Snow

December 23rd, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
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Where has my garden gone?

Where has my garden gone?

The last few days have been a lot less muddy and I have been getting clean eggs. The main reason for this is that the filthy mud pit at the end of my garden has been covered in a blanket of clean white snow! It had been nice to be getting eggs that aren’t covered in mud, but the cold weather has caused more problems than it has solved.

In general I think the chickens are okay in the cold – the problem is that they cannot drink their water when it is frozen.

Theres water in there somewhere...

There's water in there somewhere...

As you can see their drinker was completely snowed over. I have been having to go out in the cold every morning to defrost the drinker with a kettle. I have also been popping back home at lunch times to defrost it again – it’s difficult for me to walk home, defrost it and get back to work in an hour with all of this snow! After the first night I started putting the drinker underneath the coop which stops it from filling up with snow but it still freezes.

Apart from the freezing water, the chickens don’t seem to really like walking on snow. They have spent most of the past couple of days either standing on the roof or hiding underneath the coop. When I have been coming home I have removed them from the roof and placed them under the coop – I don’t think they were even coming down to eat (they are pretty stupid, I think if they are on top of the coop and can’t see underneath it they forget that their food is down there). The other problem with them staying on the roof is that they ended up sleeping up there a couple of times – they didn’t even want to come down to go inside at night. I had to put them in which always results in a lot of flapping.

A few times I saw Daisy pacing the edge of the roof in the way that the chickens do when they want to get down, but she was obviously looking for a dry patch to land on and gave up when she couldn’t find one. I helped her down but she didn’t seem very thankful!

Here are some more pictures of the girls in the snow:

I defrosted the drinker with a kettle of hot water

I defrosted the drinker with a kettle of hot water

The girls spent most of the time avoiding the snow (you wouldnt want to stand on snow if you had bare feet!)

The girls spent most of the time avoiding the snow (you wouldn't want to stand on snow if you had bare feet!)

Mud

December 16th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
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November has been the first period with a lot of rain since I created the enclosure down the end of the garden, and the ground is starting to get very muddy! There are 2 problems with this: The first problem is that the chickens love to walk in the mud and then walk all over the eggs, which means the eggs get very muddy. The second problem is that when I try to clean the coop out, I nearly fall over in the slippery mud.

The best way to solve both problems would probably be to put down a load of woodchip in the run, but that will have to wait until next year. For now I have added this lovely board walk so that I can get to the coop to clean them out without sliding around in the mud.

Check out my lovely board walk!

Check out my lovely board walk!

The other thing that I have done recently is invested in a basket for collecting eggs. This is a little thing that has made a big difference to my cleaning / egg collecting routine. Before I had to collect the eggs, climb back over the fence with them (hard when you have 6 eggs in your hands) and put them inside. I would then go back into their area and clean up. With my basket I can do it all in one go, and I don’t end up dropping the eggs in the mud!

This is such a time saver

This is such a time saver

Victoria…

November 9th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
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Victoria is definitely the most difficult chicken – I think she goes out of her way to make my life difficult!

I have had problems with her escaping from the their area for a while now. She loves to fly over the electric fence and leave a trail of destruction through my garden. It hasn’t been causing me so many issues recently as I am not really growing anything at the moment, but it will start to become an issue in the spring, and I’m getting fed up of her leaving chicken poos all over the garden.

As well as this, I’m pretty sure that it’s her who starts them all off making a racket early in the morning. Again, this isn’t causing me a lot of troubles at the moment because I am getting up as soon as it is light now, but in the summer it is not fun to be awoken by a load of chickens at 5am.

The other problem with Victoria is that she is a bit of a bully. She is a lot bigger than the other chickens, and she is definitely at the top of the pecking order. I haven’t witnessed her bullying very much recently, because I hardly ever see the chickens at the moment, but yesterday was a Sunday and I spent a bit of time watching what the chickens were doing.

Yesterday morning, Meg was looking a bit miserable, and when I went over to look at her I noticed that she was actually bleeding from her comb. Then, when it started to get dark I looked out and saw that Daisy had gone to bed, and Victoria and Meg were still outside. Every time Meg tried to go in the chicken coop, Victoria would chase her out until she retreated underneath the coop. Then I watched for about 5 minutes, and every time Meg tried to come out from underneath the coop Victoria would chase her back in. It actually made me feel really sorry for her.

Poor old Meg doesnt look too happy

Poor old Meg doesn't look too happy. She clearly has blood on her comb...

After watching it for a few minutes I decided to go out and break it up – otherwise the door would end up closing and locking poor Meg outside. When I went over, I noticed that Victoria had blood on her beak which makes me pretty sure that she attacked Meg earlier. I grabbed Victoria and walked around the pen with her for a while – this seemed to calm things down. She hates being picked up and I held her until he got really upset and started flapping. Meg still hadn’t gone inside yet, so I put Victoria down, and chased her away every time she got anywhere near Meg.

I’m not really sure what to do about this – I’m starting to think that Victoria is having a negative effect on the rest of the chickens. The only solution that I can think of for her escaping is to put them back in the old run, but this would obviously mean that they have a lot less space and it doesn’t seem fair on the other chickens. The only other alternative that I can think of would be to clip her wings but I’m not sure if I want to do that either.

I don’t think there is an easy solution for the bullying. If I was choosing my chickens again I would make sure that they were all very similar in size to try and avoid this happening.

Maybe the only thing I could do would be to get rid of her and replace her with a more docile chicken – that would solve all of the problems (but probably create a load more!).

October

October 29th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
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Not a huge amount has happened this month – which is why I haven’t posted for a while. The main things that have happened this month have been to do with the shorter days.

Last time I posted, the girls had ended up sleeping outside on the coop roof. This was easily fixed by adjusting the sensor on the door opener/closer. I think the girls took a while to adjust to the shorter days, and don’t get tired early enough to go to sleep when it is still light.

That was at the start of the month – now we are at the end of October and the chickens all go off to bed before I even get home. This has meant that I have had to change my routine a little bit. I now have to muck out the chickens before I go to work which is always a bit of a rush as I find it hard to drag myself out of bed in the morning. Even with the new routine I can still manage to get to work withing half an hour of getting up!

Victoria is still her usual naughty self. I have to chase her around the garden most mornings and she seems to leave the enclosure and come back in as she pleases. I have watched her escape twice since I put the weldmesh fence up on the roof. The first time I saw her fly straight from the ground and over the fence, and the second time she flew from the coop roof and curved around the fence. Either way I don’t think there is anyway to stop her with a physical barrier – the only remaining option is to clip her wings. I’m really not keen on the idea so I think I will mull it over for a few more weeks.

One final thing that has started to happen recently which is a little odd – the girls seem to have changed their egg laying habits. Ever since they started laying they have always laid in the same place in a corner of the coop. Due to the fact that the eggs were getting cracked I put a nest box in there for them, and ever since I have found a cluster of eggs in the nest box each day. Then, about a week ago, they decided that actually they don’t like that spot so much any more! I now get eggs all over the place – but at least they always seem to be in one piece!

The chickens have decided they dont like the nest box after all...

The chickens have decided they don't like the nest box after all...

Sleeping Rough

September 30th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | 4 Comments »
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At the weekend, me and my girlfriend went out for the day in London. By the time we got back it was dark already, and I needed to change the food and water for the chickens. When I went in the run I found all of them sleeping on the roof! I propped the door open with a stick and put them inside.

The chickens actually looked quite cute huddled together on the roof

The chickens actually looked quite cute huddled together on the roof

The next day I thought I’d better check on the chickens and they were on the roof again. Last night they went in by themselves so I thought they had stopped trying to sleep outside, but tonight I looked out the window and they were all out there again, so that’s 3 nights out of 4 that they haven’t managed to make it back inside.

I propped the door open with a stick, and with a little encouragement they went back inside

I propped the door open with a stick, and with a little encouragement they went back inside

I think that they have not adjusted to the shorter days properly, so I will probably need to adjust the sensor on the door opener/closer. I don’t really mind putting them back in though – it’s all part of the fun of keeping chickens…

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