Dust Bath

Chickens love a dustbath as not only does it rid them of parasites, it's also a communal activity and they often enter a trance-like state, making purring and cooing noises as they invade the next one's personal space. Hens seem particularly keen although the cockerels do join in, just with less aplomb. If possible, there should be an area for year round use - needless to say the hens will choose any area but once they've found a spot they tend to return.

I've inherited two rather troublesome Pekin bantam cockerels and I have put them in with the Rhode Island Red x Light Sussex hybrids as they won't be bothered by the pint size boys. They've settled in together well and I can let them out with other cockerels as they're small enough to know their place!

Now that the days are lengthening, I'm getting eggs from all the girls so the selection on this morning's stall looked quite impressive:

So, left to right, we have duck eggs from the Call and Miniature Silver Appleyard; quail eggs from my two remaining birds; tiny bantam eggs from the Buff Sussex pullets and a quartet of large hen's eggs - including one monster one from Maud, the regular double-yolker. In the last post I didn't think she was going to make it but thankfully a couple of days on a high protein, carb-free diet sorted out the sour crop and she's now back laying and looking good after her moult. Sadly the Buff Orp with the pendulous crop had to be put down but her sisters Bessie and Bertha are in good shape. I'm hoping to use them as broodies this year but so far no signs from any of the hens in that regard!

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