Carol's Chickens

I haven’t had any more to say about the bedtime routine because it has been so wet. This means that all the  perches are wet and the girls go in to the chicken shed as they should do.

It’s a bit depressing that this wet spell is forecast to last for two weeks but on the positive side it may be enough to break the habit of the bigger girls wanting to perch outside. Only time will tell.

Freckles and Cinnamon continue to lay every other day and Freckles has laid sixteen eggs this month and Cinnamon has laid fifteen.

Speckles went and sat in the nest box yesterday and put a little heap of pine shavings on her back. She later came out without laying. It’s been two and a half weeks since she stopped laying.

Speckles is still doing sloppy poops, although not quite as bad as they were. It seems that from eating snow and then drinking, snow melt water, she has become obsessed with drinking dripping water from the almost continual rain that we are having. I think this extra water is causing her sloppy poops and that in turn is probably stopping her laying eggs.

I have further researched hens stopping laying and doing sloppy poops (good old google) and it says that a hen may drink more because she is hot (clearly not the case here) and therefore will have sloppy poops and that slight change can stop egg laying. It says that provided everything else is normal it is nothing to worry about.

I know how easy it is for hens to take on a habit (such as the feather plucking of the past) and it looks like speckles now can’t resist drinking the drip water. If she was thirsty I feel sure that she would spend time at the water container but she doesn’t. She just seems obsessed with drinking dripping water and not even a dandelion leaf can distract her.

As it is forecast to rain for the next two weeks there is nothing that I can do to stop this so as she is looking good in every other way I think that we just have to wait for the weather to change and her habit to pass and hope that gets her back to normal.

Today Dandelion took a look in the nest box. I wonder if she is getting ready to lay again.

Dandelion takes a look in the nest box

Look how red her comb is

Dandelion has always laid soft shelled eggs but even if she laid some of those it would prove that she is back to full, good, health after the mycoplasma. Having had Amber in the past do the same I have come to realise that if they have a permanent egg laying problem there is little that can be done to change it.

I have tried limestone flour and cod liver oil and also crushed egg shells and none of these things have made a difference long term. Dandelion never looked poorly like Amber so she seemed to manage it okay. I am not expecting her eggs to be any different this year as I have been through this before and some of these girls do have problems with egg laying.

Apricot has suddenly got pin feathers on her head so it looks like she is going to get her fully feathered look back which is good news.

Apricot has pin feathers

Pins on her head

We have also seen Freckles and Cinnamon have a little spat. I think Cinnamon was trying to move up to top serama but Freckles won that round and remains in top serama position.

In other news the winning pair of blackbirds in the, territory turf war, have continued to take nest material into our bay tree. I thought that they might abandon the nest after the garden battles but I am pleased to see that they are still nest building.

And that is all the current bird news!

Last night when I checked the girls before bedtime they were settled on a different perch. They were on the perch the other side of the hatch.

As soon as I walked through the gate Speckles jumped down. I think that Speckles wouldn’t do this without Emerald. She just copies Emerald and likes to keep her company.

Emerald is on the perch on the other side of the hatch

Speckles headed towards the chicken shed but not Emerald. She was trying to make sense of the perch by the hatch being blocked.

Emerald trying to work out where the perch has gone

She is perplexed

I think if the perch wasn’t blocked she would have perched there even though it is wet which is not good. At this point I guided her down. I only have to put my hand behind her and she jumps down. She then went in the chicken shed.

This habit is going to be more difficult to break than I thought.

I tried moving the two bigger girls from the perch over the hatch before bedtime but every time I went back to check on them they had returned to the perch.

I decided more drastic action was needed. I decided to block the perch with the door that we keep for closing the hatch during integrations.

Perch blocker

This usually hangs above the perch so that it is to hand when needed so I have now hung it over the perch. It is raining and as you can see this perch is wet which is why it’s not a good spot to roost although I don’t actually want the girls roosting in any spot outside. I want them to roost inside where it is warm and dry.

I know that if it is raining like this at bedtime they won’t perch here anyway but I am leaving the perch blocker in place until I have broken this habit. That is if the plan works!

My flowers have now fully opened.

My flowers a few days ago

Flowers now fully opened

They are beautiful and if they are anything like the past astramaris I have had they will last a good while yet.

I am not happy with the change in the bedtime routine. I just don’t understand why the two bigger girls have suddenly decided that they want to perch outside at bedtime.

We are rarely ever away over night but I want to break this habit in case we ever are. When it rains this perch gets dripped on and if the girls were to stay here and it then rained during the night they would get soaked which would not be good at all. Once it is dark the girls would be unable to move from here.

Emerald and Speckles new bedtime spot

While the bigger girls are not going into the chicken shed first it has changed the perching habit of the little girls. Without the bigger girls on the back perch the little girls no longer go to the back perch.

Freckles and Cinnamon now perch on the left hand perch

Dandelion and Apricot now perch on the right hand perch

I like the fact that they are in twos now rather than Freckles being on her own. This is how they perch every night that the bigger girls don’t go in first.

I go into the run and tell the two bigger girls that they must go to bed now and they jump down and head into the shed. Sometimes just telling them is enough and sometimes I have to go over to them and direct them.

Emerald and Speckles head into the chicken shed

The final line up

Once the two bigger girls have perched on the back perch I then lift all the little girls across to the back perch. It’s funny how they look like a row of headless chickens apart from Speckles watching over them.

While it is still quite cold I prefer the girls to perch together for warmth. Once we get into warmer weather I will let them perch where they want as long as it’s inside the chicken shed!

I think what is happening is that the bigger girls perch over the hatch while it’s still light there. They don’t seem to realise that on the patio area it is getting dark and they should go in.

I am going to try getting them down from the perch over the hatch earlier and keep an eye on them to keep them from returning there. I hope that I will be able to persuade them back into the habit of going in first. Only time will tell!

I thought I would do an update on how the flock is at the moment and add current portraits of all the girls to demonstrate what I am talking about.

There have been changes in the flock behaviour since the surge of hormones at the beginning of egg laying and yet at the moment there are only two girls actually laying, which this late in the year, is unusual. The weather has been much colder, for longer and later, this year which I think has a lot to do with the delay in egg laying.

When Speckles had her first surge of hormones just before starting to lay she underwent a complete personality transplant. From behaving like a gentle, caring, surrogate mother hen, to the little girls, she changed to being aggressive to them. She chased them away from treats, pinned down Cinnamon on occasions and pecked Dandelion’s comb to the extent that it has left black spots on the tip of her comb.

Freckles was also effected by the onset of hormones preceding starting to lay and proceeded to give Apricot a hair cut in the same way that she had done to Rusty the year before. I absolutely hate plucking so this was upsetting to me but as with Rusty she snipped the feathers rather than pulling them so it isn’t as bad. I hoped that as with Rusty this stage would soon wear off and I am happy to say that it has. We haven’t seen Freckles do this for a while and Apricot isn’t looking any worse so the faze seems to have passed once more.

On to the egg laying. I realise that I was mistaken in thinking that Emerald had laid her first egg. What lead me to believe this was the fact that she appeared to be getting ready to lay as she piled pine shavings on to her back one day. A few days later there was an egg that was slightly smaller than the eggs Speckles had been laying so I thought that this was Emerald’s first egg.

We have never seen Emerald actually go in to the nest box at all and after Speckles had been in the nest box a couple of days later there was another egg of the same size so I realised that all of the eggs must have been Speckles. Emerald has shown no interest in the nest boxes at any time since then. Emerald usually starts laying at the beginning of March so I can only think that the later than usual cold spell we have been having has delayed her starting.

Speckles laid five eggs in ten days at the beginning of March and then stopped completely. She hasn’t laid for ten days now. There are a couple of things that I am putting this down to.

Before the last cold spell I dug the run over and while Speckles was in her new, aggressive role, she got all the worms that I dug up. Usually they would be shared between all six girls but she kept the other girls away and had a feast of worms. This is a new lesson that I have learned from and I won’t allow this to happen again.

Speckles had so many worms that her crop looked unusually full at bedtime. With Cinnamon her crop often looks full but it isn’t usually noticeable with Speckles. After this she started doing sloppy poops. I put it down to the over load of worms.

Next the snow and dreadful weather came and Speckles was obsessed with eating snow. She continued to do sloppy poops. I have read on Terry’s Hen blog in the past that some of her hens were obsessed with eating snow and then had sloppy poops so I wasn’t overly worried.

Once the snow melted Speckles was just as obsessed with drinking the dripping snow melt water giving herself  a wet head in the process. She hasn’t shown any sign of drinking extra water from the water dish though.

By now I was a bit concerned that she was still doing sloppy poops coupled with no longer egg laying. I researched sloppy poops from chickens and what it said was that if a hen is looking healthy and happy whilst doing sloppy poops it’s nothing to worry about. Speckles looks happy and healthy, is eating well and has a huge red comb. It went on to say that too much protein can cause a hen to drink more and therefore produce sloppy poops. Bingo! Overload of protein from too many worms followed by eating snow and drinking snow melt water.

I know that it can take a few weeks for things to work their way through a hens system so I think this is what is happening. I will not allow a bean feast of worms to take place in future.

On to the little girls. Freckles and Cinnamon have been laying since the end of February. Both girls are really good layers and lay every other day and occasionally two days in a row but Dandelion and Apricot have yet to show any sign of wanting to lay. Again I think the late cold weather may be having an effect plus the fact that Dandelion had such hard time with the mycoplasma.

So there we have it, just two out of six girls laying. I don’t mind though as long as they look healthy and so on to the portraits of the girls.

Speckles has a magnificent comb

Her comb is so big that she gets it dirty while pecking around in the run

Emerald

Freckles

Cinnamon

Dandelion has dark spots on her comb

Apricot has a hair cut

Apricot’s feathers have been snipped on her head and the back of her neck.

Apricot

Apricot still looks good though, luckily it only shows at certain angles and she is still fluffy.

Despite the lack of egg laying the flock look happy and healthy and are all eating well and dust bathing and doing all the usual chicken things so I am not going to worry too much.

My lovely husband came back from a trip to the supermarket this morning with a bunch of flowers for me. They are astramaris which are really long lasting flowers. They usually last a good few weeks.

Astramaris

A lovely surprise and a bit of colour on a drab and dreary day.

Since the weather has changed the bedtime routine has changed and not for the better! Emerald and Speckles have taken to perching over the hatch at bedtime. Emerald settles there first and then Speckles joins her.

The little girls gather around the pop hole to go in or if I go up later they will have perched inside but Emerald and Speckles show no sign of going in. They always used to go in first and were followed by the little girls. I really think that if I didn’t move them they would stay out for the night. I am not happy about that!

I move them from the perch to the table and then shepherd them towards the chicken shed. Emerald goes in first followed by Speckles. It is a pain having to do this every night and I worry that if we were ever away overnight they wouldn’t go in. I can’t understand why they have suddenly started doing this.

Emerald and Speckles perch here at bedtime

Speckles comb is amazing

I shepherd them towards the chicken shed

They trot off like naughty children looking a bit sheepish. I am sure they know that I don’t want them to do this. I just hope that I can break this habit. I think I will try moving them a bit earlier and see if I can get them back to going in first.

Today the sun shone and for the first time this year it felt spring like. The girls enjoyed sitting in the sun and at one point Freckles was dust bathing in a shaft of sunlight. She looked as if it was so blissful that she was dozing as Emerald looked on.

Freckles dozes in a sun filled dust bath

It was so lovely that for the first time this year we felt like visiting the garden centre. The squirrels have had most of our crocus and between the squirrels and the bad weather our bulbs are dismal this year apart from the miniature daffodils which seem to survive anything.

You can often get a bargain at this time of year on bulbs in pots. Because they are past their best they get reduced but it’s a great way to be able to plant while you can see what you are getting and they will be at their best again next spring.

At the first garden centre we bought three large pots of crocus and tulips that were reduced from nine pounds to three so three for the price of one. I felt quite pleased with this.

The second garden centre on our route didn’t have anything I wanted. Then we swung by our local D.I.Y. store and the pots of bulbs were reduced to as little as sixty pence. I was like a kid in a sweet shop and got a whole collection for under six pounds.

Pots of crocus and tulips

Hyacinths, crocus and miniature daffs

My bargain collection

An injection of spring colour in the garden

I bought the three different colours of hyacinths that were there. There was only one colour of crocus but that’s better than nothing and I added one pot of miniature daffs as they were so cheap plus the pot of tulips which I split into two lots.

I planted them all around the garden giving lovely splashes of spring colour. It is so good to feel spring like at last.

Today is the first day of spring believe it or not. Yesterday our spring flowers looked like this. Today the paths are clear but there is still snow on the garden.

Miniature daffodils peeping through the snow

What a winter this has been. It has felt like a really long winter and much harsher than most years. There have been times when I really felt that Dandelion wasn’t going to come through this but she has hung on in there.

The bigger girls have given up laying since this last cold spell and Only Freckles and Cinnamon have continued to lay. Speckles last laid a week ago but Freckles and Cinnamon have continued to lay every other day and Freckles two days running a couple of days ago.

This time last year I was struggling to get the three amigos (Dandelion, Cinnamon and Apricot) integrated. We collected them on the twenty fifth of February and by this time I was hand feeding them dishes of mash and had temporarily put water bottles at the top of the ladders as I was worried that they were being kept away from the food and water.

There is no way, this year, that I would dream of adding new girls to the flock in this sort of weather. It shows what a different sort of winter we have had compared to last year. At the end of February last year I felt the weather had warmed up enough to add new girls. This year it will be a while yet before I consider it warm enough to add new girls.

I just hope that we are finally through with the really cold weather and that spring is truly on it’s way at last.