Poultry!

Well, having sold, rehomed or culled (RIP Geoffrey with the dodgy leg) 4 of my cockerels, I've been able to condense the pens of chickens down to a more manageable number for the winter. Or so I thought.....

I now have Maud the aging Goldline hybrid in one spare pen who appears to have sour crop, so she's on water and being fed a disgusting looking mix of hard-boiled quails eggs, yogurt, and fermented corn. I think she's improving but she's also moulting so looks absolutely terrible. Then I noticed one of my new Buff Orps has a very swingy crop - I've only seen now that she's moulting too and has lost all her feathers on her, well, pretty much everywhere apart from her wings. I've had to put Stockholm tar on her back as she was heavily mated in the summer before I bought her so her new pins are temptingly displayed on her bare back and I noticed a couple were bleeding. That was a sticky procedure but she's now tarred-and-feathered and in the broody coop with just water. Sigh. I don't think the prognosis is good for either of them so if there is no improvement on Monday I'll take them both to the vet for a bulk euthanasia appointment :-(

Apart from that, the ton (literally) of woodchip I put down has made a huge improvement to the chickens' welfare and should one of them deem to lay an egg then at least it is clean and I don't have the usual put down the wate, they tread in it, change the water, put it down, they tread in it, you get the idea. I think I'm getting about one egg a day at the moment which is extremely poor but next year I'll have the RI x LS hybrids coming up through the ranks and they should lay really well. They trot round the garden like a pack of velociraptors and are thoroughly teenager-ish about going back in their pen when I need them to but they're great. I haven't named them as I can't tell the difference; they do have differences but not enough to be distinguishable.

My little Buff Sussex bantam chicks are growing well and still with their Pekin broody and running round with their Pekin mates. I think I have two hens!

Chick Emporium

I sell hatching eggs for my Buff Sussex bantams, but only having two hens coupled with their propensity to go broody means that accumulating many eggs for customers can be a little tricky. One lady was after 12 and the day after I had that conversation, Herbert went broody. Thankfully the lady in question was happy for me to incubate the eggs I had been able to collect and have chicks rather than eggs!

6 were already under a friend's Pekin as she was so resolutely broody I thought I may as well put her to work, and I put 6 more under the willing Herbert. The chicks would be a week or so apart which is not ideal but is do-able. 5 of the first batch hatched:

I'm awaiting the arrival of the next batch to see how many emerge, but usually hatch rates are good when they're in the care of a hen, and it's lovely for the chicks to have some time with their 'mother' to show them how to be a chicken. Much of their behaviour of course is instinctive but they learn important social and developmental lessons when they're raised by another hen rather than under a lamp.

I also purchased some day-old Rhode Island x Light Sussex chicks - this hybrid is sex-linking so you can tell the boys from the girls. These will be my replacement layers and I was thrilled to find someone who was selling these chicks as I take a dim view of the commercial hybrid industry (as per a previous post), especially as I only had to go 5 minutes up the road from my house to collect them! I also took the 4 week-old 'sister' from a previous batch and she seems to be coping with being the largest now that the chicks have stopped trying to brood underneath her....

They are in a puppy crate in my study overnight and go in an admittedly tiny run during the day. I'm expecting their new ark to arrive this week so if it stays mild they can start being in there full time as the young ones should have most of their feathers. They have an infra-red lamp on for an hour or so to calm them in the evening and I then turn it off once they're asleep.

I also have 8 eggs in the incubator which were given to me by a friend - they acquired them in France while they were on holiday so I've no idea if they'll hatch but I'll candle them at the end of the week and see what's going on...

Swarm-a-thon

It's that time of year again - I seem to spend most of my day in a bee suit but it's been great to pick up some prime swarms to add to my colonies. Two have been from my hives and the rest from fairly local hedges! All are laying and building and doing what swarms love to do, and the weather has been warm and sunny (in between the odd day of torrential rain, hail and strong winds) so the foragers have been busy on the remaining hawthorn. I did feed one small swarm with a frame of stores poached from a stronger hive as they had been in the open for 3 days. One swarm decided to make their new home in a roof unfortunately but we are going to investigate to see if the bees have access to the interior of the house; if not, there's not really much point in faffing about trying to remove them.

I used small rectangles of foundation (approximately 2 x 8cm) affixed at the top of the frames this year as I read/heard/dreamt? that bees fix comb more securely to wood than to wax and so far they are building lovely straight comb in line with the frames. I've sold one colony and the fresh combs survived the trip so it seems to be working. I find swarming in a controlled manner is great for bees and brood as the varroa load is lessened during the break, and they start their colony life in new, bee-built comb to their own specifications. I'm not sure how many cast swarms I will get, but I'm rapidly running out of room!

First Lot of New Chicks

Beatrice the bantam has been sitting calmly on her 5 eggs - she only got up twice but I did give the eggs a spray with lukewarm water on a number of occasions to increase the humidity. All went well and the eggs hatched so I have 3 Welsummer (or at least meant to be!) and 2 buff Sussex bantam chicks. One is actually Beatrice's chick, the other being Herbert's.

I put the eggs from my new Welsummer hens to hatch on the basis that they would be Henry's offspring but they aren't looking very Welsummer-ish, although I'm not sure how variable the colouration is...according to Google Images they're meant to be really stripy but two of them are golden. I thought/read that hens can be fertile for a week after they've been mated so a new cockerel needs over that to ensure any eggs are indeed his. My friend said she thought it was ten days, and I read in another book that it can be a month!! So, I'm not sure who the hens were running with before I bought them, or maybe Henry isn't a pure Welsummer after all. Sadly my new hens were taken by a fox so unless I raise some more from hatching eggs I'm a bit stuck with breeding more.

Anyway, after the sadness of losing hens, chicks are always a welcome sight! Cue lots of pictures of the little angels:

Incubator

I have always been fortunate to have a procession of broody hens with which to hatch eggs for me - they love it and do a brilliant job so have always been rather relieved that I've never had need of an incubator. However, I have just acquired a Brinsea Mini Eco from Flyte So Fancy as I have a rather sad reason for hatching some eggs. 

At the allotments, my plot runs alongside the boundary fence, and opposite me is a field with some beautiful Vorwerk chickens that I admire whenever I'm up there, a cockerel and four hens. The girls noticed one of the chickens was 'lying really still' and unfortunately the cockerel had died, having apparently been fine that morning according to one of the other people up there. 

Knowing that eggs remain fertile for about a week after the hens have been mated, I took 7 eggs and ordered an incubator, as of course there's never a broody hen when you really need one...

I did also think it would be good to have one as a precaution and also to compare natural hatching with artificial. The chicks will be about ten days behind the ones currently under my broody Buff Sussex bantam but will be able to run together in a brooder once they've grown a bit. 

So, fingers crossed for a decent hatch. I met the gentleman who owns the hens and he's very happy to exchange the eggs for a cockerel, which is a great deal as far as I'm concerned as I've got quite a few cockerels already. The hens are beautiful though so I'm looking forward to seeing how they get on. 

Meanwhile Beatrice is sitting patiently with the odd hour off for a preen and a bathe and a peck of grass.

New Hens

After a few abortive trips to poultry shows and sales to source some traditional utility breeds, I found a place in Canterbury, Kent, who could supply me with some new birds. It was only a two hour drive and the weather was kind so apart from a few erm, domestic issues it was a pleasant journey through the Weald.

Perched on top of the North Downs, the farm had over 300 breeding birds of all different types, but I chose 3 Welsummer hens (2014 hatch) and 2 Buff Sussex pullets at 8 weeks old. The hens look a bit ragged having been in the breeding pen for the last couple of months but I'm hoping that with some grass and sun on their backs (that won't happen today, looking out of the window!!) they'll feather up and get some colour back. Henry the Welsummer cockerel seems rather nonplussed at his sudden increase in harem, especially as he seems to have the hots for nextdoor's Amber Star hybrid who shamelessly flirts with him through the fence. Anyway, I'll be looking to hatch some eggs as soon as I have a broody hen so that I can sell the pullets or keep some as replacements. Eventually I'd like to have only traditional breeds rather than hybrids so that's the master plan. I also collected some Light Sussex pullets and a cockerel for my friend who lives up the road so there is the potential to swap boys to disperse the genetics a bit.

Buff Sussex pullets in the puppy crate

Welsummer hens

Fermented Feed for Chickens

Recently I've been discovering the benefits of cultures and after reading this blog - naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.co.uk - I thought I'd expand the fermenting residents of my kitchen to include some corn and mash for the hens.

Basically, I had a couple of spare calf buckets (I have an obsession with buckets) so I put a couple of scoops of mixed poultry corn in one, standard layer's mash in the other and filled them up with tap water. I gave them a good stir about 5 times that day. The following day the water was cloudy so I gave it a stir whenever I walked past and by the fourth day the corn and mash buckets looked cloudy and foamy respectively. Both smelt vaguely sweet and sour which is the classic lactic acid bacteria aroma so I felt confident that the buckets were preserving the contents well.

Using a plastic sieve for each feed, I use a portion of the mash in the morning, mixed with dry layer's mash to form a crumble, and in the afternoon I feed a portion of the fermented mixed corn again, mixed with a bit of dry mash to soak up the excess liquid:

Mmmmm (if you're poultry)

Well, the hens go mad for it! They are tucking in really well in the morning and afternoon and are rather snooty about eating the pellets which I give them in between times for ease and in case someone else needs to feed them (should I do something radical like go out for the day) so I've been really pleased. I top up the buckets with corn or mash and water and the mixture perpetuates itself. As long as there's always a layer of liquid over the feed it will not go off as the population of good bacteria keep the bad ones in check.

A word of warning: I discovered my dog rather likes the liquid so I have to keep the buckets covered with an old plate rather than the tea-towel I was originally using as he could push that out of the way and get his nose in.

I also feed it to the ducks and although they don't quite know how to handle mash as they dabble in their water bowl then back to the feed bowl and I end up with two bowls of slops...

The next thing I want to try now that the weather has warmed up is some sprouted greens as being on mulch the hens are reliant on their daily leg-stretch in the garden for some greenery.

Mouse Nest

Rodents are proving to be a bit troublesome this year. It was warm enough (about 15°C) to properly take the lid off of the hive with the mouse nest and remove the squatters. They'd made a lovely cosy nest on top of the crownboard in the WBC:

Two mice were in there but they skidaddled off having given me a bit of a hard stare for destroying their home. The weather is good enough now though and there are plenty of other places for them to live so I wanted to see what damage they'd done, having not had this issue before. Thankfully they don't seem to have ravaged their way through the hive:

The bees didn't seem remotely perturbed by the mice and apart from giving me a bit of a talking to about taking the hive apart they carried on calmly. I've clearly forgotten how to keep a smoker alight  over winter which didn't help! Having left all the honey on after taking a  bit in July, there was still loads of food which was great to see and hopefully will give the colony a positive start to the season.

I blocked the entrance with some bits of frame that were lying about (doesn't pay to be too tidy) but I'll get some proper blockers for this hive. The bees happily carried on bringing in pollen so I'm hoping the mice won't take up residence again...

Mulch

I struggle with February. Considering it's the shortest month, it can go on, and on, and on.....

Not helped by the weather. I'm definitely at the 'outdoorsy' end of the spectrum and go just a little [more] bonkers with too much rain-induced incarceration. It was drying up quite nicely then a weather front strolled by and flattened all the crocuses and turned the garden back in to a swamp.

The poor hens. I've had a bit of a sad time these last few weeks on the poultry front, having lost Esme to rat attack a few weeks ago, then Peggy to a kidney infection last week, then my other Buff Sussex bantam Gloria to another rat a couple of days ago.Two of my layers are going to friends of my parents as they recently lost two of their free-range hens to a dog attack.

However, it's a good time to take stock of things and given the state of the ground, no bad thing that the coops are rather sparsely populated. I asked my local tree surgeon if he had any spare chipped waste; he did and kindly dropped off a half load:

All seven runs now have a deep layer (about 4-6") of mulch. There are some laurel prunings which concerned me but having watched the hens closely as they scratch around, they've not been eating any of the material, just pecking about. My hens are experienced rangers and foragers so I'm presuming common sense will prevail. In my investigations as to toxicity of plant material and chickens, I was surprised at the number of things undesirable or even downright dangerous that my hens seem to eat without a problem.

So, with spring around the corner, and the promise of restocking with some traditional utility breeds and rearing some chicks from my remaining Buff Sussex bantams now that Beatrice is laying, I'm not feeling too bad about my recent losses.

Beeees!

Mild temperatures and a breath of warmth in the winter sunshine was enough to bring the bees out for a much-needed wing stretch. Some of the hives are very quiet, others more active. It's always a worry at this time of year as to whether the bees are ok and because I leave my colonies to lead their own lives with minimal physical intervention on my part, it's hard to sit back and just watch. I am always surprised at how well the bees fare and despite the portentious emails from the BBKA about starvation at this time of year, I assume that if the last honey I took was in early August - and even then, just the top box or a few of the capped middle frames - then they should be fine without supplementary feeding. Taking the lid off to put food in expels all the precious warm air that the bees work hard to maintain so I prefer to keep my fingers crossed and pre-empt winter stores problems by mindfulness in the preceding summer with prudent honey harvesting. It's still a difficult time though and the sound of buzzing is so welcome on a mild January day!

This is one of the busier colony and was enormous
going in to the winter

These bees are checking out an
empty hive

This colony was a bit quieter

Rabbits, Apple Trees and Squashes

It's apple-pruning time of year, and rabbits are notorious pests in orchards where they strip the bark off the trees. However, I'm using this predilection for fruit twigs to my advantage to make valuable compost for this year's squash plants.

All the winter prunings from my apple trees are saved and given to my daughter's pet rabbits and guinea pigs. This reduces the amount of hay they eat which ekes out the feed bill, and keeps their teeth in excellent condition which reduces the vet's bill! In return, they process the woody twigs in to organic matter far more quickly and efficiently than I could compost them in a heap. It also occupies them during the rather long winter days in the shed while there's no grass for them to eat and it's too cold, wet and muddy to even let them out for a breath of fresh air in their run.

So, I now have empty bedding and compost sacks full of hemp, shavings and rabbit poop which will have matured nicely by the time I need somewhere rich to plant the squash plants. I put them directly in to the top of the bag and place crushed eggshells around to deter slugs and then train them up the bike shelter so that they don't swamp my limited vegetable patch. The spent contents of the bags then do go on to the flower beds or the compost heap having nourished the squashes. The rabbits eat the skins of the squash and the hens eat the seeds....

It's the most beautiful circle. If you don't keep rabbits or guinea pigs yourself, offer them to a neighbour or friend - their pets will thank you!

Thinking About Chicks

I've had a few orders for hatching eggs already this year, although the younger trio of Buff Sussex bantams are only producing about 1 egg every other day and the other trio aren't laying at all. The Rhode Island bantam hasn't laid since about September although she did have a significant moult and is coming in to her 3rd year so I'm not expecting a prolific supply from her this coming season!

A lady called in at the weekend to collect one of the bantam eggs that I did have (I'd have had 3 to give her if I'd not made cinnamon buns, oops) as her Light Sussex bantam had gone broody which is very early in the year. I'm hoping my little cockerel's fertility levels are ok as they tend to diminish in the winter, or rather, it's the day length that stimulates the hormones. We'll see. I've asked her to let me know how the solitary egg gets on.

We've had a lot of stormy weather and the mud in the runs is terrible. I've been mucking the hens out every couple of days so that they've got somewhere clean and dry to shelter although they do insist on scuffing all the bedding out of the door, or nosing in the neighbours' coop....

It also keeps the eggs a bit cleaner which helps, especially as I sell almost all the eggs the hens lay - it was lovely over Christmas plenty enough spare to enjoy ourselves. There's always enough to go round though so I don't like to turn customers away and the thing they all comment on is that they like having the dates on the eggs - I write it on in pencil so it's possible to use the eggs for the right purpose according to the age.

A very fresh egg (less than 3 days old) is a nightmare to peel if it's hard-boiled as the membrane is so firmly attached to the shell, but it's perfect for poaching and frying because it holds its shape with a tight white and a rounded yolk. The flavour develops and is best from about 3-7 days so that's a good time for soft-boiled and easy-peel eggs for sandwiches. Eggs will keep fresh for about 3 weeks so use the older eggs for scrambling and cooking in cakes where the texture isn't so important. By writing the day it was laid on the egg, I can make sure my customers always get eggs less than a week old, with a mixture of sizes and dates. Some of the hens are laying extra large and double-yolkers which is a lovely treat and makes up for the rather puny ones the bantam crosses lay! 

Thankfully, despite the weather, all the hens are getting a run in the garden and field every day which keeps them happy and gives a beautiful rich taste and colour to the yolks. The hybrids are always keen for a forage but the bantams sometimes need a bit of persuading with a handful of corn or an apple. We're all looking forward to some dry weather and a bit more sunshine!

New Year

Having enjoyed a break over the darkest part of the year, the hens are now laying again, with a few double-yolkers in the next boxes already. I'm still feeding them hot molassed mash with Net-tex Mineral Boost, and some cooked crushed eggshells to increase the calcium levels. Apart from the loss of one hen due to a prolapse - RIP Mary :-( - they've all come through the winter in good condition with bright fluffy new feathers having all moulted. I've had a couple of requests for hatching eggs so once the bantams start laying again with any regularity I'll be able to collect some for my customers.

I'm considering getting some eggs under the first broody I have to increase my stock a bit, and check the fertility of the pair of Buff Sussex I bought last year as I've not had a chance to put Bertie and Beatrice to the test. The little chick I kept back (called Herbert, although he's turned out to be a hen) is still very small and seems to have the poultry version of cradle cap with scabby deposits around his head. He's not yet found the dustbath, preferring instead to scamper about the garden. I feel a bit sorry for him - I mean her! - as she's in with Bertie and Beatrice who are in their third year so rather staid company for a little pullet who wants to bounce around and spar with her mates. 

The garden is looking worse for wear but the crocuses are poking up now and will soon be showing their faces for the bees to enjoy, although I've got rows of snowdrops to enjoy before then.

So, that's the New Year - best wishes to all!

The ducks and the hens doing their bit to ruin the last remnants of grass...