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.