So - out of seven ex battery hens five of them are moulting, and I am only getting two or three eggs a day.
Nutmeg is slowly losing all her feathers and when she has a shake a small cloud floats into the air around her.
The Mega Hen Pen looks like there has been a chicken plucking contest going on in there, loads of ginger feathers EVERYWHERE ( and lots of oven ready looking hens running around!)
Titch the baldest hen is still laying , but her egg shells are so very fragile - even with added limestone powder and Poultry Spice she lays soft shelled messes in the nest boxes nearly every day . I do wish she would stop - not because of the mess ( although I admit it is a pain to have to clean out the nestbox every day) but because it is such a burden on her system to be moulting feathers AND laying eggs. I worry about her being able to cope, poor hen.
Tiny Hen, who was such a concern earlier in the year, now has a full set of beautiful feathers and lays now and then, lovely dark brown eggs of an identical shape each time.
When I let the hens out at lunchtime they all leg it into the garden
like extras from a "Benny Hill" show doing the chase scene at the end,
feathery knickers flying, some to lurk in the barn ...
and some to go and hang around under the bird feeder, hoping to mug the wild birds for seeds.
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