again just look at the sea of pulmonaria that surrounds them.

The last clump of tulips have opened today

These tulips have been here since we moved in and are the last to open every year.

My favourite clematis is just getting started

It’s my favourite because I like the colour of this one the most.

The clematis opposite our kitchen window

This clematis is on the new fence that our neighbours put up last year and has more flower on it than it has ever had before.

Pot of daisies in bud a week ago

Pot of daisies today

I have been waiting for these daisies to open. All the recent buds in the garden have opened and the cherry tree blossom from last week has all gone already. The garden is changing day by day.

The chooks are loving the better weather too. Dandelion continues to lay every other day with good shells.

Cinnamon is over her broody spell after just one day so that’s good news. She stayed out of the nest box all day today.

Since the better weather Emerald and Speckles have wanted to stay out and perch on the perches at the bottom of the run at bedtime so I am now blocking those too. I hang some tarpaulin over them an hour before bedtime and as long as I do that they go into the chicken shed. I am not sure that I am going to break this habit though. I will continue to do this for a while but I am not sure what to do long term.

I am happy that the girls all look happy and healthy and that is the main thing. They are definitely enjoying the better weather as much as I am.

Dandelion has now laid three eggs and has laid them every other day which is pretty good going. The first one was the soft shelled egg but the next two have had good shells so I am optimistic that she will now continue to lay good eggs. She is looking better than she ever has and I think the warmer weather is really suiting her.

Dandelion in the nest box yesterday

However Cinnamon has gone broody for the first time. This means my two best laying, little girls, are taking a break from egg laying so as one girl starts another girl stops.

Cinnamon is broody

Cinnamon was in the nest box last night before bedtime so I took her out and she then went in the chicken shed. I found her egg near her roost spot this morning when I went in so she must have laid first thing.

When I saw her back in the nest box later this morning I suspected she had gone broody. I knew for sure when she raised her tail up. I lifted her out and she tried to peck me. She isn’t docile when lifted like Freckles.

When I lifted Freckles out she would stay out for a while but Cinnamon would run straight back to the nest box. I could see that Emerald wanted to lay her egg so I let her get settled in the nest box and closed the other one.

Emerald is settled in the nest box

When I next checked the nest box this is what I found.

Cinnamon and Emerald in the nest box together

I should have known that the nest box being occupied wasn’t going to put Cinnamon off. She is a determined little girl. I left them to it.

When I next checked Emerald was back out in the run and Cinnamon was still in the nest box. I lifted her to find Emerald’s egg beneath her. I put her out in the run and closed the nest boxes. I would like to break her out of it as quickly as possible.

Emerald is laying well, almost every other day. Last year she laid twice as many eggs as Speckles so she is the better layer of the two despite being older and having a shorter laying season.

It seems that there is always some drama going on. It is good to have a couple of girls laying but with the flock so small now the eggs are still not enough to entirely keep us going without buying some to supplement them.

It would be really good to increase the flock and insure that there would still be eggs when some of the girls take a broody break. I hope the warmer weather is helping my breeder to hatch some eggs.

I am resisting calling him again, too soon, but I will give him a call in a couple of weeks time to see how it is going. I would so love to add some more girls to the flock.

I still look at the girls and momentarily wonder where the rest of them are and then realise that they are all there. The flock seems so small. I look forward to having a larger flock as summer progresses.

I love these primroses and we have planted them a few times in the garden and have had them disappear. I thought we had lost them all and then we spotted this one appearing through the spring flowers.

Primula denticulata

It is so pretty.

I was really, pleasantly, surprised today to find that Dandelion had laid an egg with a good shell. By a process of elimination it must be her egg. Cinnamon has laid two days running, yesterday and the day before, and has never laid more than two days running. Freckles is yet to start laying after going broody.

Dandelion had visited the nest box briefly the day before and the size was the same small size as her soft shelled egg in comparison to Cinnamon’s.

Dandelion lays an egg with a good shell

Dandelion’s egg is on the left and Cinnamon’s egg is on the right. This is such a good sign. Maybe at last Dandelion is going to get in the swing of egg laying. She is looking so good at the moment.

Emerald has also laid three eggs, laying every other day and Speckles has stopped doing sloppy poops probably because of the dry weather and no rain drips to drink.

I lifted Freckles from the nest box every time I went up to the girls and after only two days she has given up so that is also good news. Things seem to be improving all round in the chicken run.

And at last we have summer weather. I opened up the roof panels in the run and the girls had a massive dust bathing session.

Another clump of my bargain tulips have opened in the sun.

The sun has opened the next clump of tulips.

I have talked of the pulmonaria taking over the garden and as you can see the tulips are surrounded by it with a little self seeded forget me not thrown in.

It is so good to have some sun at last and it is forecast to last through the weekend, hurrah!

Today we got the veg plot planted. It looks a bit pathetic at the moment but I will take a comparison photo when it has got going.

The veg plot is planted

We have early potatoes and main crop potatoes. We have runner beans and dwarf beans. We have courgettes and tomatoes and broad beans and leeks. There is a bit of space left for some leaves for the chooks. It will be interesting to see how well we do this year.

When I opened the chicken shed this morning to poop pick I found Dandelion’s first egg of the year. It was between her roost spot and the pop hole as if she had just dropped it on her way out of the chicken shed. It was soft shelled as I had suspected it would be.

Dandelion’s first egg of the year

Cinnamon’s egg for size comparison

It was quite small which is a good thing as they are harder to pass with soft shells. Dandelion looked absolutely fine.

This means we now have all the girls laying but as I had suspected it looks as if Dandelion will continue with her egg laying problem. Her eggs have been like this since she started laying last year no matter how much limestone flour and cod liver oil or baked, crushed, egg shells I gave her. It seems that when they start with a problem like this it will always remain so as I found with Amber before Dandelion.

Dandelion looks bright and normal this morning though so I hope that she will just manage this. We had Amber for four years, so although I have never expected Dandelion to be a long lived girl, you never can tell. Having had Rusty and Apricot for only a year I feel that any time we have with Dandelion is a bonus.

Some good news is that Emerald and Speckles have been going in the chicken shed at bedtime, for the last three nights, since I blocked their two favourite perches. I will keep the perches blocked for a while until I am sure a new habit has been established.

This winter and spring the weather has been absolutely awful and then yesterday out of the blue we had an amazing sunny day.

Dandelion sunning herself

Freckles and Cinnamon dust bathing

Baby slow worm looking for the sun

A fifty pence piece for size comparison

The hanging basket looks amazing

The cherry tree is in blossom

The tulips have opened

This was the bargain pot that I split in two

Some late daffs

The veg plot is ready for planting

Emerald is back in the nest box

Emerald lays an egg

Speckles egg is on the left, Emerald’s egg is in the middle and Freckles egg is on the right.

I am so pleased that Speckles laid the day before yesterday and Emerald laid yesterday as it shows that they are both in good health and it was probably the awful weather holding them back. Dandelion is the only girl yet to lay but she looks okay at the moment.

After such a sunny day it suddenly changed to rain by dinner time and when I checked the girls at bedtime Emerald and Speckles had gone in to the chicken shed. For the first time I left Dandelion on her own perch. It is warm enough now to let the girls perch where they want to as long as it’s in the chicken shed.

Tomorrow we will plant the veg plot.

My efforts so far to change the bedtime habit haven’t worked. I have been lifting the two bigger girls from the perch over the hatch every evening at half past seven and putting them in. At least I lift one and the other just follows. I have been alternating each evening. I pick up Emerald one evening and Speckles follows and then pick up Speckles the next evening and Emerald follows.

I thought that as they don’t like being picked up it might encourage them to go in by themselves. They don’t particularly like being picked up but it isn’t enough to stop them perching outside at bedtime.

I need to break this habit as there are a few occasions coming up when we will be away overnight. If they perch outside and it rains in the night they will get wet. It’s time to have a change of strategy.

Last night I blocked the favourite perch over the hatch. This time I put a brush either side of the hatch door so that none of the perch was exposed. I then covered the second favourite perch on the other side of the hatch with a sheet of tarpaulin.

I wondered if they would then perch at the bottom of the run above the ladder but I thought I would start with the two favourite bedtime perches and see what happened.

I went out at half past seven and was really pleased to see that it had worked and all the girls were in.

The favourite bedtime perch is completely blocked

The second favourite bedtime perch is also blocked

It worked and the two bigger girls went in the shed at at bedtime

Hurrah! I plan to leave the two perches blocked for a week to see if this breaks the habit. The girls don’t use those perches during the day as they prefer the perches over the ladders which get the sun if there is any.

Maybe this is one problem solved but I will see what happens tonight before I get too carried away. I am hopeful.

I had a feeling that Freckles was about to go broody. After laying her last two eggs she lingered in the nest box. When I lifted her out she accepted it and didn’t return to the nest box but she was making the broody sound – chuf chuf, chuf chuf.

This morning she went into the nest box and when I lifted the lid her tail rose up in a fan over her back. I now know this is a serama sign for  broody. When I first saw Freckles do this last year I had no idea what it meant and was quite concerned.  I have since gained experience with seramas and this is a sure broody sign.

Freckles is broody

I lift Freckles out of the nest box

This is another sure sign. When I lift her out she remains in the same position. I took her to the run and encouraged her to move off.

This is a shame as she is the best layer and we only have two girls laying. This means Freckles will now take a break from laying and that will leave Cinnamon as our only egg laying girl.

Freckles has laid twenty four eggs in the last month and a half and Cinnamon has laid nineteen eggs in the same time.

Dandelion continues to look brighter but still hasn’t laid an egg and is no longer going to the nest box so maybe it was a false alarm. Speckles, Emerald and Dandelion have now all had spells in the nest box with no eggs arriving.

I am continuing with the tylan to be on the safe side as I not really sure what is going on with Dandelion. Tomorrow will be day five of the tylan.

The next time I checked on the girls Speckles was in the nest box.

Speckles is back in the nest box

Emerald soon comes to watch over her

These two are such firm friends that one can’t do anything without the other being there too. Speckles came out a little later without laying once again. She is obviously feeling that she should be laying.

When I next checked Speckles was settled in the other nest box and was purring to herself. That sounded like an egg was imminent.

Speckles is settled in the other nest box

You can just see Emerald’s leg at the ramp. She is still keeping a vigil over Speckles.

The next time I went up to check Speckles was back out in the run and I lifted the nest box lid with baited breath. Yes, at last their was her egg.

Speckles egg on the left and freckles egg on the right

I felt so pleased, not because of the egg so much but because it means she is okay. I had started wondering if there was something adrift with her. Oh well one girl stops laying and another girls starts!

Dandelion has looked a bit brighter today and hasn’t gone to the nest box at all. Freckles and Cinnamon both laid their egg.

Speckles sat in the nest box with a little heap of pine shavings on her back while Emerald kept her company.

Speckles is in the nest box with Emerald keeping her company

Emerald greets me

Later they were back in the run and I checked the nest box. Still no egg. They must think they should be laying but it’s just not happening. It’s all a bit weird.

A few days ago we saw the first baby slow worm of the year in the same spot as last year.

Our first baby slow worm of the year

My thumb for a size comparison

It is good to know that they are still breeding in our garden.

At the end of the day Dandelion hadn’t visited the nest box or laid her egg (she used to lay it in the run sometimes) but she seemed a bit brighter so we will just have to wait to see how she goes.