What cluck to wear

24 May, 2009

It's been sunny and warm for the first time in, well....a long time. Caught Katy sunbathing this morning and was very cute.

24 May, 2009

Didn't blog in March but had some pictures from when I was cleaning the eglu and the chickens were overseeing it.

8 Feb, 2009

The chickens have spent all week refusing to leave the run because of the snow. I cleared some of the snow in their favourite areas and scattered some pearl barley, but they just pecked at it by stretching from the run or going out a few cm. Katy pecked seed from my hand if I picked it up from the snow. Today I put down some woodern roosting bars in the hope they would stand on the bars. Finally I got them to slowly emerge and peck up the seed from yesterday. Unfortunately they went back almost as quickly as they came out. Katy posed shamelessly in the run. At one point she turned her head on one side whilst eating so she would be fully in shot, and there is one pictrue where she is behind Abbie in shot. Megan is the most comfortable in snow and perched on the log roll and on top of the eglu run that I had cleared of snow. I offered her some seed in my hand but she spooked and it took her a while to consider taking some. Abbie has now grown back her feathers and is looking very handsome and shiny. I also optimistically put a bowl of soil in the run as a dust bath but so far they have just pecked at it.

2 Feb, 2009

This morning...

This evening...

1 Feb, 2009

The chickens weren't impressed with the snow. They stood in the run just watching the snow. Occasionally Megan wandered out and stood still watching the snow. I fed some pearl barley and they ate it, then went back to the run to watch the snow. Abbie looks a bit pale but feathered (I don't really have a good picture as she kept moving and blurring). Megan has lost some tail feathers and I found them in the run. I'm now paranoid she's moulting again as there are some new feathers in the run and a tiny fluffy patch on her back. Katy has a small patch too and a slightly receeding hairline.

3 Jan, 2009

Abbie is now starting to refeather her baldy bits. A small amount of brown feather has emerged from the quills so that it looks brown and feels like velvet. Her bald head is now just quilly, and you can see her little trousers.

Megan continues to look for aerial attacks....

......and Katy posed for the camera.

Katy's expression is funny in this picture as she looks like she's judging Abbie's straggly appearance.

Little Megan follows Abbie round in a supportive away though.

28 Dec, 2008

Abbie continues to look more cold and wretched. I'm still amazed at how much food she was putting back to produce eggs and was presuming the others were helping. She is less camera shy so I have got some pictures showing quills now. The ends are going brown ready for feathers and she has a fluffy patch on her back the size of a coin that has grown back. Unfortunately since I took these photos her head is now bald and she looks worse! I've put in a photo of Abbie fully feathered for comparison.

Megan continues to sit on top of the run looking out for an aerial attack.

21 Dec, 2008

More feathers fell off if that is possible! She flew a few feet, nearly hit the run but the flapping dislodged feathers. So did the relentless preening over the last two days, and occasional shaking. Luckily she has feather quills growing back. Her legs look more like trousers today but she looked a bit miserable in the run late afternoon. I raised the happy squeaking noises by feeding pearl barley. I took some photos but Abbie nearly always blurs due to her moving/my camerawork. Looking back at the photos on a big screen I noticed 1) Megan watching me as I photographed Abbie and 2) Megan pecking Abbie on her bald peck. Hopefully it was some friendly preening.

I met the freerange chickens at a farm yesterday. I watched them pecking round as the car parked. As I got out they all came running over, stopped a distance away and I had 15 pairs of eyes staring at me expectantly. When we came back the cockeral and 2 of his ladies were pecking at my numberplate! They continued to be fascinated by me. I did remember that I sometimes get covered in food dust in the coat I was wearing and also that I had collected a sack of feed and it was in my boot. No idea if they detected either.

20 Dec, 2008

Walked outside to find Abbie now looks like a battery chicken and has a bald neck on top and patches on her back and bum that are right back to plucked white skin. In fact she looks a little too oven ready for this time of years and this weather. I felt very protective when a cat went past. She wasn't this bald on Thursday so I can only presume it all just fell off yesterday. The run and nest is covered with thousands of brown feathers.

Abbie is perched on a log roll looking miserable "fluffed" up in a ball shape with head jammed into her body. Unfortunately her preening just releases more feathers. She got very excited when I scattered pearl barley and made the happy squeaking noises. I'm not sure if she can fly now but she ran very fast once or twice when I put out food. I may pad the run a bit more to keep in heat and I'm still debating if I could get a chicken into a jumper or keep her in the kitchen on newspaper.

19 Dec, 2008

It started with 5 days without eggs. Then small brown feathers started appearing in the nest and even on Megan who is often buried under fat chicken (Abbie) at night. The food levels barely went down over several days. Finally after a week of no eggs my suspicions were confirmed when I looked in to find fat chicken has two bald patches. Clearly she has decided to moult in the middle of Winter again. That means our egg supply is on hold as she is the "egg-laying chicken" as opposed to the other two who are spoilt and not too keen on laying eggs.

They're not the most rewarding pets at this time of the year and now we have the prospect of no eggs. They are in bed when I leave for work, and in bed when I return and all I see are disgruntled sleepy chickens when I open the egg port at night. Remember the random hole the chickens dug in a previous blog?! Well I fall in it nearly every night now as it is dark when I tip out the chickens' water! My clothes get splashed with mud as the run is so boggy. It has started raining and I'm less keen on taming/cuddling Megan every night. I have visions of becoming a chicken whisperer and not having to use our net to catch her. She is adorably soft, squishy and cute and sometimes nuzzles my arm trying to bury her head in feathers I don't have. The others are disgusted when I open the egg port and stroke them and skulk off voicing their displeasure. I might tame/cuddle them when the weather is better.

On the plus side the food is hardly going down now fat chicken has stopped laying eggs to moult. I was surprised to find out how much Abbie actually eats when producing eggs. I'll capture some pictures of the moult if it is not raining when I am home.

6 Dec, 2008

Prologue:

After 5 days in the run I released the chickens this morning. I watched Megan fly several feet in the air down the garden as if about to fly out, clip the food bin and nearly crash land. All this because a pigeon or garden bird flew over.

Chickens 1, John and Sarah 0.....

John attempted to lure all 3 chickens into the run, with food, before we went out. It ended up taking the two of us about 20 minutes as Megan was torn between running/flying away from us and Katy who was in the run and pecked Megan whenever she approached "her" food. The other two chickens went straight into the run and munched on the food but Megan would not follow. Megan even peered at the food from outside the run and managed to eat some through the bars. We ended up with a very well fed Megan as she happily perched on top of the run eating seed, but John couldn't see how this translated to actually catching her, and in true form she soon jumped off again. Even opening the egg port didn't help, but we found an egg.

Abbie followed the food into the run and never left as there was still food to be eaten and the apples pieces I tried are a favourite for her. She has to maintain her fuller figure somehow I suppose.

We ended up with Megan and Abbie in the run at near the end as John caught Megan but Katy wandered out and we made the mistake of expecting her to be docile and easy to catch after going in and out of the run 2-3 times already. She probably picked up bad habits from watching Megan run round evading us.

We do however have a secret weapon.......

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I have purchased a chicken catching net online, and Santa might also get them a new run cover as at the moment they have a bin liner held on with string. It is doing surprisingly well but now has muddy Megan footprints all over it.

Epilogue:

Decided to resume handling Megan at night to tame her. Lifted a sprawling Megan off the nest to find the squashed remains of the egg from earlier (which is probably revenge for her earlier treatment). Wrapped her in a fleece and stroked her head and she was shaking but couldn't work out if she was shivering or just thinking about how scary life is in general.

16 Nov, 2008

It's now Autumn and the chickens are doing their best to camouflage. Katy posed shamelessly for the camera, even perching next to the ever unpopular Megan.

Abbie did her best to disrupt things as best she could. It took me ages to take a photo as she kept a) looking away or pecking at the ground b) moving c) coming towards me rapidly and filling the frame d) sneaking up behind me.

Then the pecking started. She pecked my knee, my side, my back and realised Katy (below) was interested in my rubber glove so joined in (above).

Then they investigated the clean nest. Katy had a look in despite not being interested in laying eggs, and Abbie looked like she was settling down to lay one even though the egg port was open.

Megan was just Megan and looked nervous generally. She is feathering up nicely after her moult and her "ginger" phase seems to be passing.

Katy has been in a bit of a strop the last few days. Abbie pecked her and she took revenge by shoulder barging her off the log roll. Quite a feat considering the size of fat chicken. She then pecked Megan who shot 2 foot in the air then was chased the length of the garden for no apparent reason. Abbie joined in when she saw something happening. On the egg front Abbie is our sole egg laying chicken and I counted 6 eggs in 10 days. I did wonder if one or two this week were from Megan as slightly darker and rounder. I worked out I spend £7-8 per month on feed and use aubiose in addition and in return get maybe 4 boxes of eggs a month. In terms of performance Abbie is doing really well but over the whole flock is quite shocking. It's lucky I like them more for entertainment value. Who needs that many eggs anyway?!

8 Oct, 2008

I managed to see the chickens emerge in the morning for the first time ever. I shut the door at night but don't lock it so that they can push their way out when they want to get up. I've started getting up before the chickens. It is daylight but I go outside to turn off foxwatch and hear Abbie wake up and start complaining. Today I saw a beak and pair of eyes peep around the door 3 times then the fat chicken emerged to see what was going on. Megan followed after a delay, feather hanging off, then finally Katy looking a bit fragile. I'm amazed that if you catch them early enough they don't weave by the run door begging to be let out, but just start eating as if it is days and not hours since they last ate.

29 Sep, 2008

I managed to try and source aubiose during the annual 4 week shut down at the factory so after running out had to wait weeks to do the chicken's run. Now it is nice and clean but Abbie showed her displeasure by making noise for half an hour after I had replaced it. I presume either she is sensitive to change or doesn't like the way I've ruined their dirt bath, mound they've built in the middle, and holes they've dug at strategic points. It could be territorial, Katy inspects the nest stands outside boc boc-ing despite not laying eggs in it. I zoomed into a photo of Abbie (below) and realised I could see Katy emerging from the eglu. I think, however, it was a Megan egg deposited in the clean nest as it was small and didn't have a bulge on the side like a Katy egg.

Abbie did put her differences aside to have a good examine of the aubiose and I found her with her head in the bag examining it at one point. Within seconds of bringing the bag in the 2 head chickens came over to investigate.

You can see the scraggliest of chickens in this one.

Before and after shots. You can see Katy's tail in the first and her inexplicable interest in the eglu in the second.

Here are more pictures of the scraggliest of moulting chickens. She has grown back her tail but is now scraggly around her face and neck. She continues not to go back in the run and I was quite mean to John laughing when she wouldn't go in for him either. We ended up trying to catch her and she emitted a noise like she was being murdered as she is the most neurotic of chickens. I think she doesn't like to pass me or John to when we stand next to the door of the run as she is a whimp. It could be that she is more vulnerable due to the feather loss and/or I've still seen the others peck her or pull out the odd feather so she may not want to be confined with the others either.

I thought these pictures were nice. The first one has two chickens with their heads up at the same time, which is rare, and in the second I like Katy's expression as she examines some plant life. We had an interesting time cleaning up her bum feathers the other day as we tried the upside-down chicken hold and it didn't go down well. John held her upside-down by her feet which is supposed to pacify them, but she flew herself the right way up and from behind looked like some strange brown owl, wings out, perched on John's hand. It's amazing how big a wing span they have, probably more so when flying right near your face! She managed to fly on the spot for quite some time as was disgusted by her treatment. With some stroking, feet downwards, she calmed down and hung limply wings slightly out. We actually realised we couldn't clean her feathers from that angle and righted her (surprisingly difficult when you're holding a chicken by the feet). She lay on John's arm, feet dangling, and looked like she was dozing off. Earlier on she had sat on his arm peering round behind herself to see what we were doing which was really cute.

I was examining a picture of Megan and was disgusted to find that Abbie was taking the opportunity to lounge about. You can just make out her bum on the right. Any opportunity that chicken sits down.

Appendum: The chickens have already started to personalise the aubiose. I was putting back the aubiose and had one piece of dirt remaining in the run about the size of a chicken. I looked back to find Megan had appeared, singled it out and started digging in the instant it took to turn round. I washed the water container and came back to find fresh dirt where there had been aubiose. For some reason they love the patch under the water, maybe it is damper and attracts insects? This morning I found the water completely covered by dirt and aubiose and had to rinse it out. I think the excavation has started. They want their dirt bath, huge craters and dirt mound back....

19 Sep, 2008

Megan is turning into a chickeny menace. Don't let the cute face and stubby tail fool you. She will not go back in the run with the other chickens anymore. She just stands around at a distance watching and looking socially awkward. The pearl barley got eaten by the others and they wandered out. I threw in raspberry leaves and the good two followed it in and started stripping it bare while Megan walked round the outside and pulled leaves through the bars. She found a few bits of pearl barley and ate those. I threw it further back and stood out of the way but she just picked a fallen leaf from the entrance and it took her ages to follow the rest of it in. She continues to coat the garden with feathers of various degrees of fluffiness. I'm expecting Abbie to start in about November when it gets really cold. She is now known as the chicken who lays eggs as the others are not so forthcoming. I think it is in a past blog the last time Katy laid an egg and Megan is putting all her energy into losing feathers.