Lyra RIP

Sadly little Lyra was dead this morning (13 December) when Popins came to check them. She seemed a little subdued before I left for Holland for the Xmas markets, so I spent some time with her handling her and making sure she was eating and drinking. She was, but obviously my instincts were right. She's was always small. Lasted less than  2 years. Owner has hatched lots of eggs she had sourced on the internet so goes to show the importance of getting hens from reputable breeders. Still, she had a good life while it lasted.

Beautiful Hens

I'm getting a regular 3 eggs per day from my bantams. Lyra is broody so this is from Vera, Lulu and Velvet. Velvet (black bantam silkie) and Vera (gold laced bantam wyandotte) have always been the most stand-offish of the hens. I have only once managed to have Velvet eating out of my hand - she generally waits for the slippage from the other greedy girls to fall to the floor and hoovers that up. This means that it is particularly difficult to get a good photo of Velvet and Vera. However on a lovely sunny Sunday in the garden, I spotted the sun slanting through the late afternoon sky into their pen so I went in with then and waited patiently for them to look photogenic. I think I succeeded. Here are the results:

Maud, imperious as ever

A rare photo of Velvet

Vera, my last bantam wyandotte - gold-laced and handsome

Lulu looking fluffy

Booted Sabelpoots

It was my birthday on Wednesday, and my daughter came round last night for a girlie barbecue and then today we went to The Barns near Moggerhanger to buy some new hens. Last year I lost Nutmeg, Agatha and Amber, then with Buffy dying this year I was down to 5 hens.

We spent a lovely time wandering around the breeding pens looking at all the chickens. Then we walked around the sale pens shortlisting our favourites. It was hard. Eventually I settled apron the bantam sablepoots. There was a big cage of new arrivals aged 12 weeks near the front. But which ones. We had seen a breeding trio of lemon sablepoots which were gorgeous, but the variety in the mixed cage was very tempting. There were a couple of cages of 6 week old bantam lemon sablepoot chicks which we really fell for. In the end I chose two lemon and one bantam porcelain sablepoot. Porsche is the porcelains and Mapp and Lucia are the baby lemon sablepoots.

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It will be interesting to see how they cope with their ever growing feet feathers.

Three booted sabelpoots

So, my birthday treat to me. Three lovely new Sabelpoots. Mapp and Lucia, the lemon sabelpoots, and Porsche a lovely porcelain sabelpoot. So young! The two lemons are only just out of the barn, at about 6 weeks. Porsche is 8 weeks. 

Buffy RIP

Something of a rapid decline. One by one all my hens became broody except for Buffy and Maud. For a week I was getting just one egg every few days from Buffy - Maud has always been a reluctant layer. A week or so ago she stopped laying and I didn't pay any attention. I've been working hard on all hens, trying to pick them up every day and handle them. I've been hand feeding them to get them really tame and then picking one or two up. With four broodies, I've literally had my hands full, picking each one up, giving her a little cuddle and stroke then putting her outside to encourage her to forage and maybe forget about being broody.

With all these hens to handle, I'd not been picking Buffy up. I spotted her in with the broodys and thought she was joining in the broody fun, but when I picked her up, she was ever so thin. And so quickly. She'd been looking a little pale for a while, but apart from giving her tonic and chicken spice I'd not really thought it worth worrying about.

Now that I looked at her, I could see Maud pecking her, which Maud despite being much bigger doesn't generally do. She was either poorly, or Maud was bullying her because she was the only other hen around (as the other four were broody).

I moved her to a separate eglu and gave her hanging hentastic treats which she pecked at with enthusiasm. She had her own water with tonic in it and chicken spice layers pellets and I just waited. She seemed to be rallying round. Her comb became more pink and I thought she was recovering. After four days on her own, I decided to give her another couple of days to be sure she was better and then if the others went for her when I reintroduced her, I would select one to put with her and then reintroduce them as a pair.

This morning saw a dead Buffy. I was so surprised. She seemed so much better. Maybe there was an underlying problem. I guess there isn't any more.

I think perhaps I'll consider getting another couple. With four broody hens and Maud, I have to buy eggs.

Hen Brothel in my Garden

Last week was a bit of a worry. Periodically, I spend nights away from home. When my daughter lived with me, this was not a problem. Generally, it is not a problem. 24 hours isn't really long enough for the hens to get broody over the eggs not being removed, and they have a nice 2m WIR to walk around in.

For indoor use really, so I hang it well under cover

However last week, the temperature was set to drop to well below freezing. I had glug water bowls frozen solid so I was in a panic as I had to spend the next night and following day away from home, so wouldn't be around to put fresh water out. My neighbour was away as well so I couldn't ask him. I fretted but fortunately the temperatures rose.

Looks like a chicken brothel at night

I was voicing my concerns to a pal, Penny. She suggested an infra-red lamp as a solution. She had one that she no longer needed - she had used it when she kept her cats in an outhouse overnight while she was having an extension built, which was too cold. Now she had extended the house so the cat could sleep indoors and she offered to lend me her lamp.

She said it was a poultry lamp. As the photo shows, it is a big thing with a cage protecting the bowl. I put it on to test it out. During the daytime it is hardly noticeable, but at night it bathes the end of the garden in an eerie red glow.

However, the most important thing is it does stop their water freezing. I have tested it out overnight when all the other glugs have frozen solid, yet the two in the WIR near the lamp remain nice and liquid.

My worries are over. It is not the perfect solution since the wire runs over the ground, but I only need to use it occasionally so I'm happy with that. It's better than thirsty chickens.

Patchwork Quilted Cube Cover

Jogging bottoms gave up their life to save an eglu cube cover

Well, the weather finally warmed up enough for me to think about repairing the quilted eglu cover.

First I had to try it out inside next to the radiator. It didn't smell.....all that much :)

Next I needed to find some fabric to patch it with. This was much more difficult. I haven't done any sewing in earnest, as in making things, for quite a long time so I have no scraps. I ended up cutting a square out of the leg of some old jogging bottoms that I had used for painting white gloss work (and were therefore liberally bespattered with gloss paint).

I surprised myself by remembering actually how to sew and making what I think is a fairly good job of it

As you can see, there are still little mice chew holes on the green edging, and the fabric is cotton rather than the slightly water-repellent cube cover fabric. Nevertheless, I am very pleased with my efforts. Now at least I don't need to worry about the silver stuffing dropping out and flying all over the garden in the wind.

Preparing for the Snow and pesky mice

For the past two days, the Met office have been forecasting snow. It is shown at its worst over Ireland and the North and West of England, but certainly it was shown as coming as far as the south east.

So I assembled the cube, added a half-meter extension (I have a meter extension, but one of the side panels seems to be missing) and then went into the garage to pull out the quilted cube cover. As I did so what looked like silver tinsel scattered to the floor. It appears that mice have had a go at it and chewed a hole to try to extract the sliver filling to make nests.

I had previously realised I had mice in the ground floor of my garage when I went to top up my bird feeders and noticed that the metal lid was not on. I ALWAYS leave it closed, in case of mice. When I opened it I saw that the peanut bag had been shredded. Some muscular mice must live in my garage.

Hopefully they have good appetites because after the damage to my eglu cover, I've put down the rat poison.

I can repair the cover by sewing on a small patch. However in the short term I've just stuck some sticky plastic over the hole, rather badly. It needs repairing soon, but I wanted to get it all ready for this snow.....this photo was taken this morning in bright sunshine. Snow may well be around the corner, but it doesn't look like it.


Still, it is good to be all prepared so I can get my chooks all snug and safe should we get bad weather. My two bantam silkies, Velvet and Lulu, are not waterproof and my bantam frizzle as well as the silkies all have feathery legs which get very bedraggled in the wet or snow.