A Bald Chicken And A Plummeting Thermometer

Tonight, we're expecting our first properly cold winter temperatures. The forecast is displaying a lonely number 1. Ordinarily, this wouldn't phase me much. This is my third winter with hens and I know that they can tolerate some pretty extreme temperatures. But right now, Hilda is virtually bald. Large patches of pink chicken skin are on display. Her underfluff is non-existant. And that concerns me. Chooks rely on their feathery insulation.

When I posted yesterday about Hilda's rapid derobement, a twitter pal jokingly suggested putting a tea cosy on her. You know, sticking her head through the spout hole. Now, of course that's ridiculous. I mean, it is, right? That would be mad. Of course, like most tea drinking households, we are in possession of a tea cosy. It's considered ironic or something. So, yes, technically I do have the required chicken jumper. But just because I have the hen and the tea cosy doesn't mean I should blend them. That would be daft.

Looking at the tea cosy, it does look about pekin sized. Not that I would, of course. Before we acquired the insane puppy, I might have brought Hilda inside and put her in the downstairs loo. But I feel that would be tempting fate. So Hilda must stay outside. Jumper-less. Even though I have the tea cosy. Right here. In my hand.

I'm just popping outside for a minute.

Hilda's Debut

Hilda, my white pekin, has been broody forever. Well, not quite forever. But a very long time. Despite many attempts by yours truly to dissuade her from sitting on her phantom eggs, she has remained true to her cause. Her stubbornness has proved resolute, and after checking that she was eating and drinking and not losing too much condition, I decided to leave her to it. This was preferable to the constant pecking (her) and swearing (me).

So I was surprised on Monday to see her mooching around the garden with her flockmates. She has made the odd foray in to the garden, but it's usually been at the break neck speed of the fussy broody and involved diving in to the dustbath for a nano second. But here she was, slowly ambling about the lawn with the others and nibbling at the grass. At last, I thought, the dappy bird has realised it's November. Now I'll be able to collect the eggs without gauntlets.

But it seems that common sense was not the reason for Hilda shaking off her broody trance. On Tuesday I noticed the odd white feather in the coop, and it clicked in to place. Hilda was going in to her first moult. Mystery solved, I thought no more about it. So imagine the shock I got when Hilda emerged from the coop this morning, looking like this:

Yep, that is one bald pekin. In fact, she has a completely bald patch on her bum. There is what looks like an oven ready mini chicken sprinting about the garden, possibly in an effort to keep warm.

She has liberally redecorated the coop with her own feathers. Which is probably cosy for the other chooks.

My poor little Hilda is now roosting in the coop to escape the cruel November wind. I'll be adding some poultry spice to the hens' porridge tonight, and hope that she can stay warm enough. I have never had a hen moult so dramatically in such a short space of time. Of course, this weekend we'll see our first frost of the year.

I'll no doubt be trudging across the lawn at 11pm to make sure that the others have tucked her in to the middle of the flock.

When Two Worlds Collide

The puppy has been here for nearly two months now. The chooks have gone from utter panic every time they catch sight of the crazy mutt to mild annoyance when he leaps at the Palace walls. In fact, now they tend to tell him off in very scolding tones and continue preening/eating/gossiping. He is a slow learner, however, and still likes to leap up and get them flapping. Naturally, this particular integration needs very careful handling. After all, this interloper has a long snout full of teeth and the urge to chase. Even the fearsome ASBO Chicken might have a problem pecking him in to submission. So, operation Desensitise Jasper has begun. It basically involves this:

Sophisticated, huh? Yep, I tether the puppy to the outside tap while I'm cleaning out the hens. The girls avoid him at all costs, and he is rewarded every time I walk past if he is sat quietly and not slathering at the chops with murder in his eyes (Disclaimer: I have never seen murder in his eyes, more 'Ooh! Feathers! Moving! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!'). So far, so good. Today was the third time of trying this out, and he barked and fussed much less. Phew.

The girls are watching these developments with a beady eye. I am placating them with tinnned sweetcorn and extra deep bedding. No one has left home yet.

Just to prove that no one has been eaten, here are some pics taken on this grey yet freakily mild November day:

Celia, Maeve and Maude. Only Maude looks her best at the moment, as she moulted a few months ago. For some reason, the camera always turns Celia in to a ghost chicken. As you can see, Maeve is much reduced at the moment, and seriously annoyed about it. Hidden from view in the nest box behind Maeve is a still broody Hilda. Sigh.

My lovely, camera loving Vera.

Flo, almost grown up. The face furniture is reddening nicely, but I'm not expecting any eggs until early next year. You can just see Winnie's flares in the top right corner. She does not like her picture being taken.

Mabel and Betsy are also alive and well, they just were just too busy eating the leftovers of Jasper's breakfast to pose. Revenge is a dish best served from the dog's bowl, it seems.

Jasper munching a raw carrot, while Flo, Winnie and Gladys eat his kibble. That'll teach him.

By the summer, I expect to be able to live in a harmonious household, where chickens and spaniel coexist and share grapes. Maybe.

Apologies

I have been neglecting you, I know. Not deliberately, but circumstances have conspired against me. No matter, for I am here now. I have a whole twenty minutes to tell you all about the exploding flock.

Not literally exploding. That would be news worthy and probably messy. No, just the feather explosions you'd expect at this time of year. We were on holiday last week, and my lovely chicken sitter did a marvellous job of taking care of my demanding divas. And as half of them are in moult right now, I'm sure they were very demanding.

Mabel and Maude are quite smug, having already grown their new plumage. They sit on the perches in the run preening themselves, taunting the arseless Celia and crew cutted Maeve. Celia is rather embarassed by her lack of behind, and keeps looking back where her bum should be and looking both confused and sad. She pecks half heartedly at her stubble, but it's very difficult to make quills look presentable. Generally, she finds a bush to hide under or a nest box to squat in. She has sneezed a few times, so I've added a tonic to the water and poultry spice to the feed. Moulting hens are vulnerable to illness and generally just feel a bit rubbish so every little helps.

Maeve is taking out her displeasure on the rest of the flock, as expected. Flo and Winnie won't moult this year, they're too young, so Maeve is particularly narky with them. Poor Winnie seems to have found herself at the bottom of the pile and regularly gets a peck on the head for no reason at all really. She accepts these spiteful digs with an air of resignation which makes me sneak her grapes. Poor girl. Maeve is moulting in such a way that has left her with a vaguely punky look, or as if someone had decided to remake 'Mad Max' but with chickens. All she needs is a semi automatic slung across her back and some interesting bits of leather tied to her feathers and she'd give Mel Gibson a run for his money. She stalks the garden, muttering vague threats and maliciously shredding my bedding plants. So, business as usual really.

Betsy is so far resisting the moult, but Vera is having a bit of a go. Every so often I find a drift of soft black feathers in their hutch. However, she seems to be doing it the smart way and instead of dropping all of her insulation at once she's taking her time. Things are still unseasonably mild here in the midlands, but the cold weather must be on the way so I'm glad that I don't have an oven ready serama to worry about.

Gladys is back to her frizzly gorgeousness. She did have to go about without a tail for a few weeks, which made her look a bit like a pom pom, but now she is just stunning. Naturally, this makes Maeve hate her. But Gladys is a wily one, and has got very good at evasive procedures. I'm rather proud.

Only one hen is still in the grip of broody madness. Sigh. Yep, Hilda is still clamped to her non-existent eggs and hissing at me if I go near. At some point in the last week one of her charming flock mates has seen fit to poo on her, so her once pure white feathering is now distinctly...smeared. It's far too cold to consider bathing her, though, so I gave her a brief wipe over with a baby wipe to remove the worst of the excrement and will now hope that she goes in to moult. If she does, the skanky feathers will no longer be an issue and she'll stop being broody. I have caged Hilda 6 times this year. She is one determined (mental) chicken. She is eating and drinking, so I am happy to lift her daily and keep an eye on her at this stage. She hates it when I sprinkle her with mite powder, but tough talons, lady. A mite problem would be disasterous.

Much like Maeve's retro punk look.

The Chaos Continues

I'm not neglecting you, honest. It's just that I've been dealing with some teething problems. Actual teething problems. The puppy is chewing everything in sight, and is rather keeping me on my toes. Coupled with the fact that we were both attacked by a very angry dog yesterday, means that my blogging time has been seriously compromised. But no matter. Right now the pup is chewing a shoe (I'm pretending I haven't noticed) and I have a few minutes to update the Chronicles. So here goes.

My girls are on an egg strike. I'm not sure if this is in protest at the dog's arrival, or just the natural changing of the seasons. I suspect a bit of both, to be honest. Either way, no eggs for me. They are now eating less as well, and barely touching their oyster shell. In reality I doubt I'll see another egg until 2012. They watch me as I hopefully open the nest box, and no doubt snigger as I trudge dejectedly away again. As always with chickens, the less they give you the more you give them. So out comes the mixed corn, and the viatmin supplements, and the ACV, in an attempt to get them through the moult they've decided to communily have. Maude is strutting about looking resplendent and smug, having finished her moult a few months back. But everyone else is looking tatty and miserable. They are also increasingly narky, and many a hen is getting an unprovoked peck to the bonce just for existing. Even poor Vera is losing feathers left, right and centre. The miniscule hen is disappearing before my eyes.

The pekins are decidedly wary of the hound, and keep a sensible distance. Well, most of them do. Flo and Winnie seem to not have a natural fear response to a slathering mutt charging towards them, and in fact take great delight on sitting on the back step, beak to nose with the yelping puppy, driving him mad. Maeve is only acknowledging his existence if he dares to look at her, at which point she raises her hackles and hisses at him in her Dark Lord manner. He is unsure about this, and loses interest in playing with her rather rapidly. She saunters away, occasionally throwing an evil glance in his direction.

The serama are having none of it, and hide in the top part of their hutch if they hear him coming. I can't say as I blame them. I am hoping that he can be trained not to fetch chickens in to the house every five seconds. The thought of a disgruntled Maeve being caught, carried in a canine mouth, and then deposited in my living room doesn't bare thinking about.

I suspect we would all pay a heavy price for such treatment.

It's No Good, The Feathers Are Here To Stay

Now that Maude seems to be mostly done with her moult, I thought I'd have a go at cleaning up the garden a bit. There were feathers pretty much everywhere, but a good twenty minutes of plucking them from rose bushes and raking them from the borders made a world of difference. And then I spied the Palace.

Maude's old season plumage was liberally scattered about the run. In fact, it was like a new layer atop the sub-strata of the poo and aubiose. With a sudden burst of enthusiasm, I decided to get rid of all the feathers in the garden, and began clearing the run debris. Naturally, as soon as I began every adult hen in the vicinity decided that they needed to lay an egg. I opened the main coop door to give them an alternate route, but oh no. They actually wanted to waddle across the area I was working in, and use the ramp. That held me up somewhat. A succession of haughty chickens casually kicking through your piles of old litter is rather irritating. At last, all would-be layers were in the coop vying for the best nest box and I could get on with it.

It is still the school holidays here, and the children are therefore in a 'helpful' mood. Today the help consisted of flinging water all over the garage floor, tipping a large bucket of woodshavings out on the lawn (they missed the composter) and getting a seriously narked peck from Celia as they rummaged under her for eggs. Sorting out the various calamities meant that the clean out took two hours instead of one, but at last, we were finished.

I stood at the back door, covered in poo and aubiose and red mite powder, and surveyed my feather-free lawn. One by one, the hens emerged from the coop and went about their business. The last hen to emerge was Mabel. She took a few steps from the run door, and then shook her left leg like a dog. One solitary fluffy feather gently swirled to the ground. I chose to ignore it and look the other way. However, a few steps later she shook from her head to her talons, and several more fluffy underfeathers floated to earth on the breeze. I swear she looked at me to make sure that I'd noticed.

I should probably give up.


(As a quick aside, if you get October's 'Country Smallholding' magazine, and look on page 31 of the poultry section, you may spot a familiar beak...)

Stuffed Animals, Maude And The Chickens With No Arse

When I was at school, the Headmaster had several creepy stuffed animals dotted around. One was a fox, one was a badger and one was a pheasant. Us 'orrible children used to dare each other to touch these macabre ornaments. The fox felt greasy, and the ultimate act of bravery was to put your chubby child hand between his snarling chops. The badger felt wiry and looking at it made me feel sad. But at least these two specimens were mostly intact. The pheasant wasn't so lucky. It's plumage was tatty from years of having small people running their hands through it. Feathers would sometimes fall off the dusty bird, and we'd stick them back haphazardly. Why am I telling you this? Well, because Maude has looked like that straggly pheasant for a long time now. Her moult seems to be taking forever. But just as I started to worry, she is once again beginning to look magnificent.

Most of the fluffy underfeathers have finally become untangled, and her new feathers are unfurling. She now looks like Maude again, but with a shorter, funkier hair do. Maude has been smart. Her moult will be but a memory when the bad weather rolls in. The rest of the flock will no doubt sit in the coop, bald from the neck down and shivering come October. Then Maude will strut about in a smug manner, flaunting her high tog duvet and mocking the sparrow sized serama.

Actually, I'm a bit concerned as to what the serama will look like when they moult. Half their body size is in their upright tail feathers. A bumless serama is going to look odd. And probably a bit like a quail. Don't worry, I will gets photographs for you amusement. I have already found a few black silkied feathers in the nest box, so I suspect that Vera is about to shrink substantially. The youngest showed concern at the idea of the serama moulting. As he put it, what if they simply poof out of existance like 'Angry Birds'? It got me thinking. Perhaps that explains why there are so few of them about,

Now that August is drawing to a close, I've decided to give up on the summer. It's been long, and dry, and sometimes unbearably humid. Today is the first cool day we've had since early June, and it's actually raining. The ground is that dry that I swear I can hear it sucking up the moisture like a two year old with a straw. We have been in drought here in the midlands. Even the hens ventured out for a splash in the puddles. Granted, it didn't last long. Pekins hate getting their feet wet and serama aren't very waterproof what with the silkied feathers. But I think they enjoyed a brief freshen up nonetheless.

The integration plans for Flo and Winnie are going ahead. Ideally, they'll be fully fledged memebers of the gang by the end of September. They've spent quite a bit of time in with the big girls now with minimal interference. They get the odd bit of chasing, but nothing substantial and they're smart enough to keep out of pecking distance. I've had to stop plans to add Vera and Betsy to the main flock now, though. It tuns out that pekins are hideously species-ist. They seem to know that the serama are Not Their Kind, and for some reason really have it in for Betsy. They ganged up on her in a way I've never seen them do with any other potential flock mate, and if one caught her she couldn't get away. The others then all stood around taking it in turns to pluck her alive or issue a stabby peck at her head. Of course, I rescued her and abandoned all plans of moving the serama in to the Palace. They will remain in the garage hutch. Strangely, when they all free range together there are no problems at all. Betsy often pops in to the Palace for a quick shifty, or to grab a drink. That seems to be tolerated, so I suppose they are integrated enough. And Vera is still micro-managing the pekin youngsters, so I'm hoping that that particular serama/pekin alliance will continue.

Now if I could just stop thinking about that creepy stuffed fox...

Feather-geddon

Admit it, you didn't believe me yesterday. You thought 'Oh, that Madchickenlady. She exagerrates. No way could six little chickens blanket an entire lawn'. Well, prepare to have your flabber well and truly gasted. Maude is the only one in full moult right now, but the others are all on the slide. This is my garden.

Maude, with her rapidly disappearing arse, attempting to look nonchalant.

Surveying the carnage. The entire lawn is in the same condition. And don't even get me started on the border.

A good portion of Maude's arse can be found in the coop.

And I'm guessing she sat here at some point.

Gladys is now sporting a short spikey do on her bonce, but is still amusingly bald in places.

She is not impressed. Oh, and that big white cloud in front of her?

Hilda is broody again. Sigh. I'm hoping that she'll bump out of it once her own bum falls off.

This was a pic of Maeve, but Vera has a real love of the camera. She sees me coming and flings herself at the lens.

Our beloved ASBO Chicken, looking fine.

Mabel is also moulting, but in a more sedate manner than Maude. She looks a bit moth eaten, bless 'er.

This was supposed to be a picture of Winnie. But you can't see her because Vera has once again ninja'd in to the frame. Gawd that chicken makes me laugh.

I wonder if the estate agent can airbrush feathers out of the photographs....

I Swear They Do It On Purpose

People that don't keep chickens, and have no experience of them, will tell you that poultry is somewhat lacking in the brain cell department. They will make limp jokes about headless chickens and perhaps give an anecdote about the time so-and-so's idiot bird barbecued itself. All terribly amusing. However, anyone who actually knows chickens knows that this is utter rot. Chickens are devious. Like a gold digging centrefold, they can give an air of harmless stupidity while plotting against you. Beware the gormless chicken. She means you harm.

I have been doggedly trying to impress upon the ever tolerant husband the need for us to move. Principally, this is because the human elements need room to swing the proverbial cat. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't hankering after more outside space. I dream of a human garden, where plants remain unmolested and the only threat to my roses is greenfly. the hens would have their own garden, complete with dust baths and plenty of bushes to snooze under. But naturally I keep these ideas to myself. The ever tolerant husband is a very easy going sort of chap, but even he might baulk at the idea of taking out a mortgage based on the suitability for the chickens. I'll have to be much more cunning than that. Plus, this would be the third time we have attempted to sell this charming domicile. So, I have an estate agent coming at the end of the week to value our house.

Just as I wrote the appointment in my diary, I heard a tapping on the kitchen door. Maude was sat on the step, trying to get my attention. There is nothing unusual in this. The girls learnt at an early stage that the kitchen is where the food lives, and that if they hover for long enough I might take pity on them. Not that they're indulged or anything. Anyway, I ignored her. She was soon joined by Mabel. They chattered disgustedly, just loud enough for me to hear. I sensed I was getting the evil eye, so opened the door to shoo them away. And that's when I saw it.

The back lawn was liberally sprinkled with feathers. Not just the odd bit of fluff, but enough for the wind to be swirling around in little feathery devils. I stared out at the chicken arse explosion with my mouth open, and a growing sense of doom. The hens stared back at me impassively, apart from Gladys who was leaping about the place shaking her ratty bum about and shedding even more of her plumage.

Every single one of the pekins has gone in to moult. Over night. Every. Single. One. You have to keep hens to truly understand the impossible maths that governs the amount of feathers that can come from one small bird. They seem to expand and spread themselves far and wide across the land. And they are impossible to clean up effectively when it's wet. And its been raining, and will continue to rain, all week. They stick to everything, get caught up in the plants and blow out of the bin every time you lift the lid. The garden, which was quite tidy yesterday, now resembles an explosion in a pillow factory.

Now, of course this could be pure coincidence. Surely my girls haven't deliberately dropped their feathers to spite me. I mean, they wouldn't do that, would they? They wouldn't try and thwart my attempts to move and relegate them to their own area? They wouldn't begrudge being denied access to the kitchen door, and therefore food, right? They wouldn't turn themselves in to welfare concern cases for the estate agent pictures, thereby making me look like a nasty, cruel owner who starves her poor birdies, surely?

Experience means that I am reserving judgement.

Gladys Needs A Makeover

Gladys is my black frizzle pekin. It took me two years to track her down, and the ever tolerant husband had a 90 mile round trip to pick her up. She is a lovely, fluffy, curly girl. Or, as the ever tolerant husband puts it, she looks like a pekin that has held on too long to the dynamite in a Warner Bros. cartoon. Whatever your view on frizzled feathered fowl, she is undisputedly distinctive.

Unfortunately, at the moment, she's even more distinctive. Gladys has had a go at being broody recently, and as a result plucked her chest and belly. Never a dignified look at the best of times. However, Gladys has accompanied this self styling with a partial moult. And when I say partial, I really mean just her head. I might be the only chicken keeper in the country in possession of a hen with a rapidly receding hairline.

She is taking her ugly duckling status hard. She shrieks her Skeksis complaint call at everyone and everything. The serama have taken to hiding from her, and even the other pekins are giving her a wide berth. The newspaper on the coop floor feels the brunt of her temper, and she is spending a lot of time shrieking in the coop and flinging strips of mutilated broadsheet out of the pop hole door. The others wisely let her go to bed first, and only venture in to the coop when she's settled down to sleep. No one risks perching next to her. To add insult to injury, I have smothered her in mite powder as a precaution. So now she looks like a middle aged, balding goth with dandruff. It's a hard look to rock, frankly.

To be fair to Gladys, growing new feathers is an uncomfortable process. Spotting that her crop area looked red earlier, I grabbed her for a closer look. As soon as my hands sank in to her under feathers, I could feel the sharp quills of her new plumage poking through. Unsurprisingly, she squawked and then pooed copiously down my trouser leg. I gently returned her to terra firma. She shook herself, muttered darkly, and stalked back in to the shrubbery where she still lies like a malevolent, balding feather duster.

I'm not going to disturb her.

Doris Returns

After five days of being force fed Baytril, Doris has finally returned to the Palace. Her eyes are considerably better, she's eating and drinking and to be honest I doubt she's infectious. The other hens are all symptom free, something which I am thanking my lucky stars for. With an indignant squawk, Doris fled her garage quarantine and landed amongst her flock mates. They barely looked up to welcome their sister home. Business as usual, then.

Celia is now decidedly straggly. She has taken to hiding in the coop out of the elements, and perhaps embarassment. Her deleted plumage really is a very sorry sight. No matter how much she attempts to arrange her sparse feathers, there's no disguising the bald patches. Celia is half the chicken she was. As yet, her new quills haven't made an appearance so she doesn't seem in any discomfort. I predict that next week she will need some tlc.

It's very windy and dark here this morning, and on their release the girls spent a scant five minutes being blown about the garden before giving up and retreating back to the shelter of the Palace. Hilda made her customery exit from the run, which is a frantically flapping fly/long jump. She generally lands right in the middle of the gently ambling flock and causes chaos. Today the wind carried her a little further, and she strutted about a bit feeling quite clever. She was roundly ignored. Chickens aren't big on praising individual achievements.

For now, all is calm.

Painful Separations

Doris is now in residence in the garage. The hospital wing has swung in to action and she is not overly impressed. Since thursday evening, I have been squirting .2ml of Baytril down her throat twice a day, and she has been making her displeasure known. Her condition seems no worse but no better. She seems to spend most of her time sitting in the mini coop and I can't be sure that she's eating or drinking unless I put her out in to the hospital run. Then, she pecks about a bit, drinks and nibbles at her food. This could be a sign of serious illness. Equally, it could be a sign of a depressed hen who has been separated from her flock.

Her demeanour isn't hunched, and she is still carrying her tail high. I don't think she's lost any weight, and she doesn't feel thin or scrawny. I feel sorry for her, locked away on her own in the garage to be honest. However, I know that the best way of ensuring her recovery, and the rest of the flock's health, is to continue as I am. The rest of the girls seem well, but I am keeping a close eye. They also seem oblivious to Doris being missing. Chickens are not generally sentimental creatures.

Celia has finally given up on being broody. I was just congratulating myself for this development when I spotted a huge pile of feathers in the corner of the Palace. Celia has chosen January to go in to moult. I swear that bird's biological clock is wonky. She is back mixing with the flock, and belatedly duffing up Gladys and Hilda. When she can catch them. Which is not often. Those hens can move. I was stroking her yesterday while she chatted away to me when something rather embarassing happened. I tickled her under the chin, while surruptitiously checking her general condition. Being broody for weeks on end rarely results in a beauty queen. I gave her a quick once over and was pleased to find her healthy, if just a bit scruffy. I ran my hand down her back and through her tail. And when I lifted my hand, most of her tail came with it. It was like a dandelion clock getting caught in a strong breeze. I looked down at my hand full of feathers, and looked at the hen in shock. For her part, she seemed to register from my reaction that something was up. Straining her neck around, she clocked her own bald bum. I've never seen a hen do a double take before, but Celia was clearly astonished. She looked at me, looked at the empty air where her once fine cushion had been, looked at the feathers in my hand and then squawked with horror. We both felt a bit awkward at this point, I suspect. I couldn't very well stick Celia's bum back on, and she couldn't easily walk away with any dignity. It was a stalemate. Being the human, I decided it was my responsibility to bring this encounter to an end. I took my handful of Celia to the composter, giving her the perfect opportunity to scuttle away in to the shrubbery to inspect the damage.

I later saw her rearranging what was left, much in the way a balding man might try and fashion a comb over. Poor chook.

(In completely unrelated news, I wanted to let everyone know about Hedwig. Hedwig was the little frizzle cockerel I hatched in the summer who I initially christened Nigel. He went to live with a lovely Twitter friend and was spoiled rotten. Sadly, Hedwig was found dead yesterday. With no obvious signs of illness, and no sign of attack, it seems it was just his time. My sympathies go to his owner, who I know adored the crazy little shuttlecock. I'll admit to feeling a little sad at his passing, but also know that his short life would have been extremely priviliged.)

The Rain It Raineth Every Day

We are in soggy, damp winter hell. In between bouts of rain, the fog descends just to ensure that everything stays dank and miserable. Several times on the way out to deal with the birds I have gone skidding across the patio on the slipperiest substance known to man: soggy chicken excrement. Lovely. I am beginning to think that the placement of these mini turds is deliberate. Maeve can often be seen loitering around the back step looking suspicious.

Poor ASBO Chicken is still in moult and it is beginning to get her down. Even her favourite pastimes of chasing underlings and ambushing superiors have lost their appeal. So desperately itchy is she that she will tolerate me rubbing her quill-spiky neck without attempting a fingerectomy. Her foot feathers have grown in beautifully, but the head, neck and hackle feathers are taking their time. Hopefully she will be back to her evilly gorgeous, bouffanted, black self by Christmas.

Celia is on day three of lock out. She seems to be coming around and taking more notice of the others, so my hopes are high that this approach will work. The dodgy-eyed Doris seems much better at this point and I am hoping that my trips to the vet are now over for this year. I think every keeper has a run of bad health in the flock, but after last years months of misery I rather feel that I've earned a few hassle free seasons. Of course, even typing this is tempting fate so I'm both touching wood and crossing fingers.

The Palace will soon have a bespoke sign courtesy of a very talented Twitter pal. Once it arrives and is in place expect a photo. It is everything I had hoped for and more, and even has the mighty Mille's featured. You will be impressed, I guarantee it.

Now I just have to source the perfect solar fairy lights and some bunting.

Mycoplasma Is Evil

Ok, I give up. After four days of squirting antibiotic eye drops in to Doris's spotty eye, I'm reaching for the Tylan. She still shows no respiratory symptoms, but now her other eye is bubbling slightly. I loathe dosing the whole flock, but it seems to cause less stress all round rather than seperating Doris and treating her on her own. Plus, myco is generally present in the whole flock if one shows symptoms. I still suspect that Doris is just low from her moult, but I'm not taking any chances. I am reminded of my long battle this time last year to save my beloved Mini and feel generally quite glum.

The weather hasn't helped my mood. It has been blowing a gale here now for two days and the ground is decidedly spongey. The chooks are not impressed and have stayed in the coop only venturing forth for pellets and the now medicated water. On occassional forays in to the run they sit on the perches out of the wind and we all eyeball each other miserably. Maeve's hackle feathers are growing in now, so she's slightly less demented and the whole flock is thankful.

I wrap up in wet weather gear to go out and attend to them which is a sight they find troubling. The wind snapping my windbreaker causes a kefuffle, so I haven't even had and chickenny cuddles to cheer me up. This morning, while cleaning the coop, I heard several sneezes and saw a few headshakes. I have my fingers crossed that everyone just has a cold, but my experiences last autumn make me feel terribly fatalistic.

I promise I'll cheer up for the next post.

Maeve Loses Her Mojo

Maeve is half the chicken she was. Before our very eyes, she is diminishing in size. It goes without saying that she is seriously narked about the whole affair. She angrily rips out stray feathers and spits them contemptuously on the grass. The coop is generously upholstered with black fluff which the other hens tip toe warily around. I wonder if chickens are superstitious and fear that ASBO's cowbag tendencies might be catching. In the middle of this feather storm sits a seething, raggedy creature no bigger than a pigeon.

I have tried comforting her, but got a nasty peck for my troubles. The welt is still on my finger. If I offer her treats, she either ignores me or picks up the piece of apple or crust of bread and tosses it on to the floor. All the time her orange eyes glitter with malevolence. I find it best to back slowly away.

The other hens are in fine form. Gladys and Hilda appear to have been accepted fully at this point, and all the girls sit together on the run perches and preen. Apart from Maeve, of course. Maeve is not feeling particularly proud of her appearance. To be fair, she does currently have a band of spikes where her neck feathers should be and no arse. It is not her best look. They studiously ignore her as she stroppily rips up the newspaper I use to line the coop floor and tosses it out of the pop hole door. They rightly recognise her attention seeking behaviour, and like good parents everywhere,  pretend it isn't happening.

So far we are weathering the storm.

Doris The Incredible Colour Changing Chicken

Huh. This is an odd thing. Doris, my blue pekin, is currently going through her moult. The poor thing hasn't enjoyed it much. Doris is prone to myco-type infections and any stress brings on a return of symptoms. For a few days, she had the sneezes and a runny eye. Luckily, it all seems to have settled down again now without me having to resort to Tylan. However, something unusual has occurred.

Doris has always been a pure blue pekin. Well, a pretty grey colour in reality, but blue is the official colour. Today while giving her the once over I found one jet black feather near her tail. Thinking it was a stray from Maeve, I went to pluck it free. Doris's shriek let me know that it was very firmly attached to her behind. I stared at in bemusement. Never has Doris, in her two years of residency, had a black feather. How curious. I quickly checked for any other randomly coloured plumage but came up blank. Hmmm.

I have two theories. One, that Doris in some bizarre reverse aging process is changing from her original grey to a darker hue. Perhaps she will be downhearted by this sign of impending decrepitude and will start tapping on the back door looking for an application of 'Nice'n'Easy'. Or, and I admit this is unlikely, ASBO Chicken is attempting to take over the flock by assimilation and Doris is her first victim. Perhaps the other birds will start showing random black feathering, slowly increasing until I have a coop full of Maeve clones. A chilling thought for Halloween.

I would be willing to hear a more plausable explanation.

God Help Us All

I have been secretly dreading this moment for weeks. Yesterday, while cleaning out the coop, I came across a single black feather. A jet black wing feather. I lifted it up, and a shiver ran down my spine. Maeve is in moult.

Maeve was hatched in January 2009, so last winter she didn't moult. I watched her all year, expecting a mini moult at some point, but it never came. The amazing ASBO Chicken has always been an unpredicatble lady, but I don't imagine that she will take this well. I can't say I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. This morning, there are a few bits of black fluff blowing about the lawn, and her magnificent tail is looking a bit skewiff. She came down for her breakfast as usual, but growled at the other hens face deep in the feeder. As one, they backed away. Even Mabel. No one wants to tangle with a grumpy Maeve.

To try and combat her filthy mood, I have added ACV to the water and a top dressing of poultry spice to their feed. She watched me do this from a pot on the patio, where she was attempting to dig up a clematis. Purely for the destructive fun of it. Apparently, her moult has not yet reached her foot feathers.

Every so often, I hear a demented shriek from the back garden. Maeve has decided that their should be an exclusion zone around her, and if any poor unsuspecting flock mate wanders too close, they get earache. The rest of the flock have had a few muttering meetings on the lawn, always keeping one eye on the glowering ninja in the shrubbery. The consensus seems to be that it would be best to leave her be. I think it's a wise decision.

I had some apples that were past their best, and took them outside for the girls. As the majority scoffed with abandon, Maeve stayed huddled in her dust bath. I approached with caution with half a granny Smith as a peace offering. The closer I got, the bigger Maeve grew. This ability to slowly raise and lower her hackles is quite impressive (always reminds me of that dinosaur in 'Jarassic Park'). Once the apple was within pecking range, I gently placed it on the ground and backed off. She eyeballed me the whole time, beak slightly open.
Once I had retreated to a safe distance, she investigated the treat. Obviously deciding it was wanting, she stood up, turned around and kicked mud all over it.

I predict a riot.

All Is Well

Doris has gone in to moult in the last few days. Copious amounts of silvery feathers are blowing about the garden making the place look untidy. The moulting hen seems quite embarassed about the whole situation and is lurking in the shrubbery, leaving soft piles of fluff every time she moves. The rest of the flock are being generously decorated, and Purdy spent a good ten minutes yesterday trying to remove one of Doris's knicker feathers from her comb. The Palace's grounds are a swirling mass of ex-Doris. I am secretly hoping for gale force winds just to tidy the place up a bit.

Maeve has been busy in the garden this week. She finally managed to dig up one of my recently planted daffodil bulbs. Not content with this minor act of vandalism, she dragged it over to the back step and left it there while I was eating a sandwich. The Dark One eyeballed me through the patio door, just to make sure that we understood each other. Attempting to plant things in her dust bath was not going to end well. With a resigned sigh, I replanted the bulb in a less sunny spot. She is training me well.

Gladys and Hilda are still running the flock gauntlet with aplomb. Celia has taken to giving them a hard time during her infrequent forays from the nest. They out run her easily, and follow impressive figure or eight routes around the other girls before coming back together to compare notes. Celia is benefitting from the exercise, but getting increasingly psychotic. Any day now she will explode through indignation.

In other news, it's possible that two more pretty ladies will be joining them by Christmas. Details to follow....

The Latest Season's Trends!

My millefleur girls are very special to me. They're special because they were the ladies which introduced me to the realities of hen keeping. I spent many weeks researching chickens, and the best way in which to keep them. Once Mabel and Maude arrived, I had to put all of my theoretical knowledge to the test. Every time one of them sneezed, I panicked and thought: myco. Every time one or other of them snaffled a stray knicker feather, I thought: calcium deficiency. Now, experience has taught me that a hen that sneezes might be doing so because she stuck her beak in something unsavoury, and that feather snaffling is sometimes done just because they don't yet know the difference between each other and food. Me and my mille's have been on a journey together, that thankfully they have survived.

Both girls are currently going through their moult. Typically, they spend the first half of said moult feeling rather rubbish. As the old plumage falls out and the new quills push through their skin, they are obviously in some discomfort. I always ensure that the flock is given supplements during moulting season. It takes considerable energy to grow new feathers, and this is a prime time for illnesses. Luckily, my mighty mille's have survived this first stage with nary a sniffle. They are now in to the emerging pattern phase.

The picture at the top of my blog is of Mabel when she was in her first year. Post moult, she became a lot whiter and more matronly looking. So I am watching her with interest as the new feathers begin to emerge. She is much happier in herself, and has decided to randomly thunder up the garden towards the new chicks, causing them to scatter in amusing ways. Once satisfied with their terror, she boks happily to herself. I can already see that her markings are going to be even whiter than last year. Do hens lose feather pigment as they age, I wonder? Will Mabel eventually be as white as Hilda and demand a blue rinse?

Maude is spending oodles of time dustbathing. I wonder if the new feather growth is itchy, and this is her way of scratching. Maude emerged from her moult last year stunningly beautiful. I very much hope that we have a similair effect this year.

The other girls will moult in turn, but it's not nearly as exciting as seeing what the mille's will do. A single colour hen will moult and grow back single colour feathers. A patterned hen, though, could surprise you. Not with corporate advertising on their backside, granted, but still. There are possibilities.

They should be displaying their latest creations within a fortnight.

Autumn Falls

Now that a good week has gone by, we are all settling down with our new flock. Gladys and Hilda have been out in a fenced off pen and getting their first taste of the great outdoors. The girls have shown minimum interest in the newcomers, with only Purdy really trying to stake her claim in the existing pecking order. Understandably, as bottom hen, she is not keen on any newbies rising above her in the chain of command. She can be seen strutting around the perimeter of the enclosure, puffing her chest out and grumbling. For the most part, Gladys and Hilda ignore her.

Maeve watched from a distance for the first day, and on the second sauntered over to flex her ASBO muscles. She was intrigued by Gladys, the anti-ASBO, with her curling feathers. Sensibly, Gladys refused to make eye contact and kept her head down. When her attention shifted to Hilda, however, there was an interesting development. Hilda was sat comfortably against the netting, which to be honest was a schoolboy error. Maeve glided up behind her, and gave an experimental peck. This was the equivalent of the school bully tapping you politely on the shoulder before punching you in the face. Hilda surprised us both, however, by reacting instantly and aggressively. Hackle feathers up, she rounded on Maeve and pecked back. Both birds jumped apart and regarded each other solemnly. After several moments, Maeve sauntered away. Interesting. Hilda went back to sunbathing, seemingly untroubled.

Mabel, our illustrious leader, is in full moult. The garden resembles an explosion in a pillow factory. Not to be out done, when I opened the coop this morning I found Maude sitting on a pile of her own rapidly dropped fluff. Where the Mille's lead the way, the others will certainly follow. I predict that I will spend most of the autumn picking up handfuls of feathers in an attempt to stop the ever tolerant husband wailing in dispair.

And that was the summer.