May 25th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, fence, free range, netting, treats
This weekend my girlfriend was on holiday so I decided to go away for the weekend and see my parents. My girlfriend’s mum offered to come up and look after the chickens which saved me paying pet sitters to come around and look after them.
I was a little bit nervous about leaving the girls for the weekend, and to make things worse as soon as I let the girls out on Saturday morning, Victoria jumped up on the fence. That was the first time I had seen any of them go up onto the fence and I was worried that she would end up in next door’s garden.
In the end I had nothing to worry about and the girls were fine – although they did make a few attempts to escape the netted off area of the garden! Apparently whilst I was gone the girls had managed to find their way into the rest of the garden a few times. When I got back I let the girls out and within 20 minutes of doing so Daisy had escaped and was scratching about in a pile of grass clippings by my compost bin. She was only out there for about 2 minutes but she managed to spread the pile around half of the garden! I think I am going to have to put some netting around the fence and the top of the coop before I let the girls out again.
One more thing happened today that made me laugh. I went out into the garden and put some meal worms in the run for the girls, in an empty washing up bowl that I put in the run about a week ago. I went back inside to watch tv, and when I looked out I could only see 2 chickens – Meg was nowhere to be found. Then I noticed the washing up bowl was upside-down and moving around by itself! I realised that Meg had somehow managed to get trapped underneath it and was walking around with it completely covering her. It looked really funny and she didn’t seem to be at all bothered by it (I think she was still hoovering up some meal worms that were underneath).
April 21st, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, Flubenvet, free range, parasites, poo, sick, treats
This morning when I got up Daisy was still not quite herself. When I opened the pop-hole this morning the other two girls jumped straight out but Daisy waited inside for a while. Whilst the other two were running around the coop Daisy was very slowly edging down the ramp and standing about all hunched up. I had a look in the nest box where the girls sleep today and there were some poos with blood on them in the nest box which made me even more worried,
Daisy is all hunched up
I posted about Daisy’s health on the forum and JuicyLucy said that it is normal to have bloody poos when you are worming them – she said the blood would be pink and stringy which is exactly how it looked. I was still worried about her so I popped home at lunch time and she seemed to be fine by then. I’m glad I went home because it meant I could relax this afternoon instead of being worried the whole time.
Flubenvet
When I got in from work I had the usual task of weighing out some more medicine for the birds. I must admit I will be glad when the treatment is finished – only a few more days to go now.
I let the girls out just after 6:00 and they all decided to attack the forget-me-nots that my parents brought up for me last week. I moved the pot up on top of the bench but they still finished off the bits that were hanging down low enough to be pecked. I think there are still enough of them left to just about survive!
Forget-Me-Nots
After dinner, the birds kept trying to jump in through the closed patio doors so I thought I’d go out and play with them for a bit. I gave them a few treats and two of them even sat on my lap at one point!
The red one is definitely getting a lot more tame. Daisy has always been the most tame and she will let me touch her, but recently I have been able to touch the red one without her minding too much. Today I was running around in the garden and the girls were following me and the red one was always the first to catch up with me. I would run across the garden and put some treats on the floor – both of the others would go straight for the treats but the red on would stand right close to me and look up at me. When I ran back to the other side of the garden the other girls would carry on eating the treats but she would run after me straight away.
When the girls started to go in for the night I suddenly realised I hadn’t cleaned the poos out of the house yet, so I quickly took the roof off and tried to clean it out before the girls went in. Before I could finish though they all ended up on top of the coop and getting in my way. One thing I’ve learnt about chickens is that they love to get in your way!
April 15th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, feed, free range, parasites, poo, treats
Since the first time that I let my girls out I have let them out every night for about an hour before bed time – they seem to enjoy it so much that it’s hard for me to keep them locked up all night! The first time I let them out was pretty nervous for me and for them, but since then it has been a lot less stressful. Today I think the girls seemed a bit too relaxed – every time I turned my back for 2 seconds they were up to something!
Daisy Exploring the Patio
Before today, whenever I have let them out of the pen they have spent most of the time in the flower beds and on the lawn and pretty much stayed away from the patio. Today they decided to spend most of the time exploring the patio and the alley way down the side of the house which I found pretty stressful! When I let them out today I intended to sit in the house for half an hour and let them get on with it, but I changed my mind when I saw them trying to eat a scrap of silicon sealant that must have ended up out there when I got my patio doors replaced. I immediately went outside and got it off of them when I noticed they had found some more. I then spent the next 45 minutes chasing the chickens round the garden in a mad race to pick up all of the rubbish before they did! Before today I though my garden was pretty clean but the chickens are really good at finding rubbish. Most of it was left over from builders but a few bits had obviously blown over the fence.
When I finally got them to stop trying to eat bits of silicon and plastic they decided it was time to rampage through the patio knocking over flower pots! I ended putting all of the seedlings up on the bench so that the girls couldn’t get to them.
Towards the end of the free-ranging session a helicopter started hovering over the school field out the back – I think it might be related to all of the noise I have been hearing from there. Maybe someone actually broke in or something this time. Either way the helicopter seemed to really confuse the girls – while it was out they spent a lot of time standing still and looking around, trying to figure out where the strange noise was coming from. Once the helicopter disappeared it was starting to get dark and I was slightly relieved to see the girls go back into their run.
Rumaging Around in the Forget-Me-Nots
At lunch time today I came home from work because I was having some stuff delivered for the girls – I got a big bag of mixed corn and some dried meal-worms. These went down a treat – the birds seem to like the meal-worms more than they like the mixed bird seed that I have been giving them. The mixed corn was also highly successful as it seems to contain all of the bits that they like most out of the bird seed (and with no black sunflower seeds that they always leave behind).
One more thing before I go: I was reading the chicken forum at Down the Lane and someone made a post saying that one of their chickens has been producing sloppy, caramel-coloured poos. At least one of mine (the grey one) has also been doing this. On the forum they seem to think it could mean that the girl has got worms so I ordered some Flubenvet which is due to arrive tomorrow. I am going to worm them all as the sloppy horrible poo is difficult to clean up and smells disgusting!
I Think my Girls Might have Worms!