Hot mash and a White Christmas

This is the view early this morning, taken from the shed doorway, about half way down the garden. There is frozen snow on the chicken-run weldmesh and inside the run, it's quite dark as there's about 2" of snow on the clear corrugated roofing. However, snow is a good insulator!

Inside the run, there's much less snow - only the fine scattering that blew in last night. After collecting the eggs, changing the water (which had an inch of ice on) and cleaning out the house, I returned with a bowl of hot mash made from layers' pellets, a few raisins, some tinned sweetcorn, a scattering of mealworms and a sprinkling of poultry spice. This has become a regular thing these very cold mornings to the extent that they now look disparagingly upon the cabbage and make little whinging, moaning noises till the good stuff turns up! We'll have to wean them off that when the weather warms up - they'll just have to whinge and moan!

Chicken SAD?

Do chickens suffer from Seasonally Affected Disorder? I think one of mine might have.

Ruby spent Friday morning looking very sorry for herself with the characteristic short neck and dumped up bottom of a poorly chicken. In the past both Amber and Topaz have been like this when they had a soft egg in the pipeline but this wasn't the case here. She also had a mucky bottom so I decided to bring her indoors and bathe her bottom feathers and dry them gently with a hair drier. (Himself told me sternly not to attempt to kiss it better!) While this process was going on I discovered that her droppings came with an accompanying puddle of water. This is a sign that a chicken isn't eating enough. If she felt ill she no doubt wouldn't eat - how to break the cycle?


Once she was cleaned up and offered water and a few meal worms and some layers' pellets she bucked up quite a lot. She initially stood on one spot but after half an hour or so began exploring and pecking bits of meal worm off the floor. Just before I was about to give the others their 'tea' - mixed grit, mixed corn and a few mealworms, I brought her some of the mixed corn. She really began to show interest. Then I had an inspiration.



The chickens are anyone's for a few grains of tinned sweetcorn, so I opened a can and gave her several handfuls. By this time she was showing considerable enthusiasm again. I think the warmth, hand-feeding and TLC had done her good. When I put her back in with the others she joined in the scrabble for the evening corn, though she was first to give up and amble off.

By Saturday, she was trotting around just like old times. I brought her in again just before the tea-time feed to ensure she had her own and didn't get shoved out - she is the most diffident of the lot - and she ate her own then joined in again with everyone else's. The poo she did was back to normal - no watery stuff.

For the last couple of days I've been making them a sort of hot mash about mid-day. The first day I used porridge oats but today I used layers' pellets with added Poultry Spice, a few drops of cod liver oil and a sprinkling of sweetcorn and meal worms. They fell on it and cleaned the lot up. The pellet feeder was full but the idea of the warm mash with a few scattered treats tempted them more.

New chippings

The chickens are exploring the new run surface. It's ginger - they are well camouflaged!


Luckily we were around when a tree 4 doors up the road had to be lopped because its upper branches were interfering with the telephone line. The contractor sawed the big branches off and fed them into an industrial chipper. He was happy to dump half his load for the use of the village. We filled a huge sack which had come with a ton of gravel. We also took several barrow loads up to an elderly neighbour to mulch her flower beds. The rest will mulch the village flower beds.

The chickens had their run cleaned out this morning with their old chippings going to mulch our front garden (the woodland bit).

I wanted to take a picture of them rummaging around in the new chippings. We know there were small caterpillars and bugs because we saw some, but they have evidently found much to delight them. Can't seem to catch them with their heads up at the moment!

We have almost half a bag of chippings left too. They are covered over and weighed down because more gales are forecast this afternoon.

Chicken fun!

Autumn clear-up in the vegetable garden.

The chickens were allowed out this afternoon onto the back garden vegetable plot. They raked amongst the annual weeds and the remains of the tomatoes and the sweetcorn and courgette stalks. Then The Man started digging and behold! Worms!

The Man had to hang back a bit to avoid kebabbing a chicken. The Woman took over to give the plot a rough winter digging and pounds of worms were consumed by the feathered ones.

Eventually the intrepid Amber wandered off into the shrubs for a fossick around. She stayed under there grubbing about for 10 minutes or so, until the lure of the worm bonanza brought her back. This was such a successful expedition it might be repeated, but not too often. When they come out of the run now they trot over to their fenced off bit of grass. I don't want them to assume the veg plot is permanently theirs too!

Alleluia!

It's raining seeds!

A rather fuzzy picture taken through the garden room window, shows the chickens enjoying the bits the sparrows drop (or deliberately chuck out!). It's like chicken occupational therapy. They rush up excitedly every time the little birds visit the feeder.

Must clean garden room windows!

Up-tails all!

All four digging around in the dirt. Just what a chicken likes. Amber decides to dig her own bit though.

Scratching about in the ever-fascinating undergrowth. They haven't left much grass here.

Something to scratch in.

After recent high winds the village is full of fallen leaves. I thought the chickies would enjoy a bit more litter to scratch in so after this morning's session with our village In Bloom group, I wandered up the lane with the wheelbarrow and filled it with autumn leaves.

While the ladies were out in their little 'field' I added the leaf litter to their run. When they got back they spent ages trampling it down to crispy bits and scratting in it. A great success, I think. I may go back next week for another barrow load.

Ready for the rain!

The run is now roofed over, ready for the rain. Where is it? I love a bit of good weather but it's over a month since we had even drizzle. Since I took the picture there's also a length of guttering and a water butt. The drying peas in the photo are all harvested for seed or winter use and the soil is like dust. The only beans with green leaves and pods not drying are the True Red Cranberry pole bean which has such a long season it ends up on newspaper on the windowsill. Still, the girls are enjoying windfall damsons (the ones too high to reach even with the steps) and the small sweetcorns too titchy to bother with. They bother!

Eating marrow and playing dead

I used most of an overblown courgette to make a marrow chutney a couple of days ago, and the chickens tackled the remainder. I cut it into slices and they pecked it away from the middle outwards. I expected to find the rinds but they ate them too!

Rather a contrasty shot but all four were nestling in dusty hollows they had gouged. When I came out with the camera, Topaz ran up to see if it was edible, but I've caught the other 3 playing 'dead chickens' on what used to pass for grass!

Pieces of eight!

Got a chicken on my shoulder. Couldn't afford a parrot!

Guess who? Topaz the Indomitable!

Ruby strutting her stuff.

Amber checking out the trousers. Himself sometimes has seeds in his turn-ups. You never know.

The Chiminea Nest Box

The old patio heater has proved irresistible for egg laying. For the last 3 mornings there have been 2 in there. If nothing else, the chickens have been a bit quieter in the mornings. Maybe the shouting wasn't all "Come and look, I've laid and EGG!" so much as "Shift over quick, I've got to lay an EGG!" Without the queue for the nest box everyone can lay somewhere comfy. According to DEFRA there should be one nest box per 7 hens. We have one between 4 and they all lay so closely in time that there was often an egg under the perch when someone was caught short!

Chicken Tandoori?

We have had this patio burner for over 8 years and it has cracked to the extent that it's just about unusable. It's held together by wire. It stood on the patio between the run and the grassy area so the indomitable Topaz has explored it several times, getting covered in wood ash as a result. Yesterday Himself cleaned it out, saving the ash for the garden, and filled the base with straw. After capping it with a tray of gravel to keep the rain out, it fetched up in the corner of the run. Topaz was naturally first in, and since then 1 or 2 at a time venture in for a little sit down.

This lunchtime we got back from the allotment with some greens for them and while I was in the run, Ruby went in and settled down. Topaz had to come and see what was going on, of course!

Ruby sat there like a good'un. Was I encouraging them to go broody I wondered? I went indoors to make sandwiches and a loud Birth Announcement (" I laid an EEEEGGGGG!") got me dashing outside to find a lovely warm egg on the straw. We had 3 this morning as against our usual 4 - no problem - we get a 3 egg day about every fortnight - but this was a surprise. Very comfy nest, obviously.

Chicken cuddles

The minute the girlies got out of their run today they scampered over to their 'field'.

I sat on the chair in there and immediately I was over-run with chickens! Topaz was first up (as usual) and in my face.

She had her beady eye on my ear-rings which must have looked edible.



She pushed off when they didn't turn out to be as delicious as she hoped, and gentle Ruby settled down to be stroked. Amber sat on the chair arm to muscle in but got fed up too and cleared off to do some serious scratching.


Great, got the knee to myself. Down a bit. You've missed a bit. Ahhhh! The pleasures of being stroked!



Ok, thanks for the cuddle - I'll be off now.

I went inside for my knitting and settled down outside their enclosure (or they stand on my wool and make the knitting come out funny colours!). When it went suspiciously quiet I got up to check what they were doing. While everyone else was up for a cuddle, Garnet was systematically digging a nice cool hole! They all settled down in it to dust bath and wing-flap.

She's watching us again - look busy!

Topaz goes exploring

Here's an action shot of the ladies scarpering across the patio to Chicken Field, Amber in front and legging it!

Topaz (world's nosiest chicken) decided not to go onto Chicken Field though. She thought it would be interesting to go into the garden room where I had a book and a cup of tea for company. She pottered around in there for several minutes but it obviously had no scratching or pecking potential so she ambled off to join the others.

Back on familiar scratching territory. Poultry in motion (I think I can feel another tee-shirt coming on!)

The Hen Whisperer

There are all sorts of tee-shirts 'out there' featuring cats, dogs and horses but I've been unable to find one to express my love and admiration for chickens! You would think there would be plenty with the current interest in home chicken keeping. So I decided to design one myself. I found a site which gives you a HUGE number of cartoon pictures to choose from, and the facility to put text wherever you wish, and the result is shown above.

The chickens have all gathered around for a nosey! I think they like it too.

Fruit thieves!

The case of the disappearing blackcurrants.

Hmm. Nearly ripe blackcurrants. Nearly is good enough for Topaz!

Good things are worth sharing - Garnet comes over for a quick peck. And to think 'She' thought this miserable netting would keep us off them!

Back to home base and Topaz and Amber think you can't beat a good scrat around in a bucket of dirt!

Little and Large

Yesterday's offerings were 2 normal sized eggs and these two! The paler one on the left is obviously a double yolker. We have one of these about every 10 days. They are not from the same chicken because we once had two on the same day. On the right is the titchiest little egg - more like a quail's than a chicken's egg. When we get around to eating them it will be interesting to see if it has a yolk or is just a 'wind egg'. I also find it interesting that it has much more colour than our usual eggs and has even darker freckles. I assume this means that there is a finite amount of colour available per egg and it gets used up - stretched more thinly for a paler, larger than usual egg and spread a bit thicker for a smaller egg.

Edit - we had the eggs this morning (18/06/09). Sure enough, the big one (100g) was a double yolker and the tiny one (under 30g) was 'all white' - a wind egg!

Corn time!

Amber is wondering what I'm doing on my knees in the chicken run! She knows Himself has the corn tin - what on earth have I got - and most importantly - can you eat it?


Boss Hen Topaz is giving voice - come on, get on with it! Have you brought corn or not? If not, stop wasting our sun-bathing time!

THAT'S more like it!

Follow those trousers!

After a good long scratching session on Chicken Field the girls follow behind (hoping for meal worms no doubt!) back into their run. If there's any suspicion that someone else might be getting something you're not you break into a little gallop - and boy can a chicken run fast! They never seem disappointed to be back in the home run - everyone gets on with the usual things - dust bath, scratching, having a rest under the house in the shade.

Troublesome weeds?

Process them through a chicken!

My neighbour's allotment neighbour (still with me?) is ill at the moment so his friends are rallying round and keeping his plot in good nick. Neighbour returned with a barrow load of weeds and the chickens are delighted to help!

It's mainly chickweed, not called that for nothing! I sifted out the bits of 'volunteer' potato haulm, and bindweed and such, and the remaining weeds are ripped across several times as I don't want any stuck crop problems. As you can see it's 'up-tails all' until the green food is cleared.