The ups and down of chicken keeping

On the up side, our broody hen Pepper came off the nest of her own volition a week ago and is now laying again. Hers is the pale egg above. She's been off lay for weeks so her eggs haven't grown in size like Ginger's.

On the down side, we lost poor Garnet to egg peritonitis. Unlike Topaz, whose infection responded to antibiotics, we couldn't help Garnet. It's always sad to lose one.

Broody!

Pepper has been determinedly sitting on other people's eggs for a couple of weeks now. She would happily spend the whole day in the nest box. When the other eggs are laid though, I chuck her out.

She then squawks at me and sits tight on the run floor for a few minutes. Then when she realises the house door has been shut, she admits it's a fair cop and rushes to the feeders to tank up furiously on pellets and water. At this point, when I'm home, I let them out into their own (fenced) bit of the garden and she enjoys scratching and stuffing her beak in there with the others. She's such a little thing too and only laid for a few weeks before going on strike to go broody. Two of the older hens seem to have reached the Henopause so we aren't getting a whole lot of eggs just now!

Little and Large!

Now we have Old and New girls laying eggs the egg-skelter looks decidedly odd!

The very first Baby Egg turned out to be a double yolker. That reminded me that we had lots of doubles in the first season with the Rangers. Looks like more to come - no doubt they'll get bigger soon.

Ginger - a one-off!

Ginger is the largest of the new 'black' chickens but is lighter in colour - even to the extent of a paler face - and has the most gorgeous outlined feathers. I think these blacks are a Rhode Island Red/Plymouth Rock cross but Ginger has more Rhodie genes expressed. We think she is younger than the other two - she has a paler comb and we don't think she's laying. Pepper and Nutmeg are. Don't look too closely - there's a ginger poo there too!

From the front she looks very like the red hens (apart from the baby comb!) and the red colouring goes right under her breast.

Nutty and Pep are quite dark on the backs with a lovely greenish sheen but Ginger shows markings on all her back feathers too. She's a real individual and is often perching when the others are chugging around. She does her own thing. She is more shy than the others who are now becoming very tame. They always assume you have food (why wouldn't you?)

Baby eggs!

Aunty Amber laid the one on the top left. She lays the smallest of the Big Girls' eggs. The little one top right was laid today and looks like a pigeon's egg! We know from experience they will get bigger and darker but they look so sweet when they first begin laying. Ahh!

Truce

Topaz is on the left, standing guard, Amber centre background, dust bathing in the sun and the new girls on the right, one also in the dirt. Daft Garnet ran to me when I appeared with the camera on the assumption that I only ever come into the garden to feed them!

The last couple of days have been a bit hairy. After a night on her own and separation in the day too, Topaz began to look very mopey, standing hunched up with her eyes shut. Because of the very cold nights we decided not to let her sleep on her own again but put her in with the others. They spent a good bit of Tuesday together on their little 'field' but she didn't feel up to persecuting the little ones. She had laid a soft egg on Sunday and it seemed to have set her back a bit. She has done this several times, often with no apparent problem but on occasion with this kind of mopey, poorly hen look about her. This morning though, she came out of the house to go to the feeder, lunging at one of the new girls to shift her out of the way. Back on form! Still no egg though.

It seems that the 24 hours spent together with her not feeling up to pecking has calmed things down a bit. There are still pecks, but no feather removal which she was doing initially. An uneasy truce has been achieved whereby they try not to go too near but if they do she lunges and pecks rather than jumping on and feather plucking. Relative peace returns to Hen heaven!

One week on

Five relaxed together - a bit of dust-bathing - and Topaz on the left in the Sin Bin!

Whenever the two lots of chickens have been put together (usually just before bedtime when the evening corn and grit mix is scattered) Top Hen Topaz has been persecuting the new young ones. Top chickens have to exert their dominance, that's understood, but Topaz has been really evil to them. We had no idea if the two groups would settle down together because she pecked and pulled feathers from the new girls till they just huddled in the corner and flinched whenever she came near (which she did often, just to pull another feather or two out!)

Yesterday we decided to put Topaz in the fenced off bit of the run, and the new girls in with the two Aunties, Amber and Garnet. After scuttling up the coop steps and huddling at the top for about 20 minutes, the new girls ventured down into the run. After about half an hour you'd have thought they'd been a flock forever. There were one or two stare -out contests where a black and a red would freeze, noticing that they were both scratching together at the same bit of ground, but honour seems to have been satisfied in some way and no pecking occurred.

When corn time came, interestingly, the three new girls stepped back and let the big girls eat first. Big girls' tails were up in the air and little girls' tails (which are actually longer) were held flat in what I assume was a bit of subservient body language. All went very well and they went up to bed together nicely. Then Topaz was allowed to follow them and the door was shut.

After taking advice from more experienced people on The Grapevine (see right) we have decided to give Topaz somewhere to sleep apart from the others too, and try to reintroduce her in a week's time.

Oh for a quiet life!