They didn’t see at all put off ealier in the month as the snow fell, but I suspect that was because they thought it was a shower of corn.

This mornings response to the snow came as no great surprise, all very non plussed. Doris stepped on it, around it & tried to eat it. Florence was the first to brave some eager steps, albeit the already melted ones.

It was Mave who bravely led the group out to the clearing & through the snow to the top of the garden.

Heres a few of my favourite shots of the day

Coop & The Gang

Flo In The Snow

The Gang

Snow Day Family Portrait

Foot Prints In The Snow

]]> http://coopandthegang.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/our-first-snow-day/feed/ 0 coopandthegang Coop & The Gang Florence In the Snow The Gang Family Portrait Feet Prints http://coopandthegang.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/oh-baby-its-cold-outside/ http://coopandthegang.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/oh-baby-its-cold-outside/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:00:01 +0000 Coop & The Gang http://coopandthegang.wordpress.com/?p=162 ]]> Well it appears winter has arrived, with the signs of a hard frost not cleared by the dusk of the day drawing in and the first frozen drinker of the year.

This morning was a bit of a palaver, everyone keen and eager to rise and then one feel of the bitter chill in the air the girls were less than impressed. On discovery of the frozen water trough I headed up the garden to get the replacement bought earlier in the year in anticipation. At which point the girls duly squawked and followed, with tiny little quick footsteps as if to say I don’t like this but I know you’ve got corn so gimmie. They endured for as long as they could and it was straight back to Coop, they all snuggled up in the far corner which is sealed on both sides, at which point they had fresh food and water so I retired back to bed to warm my hands and toes.

As I suffer with Raynauds which is likened to being allergic to the cold more specifically a change in temperature I am very aware of how miserable it is to be cold. Are the Chickens likely to be cold? There is a little part of me that thinks the answer is yes but in reality you don’t need to worry about your hens being cold, they’ll be fine!

When I looked at preparation for the winter months earlier in the year, I looked at the possibility of a day light bulb to increase egg production but decided against it on the basis of a more natural approach but I also looked at heat pads to underneath the drinkers, the big problem I found is that those available on the market are round and our drinker is a oblong trough. They’re relatively simple and ensure chickens have fresh running water at all times; it may be a vital move if the weather continues to descend.

Coop has been inspected for drafts and the ventilation option changed over to winter at the rear of coop, as the sun came up the girls warmed up and came out to play, dust bathing and playing with their treat dispensing ball filled with meal worms and corn for some essential before bed fat.

We are lucky have chosen hardy and sturdy birds more by luck than judgement and our only immediate cold weather defence is Vaseline. Any bird with a large wattle or comb could benefit with an application to help prevent frostbite on exposed and sensitive areas, a little hat and gloves if you please.

Some chicken breeds will require more attention in the cold some of the more ornate breeds… anything with some exposed flesh or light feather. So glad I didn’t acquire the three frizzles on sale at the last Open Farm Sunday at my friend’s farm they would need a heat pad and a blanket. Although that said, our hen house is quite large and my birds are but three, seems like a rather good excuse to acquire one or two more. Or perhaps just a heat lamp!

I can’t work out if they think the paint spatters on the back step are corn they can eat or that I’ve taught them too many bad habits by always feeding them while I sit on the back door step and fussing them when they started tapping.

We live in an end terrace, built up small estate. We have screaming babies, small yelling children, irritating yappy dogs, catawalling cats and cars wheel spinning in and out of the road to visit three doors down at all hours. In spite of all this in the quiet times, our estate is quiet. Till recently.

Doris

Hens for the most part don’t make a lot of noise, they’ll alert each other to danger, squawk to reintegrate themselves into the group and announce they have laid an egg, but there is no unrelenting alarm call that comes with a cockerel.

Mave has always been a talker, well a squeaker and likes to interact with you on a you cluck I’ll cluck basis that proper soothing cluck cluck sound that really does warm your heart. Florence is always a barometer for danger, an odd cluck when she’s really had enough of being under your arm to a full on b’caw ‘b’caw when she spies the neighbours cat or a red kite apart from this you wouldn’t know Florence was around…the amount of times we’ve tripped over her as we didn’t even realise she was there.

Doris, well she was quite. Recently she has somewhat fallen in love with the sound of her own voice, not the soothing cluck cluck…the kind of chicken-a-walling that means at 7am, I can hear her through our closed double glazing. She is the only hen on top form presently, Mave is still covered in pin feathers and Flo has only two remaining tail feathers for her efforts with the moult.

This morning they were out of the hen house at first light with food and water but Doris just wanted to chat. I thought maybe we had an intruder in the garden, but a peak out of the curtain showed nothing other than Doris frog marching herself up and
down the front of Coop belting out her morning tune one b’caw after another, I hoped she’d wear herself out with all the yammering but no the only thing that settles her is seeing someone she knows outside.

Which sadly at the moment is my only option, while I would rather she didn’t realise she could summon me on a Saturday and Sunday to her our neighbours ALWAYS sleep with their window open & they’re good people who deserve a lie in. Really I do just want her to be quiet.

With Doris is doesn’t seem to matter if she’s cooped up or free range, if she wants to wail like banshee she will at the moment. Fortunately it doesn’t appear to be earlier than the permitted noise hour of 7am but still not everyone wants to be up at that hour. While tidying the garden and giving Coop and good deep clean out and while the girls were stuffing their faces on worms and slugs uncovered by the clean up we had Doris up on the table for a good look over, she’s not in pain, her skin and feathers are good, nice clean eyes, strong beak, good colouring, so why the hollering bird?

I do worry about the noise from Coop & The Gang, it’s not a “normal” noise you’d put on your urban environment list of most people so it stands out and we benefit from the laughs & the eggs and even I find it annoying sometimes!

This week we have permanently black out the windows in the hen house with blackboard paint, precision not required and I am considering lining the door once we’ve done this to act as a little insulation noise and otherwise. Any other suggestions?

They provided 12 perfect eggs between them for Christmas morning scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, there would have been more had I looked a little harder. We have a hider in our midsts.

My money is on Doris, who on the night time inspection is always found resting in the nest box. She kicks all the bedding out the way and snuggles down, she’s more than happy for you to have a stroke and feel under her for the odd egg or two but left over night on them you’ll find them gone the next day.

It wasn’t till we were home late one mild night and decided to leave the girls out for the night, we are relatively predator free & lord knows the girls would give as good as they get wake me up and I am more than capable of throwing things out of the window with relative accuracy that would see most things smaller than a wild boar out of the way.

I left collecting eggs that day till the light was fading, she liked the fuss but there was nothing, she decided to take her space on the perch and with a whip of her wing she dislodged some shavings on her exist, what’s that…that looks egg coloured. Once she’d departed I started to move the shavings out of the way, I rootled in all the corners and one egg, two eggs, three eggs, four. Two a piece for Florence and D Unit.

Florence is a stealth layer, you rarely notice she’s gone to lay an egg, as soon as she’s hears some fun somewhere else she’s off and her laying and egg song isn’t the most dominant in the group. I also don’t think she spends enough time in the next box to be the hider.

I’ve considered if Doris is broody. Out of all the girls I suspect she is the truest to her breed and with that comes a higher change of becoming broody, a modern hybrid is less likely to have this desire…apparently. But despite her egg song being both loud and proud, I’m not convinced. She does tend to sit on a number of eggs at the end of the day and chickens typically won’t start to incubate until a whole clutch is laid. She seems in fine feather between legs and breast and she’s not growling at me when I pet her on the box and once they eggs are gone she will happily leave the nest box and roost on the perch. We have had one broody poo, a lovely flat glob of poo in the nest box that smelt so bad but for every egg removed she’s placing another one but she’s not nest building as such, we’ve had no added leaves, twigs of straw bought up, just most of the bedding kicked to the sides and used to hide eggs.

My next thought was predators and although chickens aren’t credited with being very smart they are always smarter than people give them credit for, we get taps on the back door when they want feeding, fuss or both and they even sit on the windowsills watching what we’re doing. We’ve never had an incident of any of the gang showing an interest in eating eggs, even when we had the two soft shells earlier in the year, I was more worried about getting them out of the way before they did. We’ve seen no signs of broken eggs so I can’t see that she’s hiding them from her fellow coop mate.

Maybe Doris is just being funny, maybe she is thinking about getting broody but doesn’t really know whats going on. We’ll keep an eye out and see how she goes. The mothership kindly picked up Coop & The Gang a rubber egg for Christmas should we need to formulate an intervention!

We made one fundamental rookie mistake with Coop & The Gang, they have names & I love them. If they never laid me an egg again I wouldn’t care, they’re not workers they’re family and we have no drive for self sufficiency at present so we really are just having fun & so are they, heres to you girls, your best bits and your not so best bits.

Mavis: Excuse me, what are you looking at?

Doris: Say What?

Flo, A face only a mother could love

In 2012 we hope to move and use everything we’ve learnt with Coop & The Gang to give them better, a new coop in the designing and a better use of space with more fun so we can have as many laughs and more together.

I don’t remember the garden being this wet last year but as I keep reminding myself I had no reason to go out into the garden this time last year & can well believe I just didn’t. Following the flooding of the garage from the rains earlier in the year we had it flushed and surprise the surprise the run off appear right in front of coop, typical.

The Chickens were the first to complain, Mave more so than her usual disapproval of the weather. They’re a funny bunch and a little rain doesn’t normally put them off but this was a storm of epic proportions, If they could save a third on their car insurance they two would have bought chest waders with the savings.

One evening I came home to three puddles in coop and the starts of a full flowing river. Eek. They were all in the hen house, mud up to their knees looking less than impressed. I’d not been doing the morning feeds as he indoors had been working from home, I was informed that three puddles and a river by torch light was much better than it looked this morning in the real day light. Right battle plan.

We head to the trade store…15 slabs, 7 bags of pea shingle and some little miniature fence later and we’ve had some idea of building a patio in the dark by torch light while the girls are asleep. We slid coop up the garden, pegged out the area with the miniature fence, filled with pea shingle and laid three slabs deep by five slabs wide & lifted Coop & The Gang back in situ within two hours, in the dark by torch light.

Considering it was in the dark and wonky as you like we were relatively impressed with our efforts even more so in the day light when it’s settled quite well and turned out not so bad.

The morning after however, no one seemed very impressed with us at all. It took Flo and Doris ten minutes to come downstairs and Mave wasn’t coming out at all. She took one look turned tail and headed straight back into the hen house. Oh no…not even some scattered corn was getting her down, I fed her in the hen house so at least she had eaten and left for work. By the end of the day she had come down and filled her tummy but she was not impressed.

Following a covering of straw and some regular corn smatterings to keep them turning the straw they seem to have come round to the idea, a nice way of keeping their nails and beaks in check, nice to be able to give them the run of the garden for earth snufflings and at least it stops me fretting when the heavens do open.

An alarming amount of feathers have come off Mave, a few nights she perched alone with feathers scattered around…neither part unusual for the moult, its likened to a human having the flu…don’t touch me, don’t even look at me! Pin feathers are soft and full of blood so can be very sore when ruffled or even touched. Maves always snuggled in the middle as top hen. A little worried lice were back…I wanted to wake her & bring her in. My better half persuaded me to let her sleep.

I bought her in, a guide of the house under my arm & then an inspection from my lap. Phew, no lice but a hand full of feathers so a handful of corn on the blanket & some chatter proved she was in fine spirits, good colour, clear eyes & nose. Back to Coop with a full tum.

Every morning we have a hen house full of Maves beautiful downy vent feathers . But she’s still first to the feeder & to stick her beak out of coop to inspect the forecast.

Having read some of the forums & sought some chicken club advice some extra high protein and energy treats purchased in the hope that extra protein would help Mave replenish her feathers a little quicker. We fed Mave in isolation for a week to ensure she was getting fair feed on the days I wasn’t home during the week. At the weekends three bowls, 10 minutes each, no hanging around eat it or lose it!

Mave seems to have come through the worst now, she’s a completely different colour around her neck,  her crop and wattle are still pale but she’s in fine spirits. Meanwhile Im still collecting the feathers & find myself dipping my hand in to the downy fuffly lovelyness. Maybe I’ll use them as a filling for something, waste not want not.

Just as I thought we were settling down following lice & with the light change I’d hoped the girls were settling into a routine to see them through the darker days. On my return home from my mornings duties, Flo was getting the usual abuse & Doris was pecking mash off her beak & I thought I saw something funny in coop. A lot of rather odd looking spaghetti lengths loosely held together with some brown.

Little fork in hand, I enter coop & smuggle it out of the way, I let the girls snuffle around while I tidied up & found some treats. I found our wormer and mixed up a small amount with feed, corn & some meal worms for interest. At this point it was confirmed not to be Doris…she pooped on my carpet. It was however Flo or Mave who deposited some more spaghetti hoops on the back step. You can google yourself chicken poo with worms its gross, but I didnt find anything that came close to what we encountered.

Knowing full well that worms can destroy a hen we had medication in our kit and were 6 monthly dosing so I was surprised & a little dissapointed to see we had worms. They’d not let me know, maybe Maves moult was just covering the fact she looked dishevelled with dry mangled feathers? She’s always had a boney keel but she was putting weight back on & no one had muck around their vent which always gives a way internal issues.

A drop in egg production is a noticeable sign of worms, but also of winter. No one looked or felt underweight, depressed or full of worms. So, how did they get them? Well worms lay eggs, chickens pass eggs. Slugs & soil help the eggs hatch & the chicken eats the eggs or larvae and we get worms.

I sanitise the ground we keep coop on, I keep feed dry…we are unfortunate the Coop is in the boggy part of the garden where the soak away from the front ends, but coop is for the most part dry. We have many garden visitors who dont help, it only takes one unwormed animal to pass by and we are slug and wormy heavy…& my girls can snuffle out a slug or a worm at 10 paces. They’ll tear around the garden just to ensure its theirs and despite a constant supply of fresh water they do like the rain waters that gathers in oddest places I’ve never even realised I need to tip out.

Flubenvent mixed up with crumb & mash & a tiny spot of oil, smaller feeds mean the girls can’t selectively feed on non medicated food in the garden & some added nutrients in the water for seven days and no further suspicious looking passings passed, it seemed out worming routine worked and was doing exactly what it was meant to. Phew, they do like to keep me on my toes!

Not a groundbreaking week for Coop & The Gang but some exciting news has lead to thoughts of pastures new & a better life for my lovely little ladies. Got my sights on a grand design with a garden focused round them.

I’ve safely boxed 12 eggs for Stir Up Sunday, the Sunday next before advent where the girls will be contributing to the preparation of the families Christmas pudding.

With this in mind they’ve had some nice treats to say thank you, mixed corn, meal worms & a peanut butter mess to keep energy levels up. It seems to be working, Im happy to announce we’re lice free & have been for a few weeks. Mave has bulked back up & dusting is on the maintenace routine for every 6 to 8 weeks in a hope we can keep them at bay over the winter weeks.

We’ve had fun with feeders again this week, now that is a post I do need to sit down & write. Two nights I’ve come home to the top very much unattached from the bottom. What now I’ve tried them all?

With the modifications which have happened to Coop following the last clean, the ramp has been removed for health & safety reasons. The part attaching the ramp to the hen house gets a fair amount of abuse from poo as its within aiming distance of the favoured perch & very well trampled by pooey feet.

As a result when brushed with a stiff brush part of it came away! Oh no, I broke Coop, help help help! I scurried the girls away, what if they got a toe caught, or a beak….its shiney! I found a screwdriver, took a big deep breath and tried with all my might. Phew, it came off and not such  bad thing, it needed a good clean.

What will the girls do? Can I get a box, do they need some stairs. Well the answer is no, before I’d got the removable base back in Coop Doris had hoped up and said hello. As the week has gone on it appears the girls are very capable & seemingly enjoying jumping to & from the hen house. In the morning they get points for dismount and do appear to be trianing for the olympics, Flo bunny hops down as the first awake she has no one to step on, Mave takes a little back step and then gives her best jump. Doris as the last up has to take a good run up, part avoid a feeder and either Florence or Mave, we did get a little cute wing and leg kick from her this morning. Aww.

But without the ramp there is more space in Coop so we have introduced the outside feeder I was saving for pastures new but what they hey. Its up on legs with rain hat purchased from the CLA game fair this year for a steal. Its only day two but its still intact…baby steps,baby steps. But its still clean & not pooped in….rare!

Tonight  its going to end up in every possible part it comes down to & covered in poo now I’ve said this. Oh well.

The odd feather has been appearing in Coop, in the garden & in the hen house. She’s looking pretty shabby around her neck but not so much in her tail as I expected.

At first I thought it was lice, poor Mave. More powder? A good scratch? Some oinment, a cream? A wash. Fortunately none of the above, the lice seem under control & I suspect its just the moult, replacing old feathers for new.

Usually happens when a hen has seen her first season, a completely harmless procedure that happens over

Mave Pin Feathe

4 to 6 weeks from losing to rejuvinating.

Its essential to keep the girls well fed, build up energy levels so new feathers are strong & they’re no

t knocked for six in the process. Mave has missed the odd lay which isn’t uncommon in the process, despite her being the oldest in the gang I figured based on approximate date of birth she’d be a spring moulter rather than an autum girl, but maybe she just likes the pretty colours too.

Typical Mave, just as I’m worrying about how best to keep them warm over the winter she decides to lose her feathers! Good job she’s never taken a serious interest in flight other than to shoulders & to knees so we’ve never clipped her wings but if we were this wouldn’t be the time to reclip.

On her morning decent from coop she looks rather odd, but on closer inspection following a house invasi

on she’s regrowing nicely with pin feathers appearing on the back of her neck, I was a little freaked out when I first saw them…she’s a chicken not a hedgehog.

To support additional feather growth, any aditional protein source is mostly welcome. A scheduled yogurt & seed feast is on the cards  as a treat for my lovely little ladies.