Meet the new girls!

I am putting together a post which will catch up with the doings of all the chickens at Compost Mansions, but the latest biggest news is I have 2 new pullets!

We went to Poultry Park a few days ago and I bought 2 POL Warrens, and 3 fertile cream legbar eggs to put under Ruby Dorking (who is broody). Ruby has accepted these eggs so we shall see what happens.

The new girls (still, as yet, unnamed...but I think one will be called Ginger Too) are very pretty and are ensconced in the Eglu and its run for a few days under quarantine. We have made a separate enclosure for them around the Eglu and I have this evening just let them outside the Eglu run, for the first time.



They came from a grass enclosure with no shrubs or soil or leaf litter, so seemed a bit baffled at first




but then started to have a good old furtle around and peck at worms in the sunshine,

making little "quarks" and croons in a contented chicken-y way.





They are both happy to let me pick them up as well, which is nice :-)



I love my hens :-)

I plan to get another 4 or 5 hens and am still musing on breeds....but I am happy to have another couple of ginger hens as to me they are what makes a smallholding! Probably because that's what we had when I was a child.....and it is nice to look at them and remember Ginger doing the same stuff :-)

Compostman is resigned to more chickens, now I think (grin)

Making the chickens nice and cosy.

When the warning of snow came last weekend I decided I couldn't put it off any longer, we had to move the hen run.

The Eglu is on a dry patch of ground, as is the Broody Ark but Cluckingham Palace was getting very soggy and I didn't want the girls to be treading around in a swamp, especially if they had to be confined inside during the possible future bad weather.

So...on Sunday we moved Cluckingham Palace. It is not a difficult or heavy job but it IS time consuming



You can see where it was, the ladder-y thing is the "hen board" I put down for the hens to stand on. You can also see what a mess the area is!



As always, as soon as ANY work starts, chickens appear to see what is going on!



While we were out there working on Cluckingham Palace, Compostman put up another of his brilliant inventions. This allows a non Eglu run to use the Eglu drinker or feeder (called Glug or Grub, respectively!) and this is an absolute brainwave of his!



He took a piece of aluminium channel, screwed it to the inside of the door and so I can now hook the Omlet "Glug" onto it! He did a similar thing up the other end of the run for the "Grub" and it is much better than the suspended feeder I had in the run, before. The girls waste much less food as the Grub stops them throwing it everywhere now.









Cluckingham Palace moved and alterations completed, I then added a thick layer of Easybed (wood shavings) to the ground in all three runs and also a lot of hay near the pop holes, this is to soak up the water and so the chickens have drier feet when they go inside to lay eggs.



And I put down paths of hay for us to walk on, over the mud.



After the snow we have had this week, we went out and added a different clear polythene cover to the run today, as it was getting quite snowy in the run, despite the cover which WAS on. This one goes over the whole run, not just the top! It is very easy for me to undo and roll up as well, so I can get into the side door and top up the water or the dish feeder which is up that end of the run.



The girls are nice and dry and cosy now AND they can see out! Here is Genghis Hen not wanting to leave the comfort of the run early today. Hopefully the chickens will all be warm and cosy even if we DO have more bad weather.

December egg round up

It is that time again! December has passed and it is time for me to yet again delight you with my egg tally and hennish round up for the last month ;-))

Despite December being of very short day lengths, and thus in theory being the lowest egg producing months, I have had a good lot of eggs from all the girls.

Henny, who was moulting for the whole of October and beginning of November, is now back in fine fettle, her new feathers are very pretty! She is now 2 years old and has never laid an egg a day, she tends to lay 5 in succession and then have a day off! Henny laid 20 eggs in December.

Ginger went into a short but intense moult in the middle of December and is only just getting some feathers, what a daft hen!


I have felt SO sorry for her this last few very cold days as she looks miserable but won't go in the house to shelter. Despite this Ginger had laid an egg a day for the first part of December, a total of 18 eggs.

Attilla laid 21 eggs and has nice new feathers on her neck and bottom now, the purple spray does the magic trick again!

Cathy laid 7 eggs in all and now also has lovely new feathery bloomers. You can see her lovely new feathers as I have had success with the purple spray on her and whoever was eating her feathers has stopped and they have grown back beautifully.

Sweetiepie started laying 4 days after she left the Sweetie Six to their own devices and has laid 13 eggs and towards the end of the months was laying an egg every day.

Cathy, Attila, and Sweetiepie show off their new bloomers.


Genghis Hen had me worried just before Christmas as she had a couple of days where she was very droopy and wouldn't eat. I isolated her from the others, checked for egg boundness, sour crop, impacted crop, wounds, sniffles stc and she seemed to be clear of anything obviously wrong so I gave her some food, water, a cosy bed, some TLC and hoped for the best (it was Christmas eve so I couldn't consult the vet!) Next morning she was a little better and had done a HUGE pile of droppings and laid a mess of an egg. By the afternoon she was fine again, so hopefully it was the strain of an egg inside her....poor old girl. The forced egg laying (due to the artificial light they are kept under) messes up battery hens sometimes and they just can't lay properly.

But yet again, the absolute stars are Babs and Goldie! Yep the new girls laid the most eggs! Babs laid 26 and Goldie laid a magnificent 27 eggs out of a possible 31. Goldie makes me laugh! I posted a few days back about her being an escapologist, well we went to the trouble of putting a nest box outside the run for her just in case she got out before laying an egg...well she CAN get back in the Orchard if she wants AND she lays her egg BEFORE she escapes!



Babs has lost all her head feathers due to pecking and I have had to paint some magic purple spray on her head to stop the feather pecking. She now looks like a punk! She was NOT impressed with this process I can tell you...



The Silver Dorkings continue to delight, Cap't Flint is the dominant male at the moment and is now as large as the big girls although he still keeps a respectful distance from them!

Can you see Sidney and Tabitha playing behind him?

Long John Silver is very friendly and I hope that continues. Ruby, Violet, Buffy and Willow are very sweet and have just started to make cluck noises rather than strangled squarks all the time, and so far we haven'theard any crowing!

With the weather being so cold I have been giving the chickens warm mash and lots of extra treats and high protein nibbles to help them grow new feathers as fast as they can, and as a reward because I love them all.

As we are have been having the shortest days and it has been quite overcast and gloomy on some days the girls are doing really well to lay so many eggs! Hen egg laying is controlled by day light so we really are getting a good return from our girlies. I have actually had the second best monthly egg tally in December, only a few eggs behind October! in the last 6 months I have had a total of 718 eggs from the hens, what on earth have we done with them all? I haven't sold THAT many!

From 6 egglaying hens ( forget about Genghis and Cathy!) I have averaged over 4 eggs per day, which isn't bad going I think!

Hopefully the better weather, the end of moulting and the beginning of the fab four Dorkings coming into lay will mean more eggs for me to sell and recoup some of the feed bill as well. Which would be good.....

THANK you all, my lovely, lovely girls and boys, you are making my life a lot brighter!)

Henny and Sweetiepie.

A question about keeping a non laying hen.

Hello lovely people!

I have had a question via email about me keeping Genghis Hen even though she doesn't lay, which I am happy to answer on here so eveyone else sees it.

She DOES eat ( expensive) feed but not produce an egg, BUT I keep her because she is an ex battery hen and I feel sorry for her. She IS also useful as she always spots danger first of all the hens( Buzzard, Fox etc..) and warns all the others....

As some of you may remember I WAS going to kill her, as she used to be a bully and an egg eater and her solf shelled, pecked eggs made a lot of eggstra work for me cleaning out a nest box.

BUT I cured her of egg eating, she lays the occasional egg which is a hard shelled one and she doesn't peck it anymore and now she only pecks her own feathers....so I feel she deserves another chance!

BUT mainly I keep her because I feel sorrow and guilt by association, that humans could have kept her in a tiny cage and not ever allowed her the natural expression of her hennishness and then wanted to kill her just because she got to the end of her "useful" life....

And I won't do the same.

Having observed the wide ranging antics of my hens, their NEED to scratch, furtle around, be inquisitive, look at everything going on, run around, play fight, try to steal the cat food, try to get in through the cat flap etc etc etc ..

Chickens are increadibly active, bright birds and the idea of keeping them in a tiny cage is abhorrent to me. And I feel pleased to be able to give at least a couple of ex prisioner hens a good life!

So Genghis the Hen has a happy life, and I feel good !

Cw x

And it would have been fine for the e-mailer to ask away on here as a comment (they very kindly didn't because they thought it might be a sore spot)

but I don't mind comments (critial or kind)

about anything, as long as they are polite!

Abandoned!

Well it finally HAD to happen...


Sweetiepie has left the chicks and gone back in with the other hens in Cluckingham Palace.




The hen you can hear in the background to the chick video clip is her making her normal noise, she stopped going " bok, bok bok, as soon as she went back in with the others.



The Sweetie six looked a bit lost, ..............

but are all OK about it now!

They have adopted ME as "mum" and are following me around, shadowing my every move outside.....

:-))

Chicken feed...with menaces!

Hello lovely people!

The latest trick the hens have adopted is to lurk around in the depths of the "lean to"


This is a substantial 3 and a half sided building on the back of another building, which acts as log store, general store and dumping place for all sorts of stuff...its also the place where the hen feed lives...
and now they all have taken to hanging around in there, terrorising the cats ( who like to snooze on the log piles or hunt for mice in there) and generally acting as if they own the place....

which, of course, they do!
Tom looks on nervously as the hens gather around his perch.

So many of you have asked me questions about my hens that I have decided to do a post about what I do with them!. I am NOT a hen expert by any means, but I did keep chickens as a teenager ( Old English Gamecocks) and I have read and researched a lot and asked a lot of experienced chook keepers what to do, so here are some questions I have had about the hens.

I've been wondering lately about woodchip. Is there a special kind I should get? And where from! My girls have only been with me for about 3 weeks and could really do with a layer of something down in their run as it gets a bit boggy. I let them out for a few hours a day but can't leave them out as I'm on a housing estate and there are a LOT of cats about.

I use Easybed inside the hen houses ( along with straw in the nest boxes)..its really good..Hemp based stuff seems so light that it gets kicked around whereas woodchip bedding does not.

Inside the run? I use our own wood chippings from our own wood..when we fell trees for firewood we chip the twiggy bits and I use that inside the runs.

Remember that my girls are only in their runs for an hour or so a day typically...then they are out free ranging in the garden.

I think for putting in a run for hens who are kept in the run mostly, wood chippings is a good thing as it gives them something to scratch and furtle in...so a bag of untreated bark or chippings would be good? But put a pile up the middle line of the run if you can and let THEM spread it all out.....as that will be part of the fun for them...

One thing I have noticed though, if they don't get let out much, they don't mind being in a run nearly all the time, as long as it is a reasonable size and they have stuff to entertain them....shiney cds hanging up, an apple to peck at, is something my lot like.

BUT once they DO go out for a longer time..they rapidly get very disenchanted with being kept in their run, however huge and palatial it is.

My lot even hate being loose in a 50 m circumference paddock...because they have normally have had access to 3/4 of an acre of garden and orchard.
spoiled , or what...( roll eyes)

I just thought I should warn people about this...it IS only my observations of mine and other friends hens

I have seen hens who have an hour out at the end of the day and they are happy in their run the rest of the time as they know they get some "out" time later on

Although the hens need a good big space to scratch and play, as long as it is big enough for them all in the run, if they never get more, they don't seem miss it but it seems to me that once they DO get more space, it upsets them not to have access to it all the time ...IYSWIM

Please note I am NOT making suggesting that it is OK to keep hens shut up in "battery" conditions here! A hen run needs to be big enough so no hen gets bored and starts pecking, or feather eating, and there needs to be somewhere for the lowest hen in the pecking order to get away from the others if needed.

Just wondering how often do you worm your hens?

I worm my girls every month with Verm-X liquid - I tried the granules but the girls turned up their beaks at it so now I use the liquid version. I squirt 4 squirts onto a slice of wholemeal bread, one in each quarter and then feed each hen a quarter of the slice. I do this for 3 consecutive days, on the first, second and third of every month.

I also look at the hens droppings to see if they look ok and if there are any visible worms...and we move their runs and paddock onto fresh grass regularly to minimise the build up of worms.

So far that is all I have had to do. Verm X is good stuff.

Also I use Barrier Organic Red Mite and Louse powder for pest control..although I now only use one or the other as they both contain (apparently!) the same ingredients

I use Poultry Shield for "deep" cleaning of the hen houses, just in case..although ( touch wood) so far I have not seen any red mite.

I have a first aid kit of Gentian Violet, veterinary wound powder and I also would use my Aromatherapist knowledge to treat any injuries.

I give my chickens water laced with Organic Apple Cider Vinegar every day and it DOES seem to have helped the couple of hens who previously laid soft shelled eggs.

The chickens have free access to grit and chick grit in bowls in the runs, as well as free ranging for 6 plus hours every day so they get enough grit(essential to grind up their food as chickens don't have teeth)

I feed my hens Organic Layers pellets /Chick Crumbs/ Growers Pellets depending on their needs, I also give them Organic Mixed Corn in the afternoon as a treat, and use it to entice them into the runs at dusk!

They DO get various extra treats...cheese and soft soaked bread are their favourites!

But stolen, illicit stuff like cat meat. or mice, or frogs... is the best stuff in their eyes! ( ooh when they get a frog it is horrible!)

Hope this helps, any more questions put them in the comments and I will do another post later!

More hen stuff.

Sunday and yesterday Compostman and I have been moving the hen runs and houses around in the orchard, trying to get them onto some drier bits of land. We also want to move the perimeter fence to a new area of the garden in a day or two, so we moved the henhouses with a mind to doing this soon.


Uncoupling Cluckingham Palace from its run was fun, in the mud!


WHATEVER you do around here, a hen ( or several) will always turn up to have a look!




"When is it OUR turn?"


Lifting the rat proof mesh which sits under the Eglu run


And putting it in its new position.

Oh, and in case anyone WAS wondering, I DO participate in all the hard work as well...I just break off to take pics from time to time!



This is the end result, after we moved the runs and hen houses I spent another hour cleaning all the houses out, putting down new woodchip and straw in the houses, filling the drinkers and feeders ( I gave them all a good scrub yesterday so they were nice and clean)and generally making it all nice and cosy for the girls.

Then the girls came in to inspect the work, they often seem a little unsettled when we have moved their houses around, and wander around "visiting" each others places and having a good nose around inside.

Finally they went into their own choice of roosting place. Babs and Goldie have opted to sleep in the Broody Ark, they seem to be getting on OK with the others but prefer to sleep apart. Sweetie and the chicks all pile into the Eglu ( which must make it "cosy" in there!) and the rest of the girls go in to Cluckingham Palace.


Goldie the Rhode Rock, number 1 egg laying star and beautiful, gentle hen ( shhh don't tell the others but she is one of my favourites!)

October egg round up!

Well it is now November at Compost Mansions and I shall yet again bore you all witless with my egg tally for the last month ;-))

Henny has laid one egg on the last day of October as she had gone into a full blown moult for the whole of October

Ginger continues to lay well, she laid 21 eggs but in the last week of Oct she, too has gone into moult. Not really surprising as Henny and Ginger are the same age.

Attila laid 20 eggs and Cathy only laid 11 but still not bad as she is a baldy girl and an ex batt as well!


Sweetipie is too busy being a good mum to the Sweetie Six to bother with egg laying and Genghis Hen is too silly.......and has laid precisely NO eggs at all.....


But yet again, the absolute stars of the Eglu are Babs and Goldie! yep the new girls laid the most eggs! Babs laid 28 and Goldie laid a magnificent 30 eggs out of a possible 31

I think that given we are now into dark nights and shorter days the girls are doing magnificently to keep on laying at all...and I am giving them LOTS of extra treats and high protein nibbles to help them grow new feathers as fast as they can.....

Their favourite food is chopped up cheese...or stolen cat meat from the cat bowls.....if they can find the back door open they come inside "mob handed" and try anything they can get




THANK you all, my lovely, lovely girls, you are all a bit of a trial sometimes but I wouldn't be without you!

September egg round up

Well another month has gone by at Compost Mansions and I shall bore you all witless with my egg tally ;-))


Henny has laid EVEN fewer this month, she is no longer broody but has begun to moult so has laid only 19 eggs in September ( and none during the last week)
Ginger continues to lay well, she laid 24 eggs but in the last few days she, too has gone into moult.

Attila and Cathy have laid 22 each, not bad especially Cathy as she is still a baldy girl and an ex batt as well!

Sweetipie is too busy being a good mum to the Sweetie Six to bother with egg laying and Genghis Hen is too silly.......and has laid precisely NO eggs at all......

But yet again, the absolute stars of the Eglu are Babs and Goldie! yep the new girls laid the most eggs! Babs laid 25 ( and remember she WAS ill the first week and went off lay for a few days whilst on the antibiotics) and Goldie laid a magnificent 28 eggs out of a possible 30!

THANK you all girls, you are all a bit of a trial sometimes but I wouldn't be without you!

Why are the eggs so different?

I now know who is laying which egg, and here are some photos but not sadly one from Gengis Hen as she lays huge thin shelled monsters which she then treads on and breaks.She can't help it poor thing as she is an ex battery prisoner hen....

Hens...a photo of the different eggs they lay!
From left to right Henny, Ginger, Attila Hen (Maran)
From left to right Attila Hen (Maran), Wednesday (Maran), Thursday (ex battery hen)

Attila and Wednesday are sisters from the same clutch of eggs but lay different colour and shaped eggs?

I wonder why?

Update on the Hens

I went into Countrywide to try to get some "Anti peck spray" or some "Gentian Violet" but all they had was a sheep antiseptic coloured spray ( I remember using that on lamb navels many years ago!)

So I didn't get any...

Today I have had them all separated, the Marans in one run and house, my 2 original hens in the Eglu run and the ex bat girls in the GP run...and let each pair out into the orchard in turn after they had laid..this way I could keep an eye on them AND see who laid what colour eggs...

No more pecking was done and Friday didn't have any more bleeding...so I HOPE the change of scene and extra stimulation has done the trick!

They finally all got to go out in the garden for an hour before bedtime...you should have seen the new girls faces when let loose in 3/4 of an acre of garden!!

Fingers crossed it will all work out....

Compostman has nearly finished the new Ark, so that will help!

Hen antics...

ARRRRRGHHHHHHH! I have spent nearly all day today doing stuff with hens, putting them in one house, moving them out of the other!

The new girls are proving to be a bit more work than anticipated!

Friday the ex battery hen laid an egg this morning and when I went to get it I found a lot of blood on the straw. Close examination of her back end revealed that someone had been pecking at her bald bottom and pecked a nasty wound in her vent ( thats the single exit for eggs and faeces which chickens have)






Now the new girls all have a greater or lesser degree of feather loss, some of it from going broody or starting to moult maybe, but quite a lot from feather pecking. I don't know if it is self inflicted feather pecking ( could be caused by mites/lice/lack of protein/boredom/stress or just because they feel like it....) or if it is aggressive feather pecking of one bird ( could be caused by lack of protein/aggression/boredom/stress or just because they feel like it....)


So...Compostman and I got Friday cleaned up, wound powder puffed on and then gave her a good powdering of "Barrier" louse powder. This is very nice stuff containing Lavendin and Tea tree essential oils, so I approve of it, its Organic AND it will help with the wound as well as any lice. It also covered up some of her red bum!!








We then did ALL the other birds, including Henny and Ginger and I checked them all carefully over for wounds etc and found none BUT lots of bald patches on the new girls.

The ex battery hens have been de beaked on the top beak so it probably isn't them doing the pecking, it can't have been Henny or Ginger as they have been kept separate SO it looks like one or other ( or both) of the Marans have been feather pecking the others for some time. And now Friday has a wound it could get a lot worse(hens will keep on pecking at a bloody wound!)



Suspiciously Tuesday only has a sightly bare bum but the rest of her plumage is beautiful!


So .........Compostman is making an ark to put Thursday and Friday in and, in the mean time, poor old Fudge the Guinea Pig has lost his outdoor run as last night the 2 ex batts were put in there with a cat carrier as a sleeping house...




It looks a bit like a hen shanty town in the orchard at the moment!

The new Hens!

Yesterday our new hens arrived.

4 of them, called Tuesday and Wednesday (Maran X ?) and Thursday and Friday ( Ex battery hens, not sure of the breed?). These lovely hens needed a new home and so I said we would love to have them. And today Hen from the INEBG forum came over with them and she and her ( soon to be husband!) stayed for a cuppa and a chat and watched the new girls settle in...



Compostgirl thinks they are LOVELY!







Hen's other half with one of the Marans on his shoulder...I think Wednesday?


And the new girls in the Eglu..."oooh we like it in here!"

and they did! so much so that when I went out after Dr Who, Wednesday had laid an egg!