A chicken’s guide to keeping warm

The Cosy Cottage citizens are lucky in that we live in a relatively temperate climate (usually), even in the winter. But life can still get very chilly, especially for these chickens who live out in the garden coop. Thankfully, they have a lovely fluffy thick plumage so that helps. But the more heating aids, the better…

Every morning these days I scatter porridge on the ground. It used to be leftovers from the pot but the stickiness was not pleasing to my hands or the ladies’ beaks! So now I buy porridge that’s reasonably priced and scatter it from the packet. The foraging helps stop them getting bored too.

Corn is given in the afternoon, a couple of hours before bedtime (although these days, bedtime seems to be about 3pm and getting earlier and earlier). To avoid rats, it is given in the coop when the girls go in for the night.

Plenty of straw is always needed for bedtime. Although I’m sure half of it seems to get kicked ‘downstairs’ when the ladies get ready for bed.

Keeping an eye on the water supply is always vital. No one can drink frozen water after all!

Making adjustments to the coop to make it warmer is useful to do during these cold months.

And lastly, a tip from the ladies themselves – early bed and snuggling together helps fight against Jack Frost.

Early to bed…

Summer has been over for a long while and the weather is proving this fact in brutal honesty. The Cosy Cottage gang are facing up to facts – winter is coming. Jemima and Mabel have stopped their never-ending brooding and are venturing out again. Florence, ever the hard worker, is the only girl producing eggs but even she will soon stop when the nights get longer and longer.

And the biggest change for the chickens? It’s how the nights get darker earlier and earlier and stay dark for later in the morning. The guinea pigs may prance and frolic about at odd hours during the day and night but the hens are concerned about nightly intruders, namely Mr Fox. At night, they whisper horror stories about this handsome red-headed bogey man of wit and charm but with deadly intent. And, taught by their mothers since they were chicks themselves, they head to bed the minute they sense a change in the light.

“Time for bed girls,” proclaims head hen Jemima. Now rightfully regained her chief post after her brooding break in the summer. And they trot in after her. Some taking a little longer than others but all will be safely tucked up by the time it gets properly dark.

“Goodnight all,” they chorus to each other, before dreaming of worms, corn and digging…

Fact of the Day

Decreasing daylight hours will ’cause a slow down in egg production. On average a hen needs 14 to 16 hours of light on a regular basis to stay in lay’. This can be natural or a combination of natural and artificial light.

(Information courtesy of Mini Encyclopedia of Chicken Breeds and Care by Frances Bassom) 

 

Sunbathing in September

Jemima, Dottie and Mabel enjoy the September sun

The Cosy Cottage chickens took advantage of the good weather in September to lazily bask and bathe in the sun.

Can you spot Florence and Ava?

The Broody Sisters

“When are you expecting your babies?”

“Soon, I hope, Jemima. I’m expecting five, you?”

“Six, I believe. Not long to go now, Flo.”

At this point, Dottie shakes her head in impatience. It is the silly season again and there are no eggs, no chicks, no pregnancies, no potential fathers in the vicinity and yet three of her friends have, once again, gone ‘broody’, sitting around all day in the nesting area, clucking about nothing except their invisible pregnancies. 

If you read my blog last year, you would have encountered a post called Brooding Buddies. I was hoping that situation would be a one-off but no, once again, we have a similar scenario.

For one day and one night earlier this year, Dottie was showing signs of broodiness.

Then she snapped out of it.

But Florence, after a hard-working spring, laying eggs every day, decided that she would like to become a mother.

So she sat down all day, every day – or she would do if her cruel leader of the pecking order – i.e me – didn’t keep taking her out and putting her next to water and food.

That’s the thing with broody chickens, all sense flies (pardon the pun!) out the window and they don’t eat or drink unless they’re taken out of their broody spot.

I separated Florence, put her in a hutch for a few hours, gave her a bath – none of these worked. Closing the pophole meant she would look for somewhere else to brood – like a plant pot.

And Florence hogged the nesting area unless I closed the pophole. Yes, there are other places to lay eggs but hens being hens, they like things just-so and just-right. That particular nesting area was for all of them and Florence’s behaviour was beginning to irk them.

Jemima started giving her little ‘I am the boss and you should behave yourself’ pecks.

Mabel started giving her dirty looks – which escalated to pecks when she came near her.

And then Jemima started ignoring Flo, and seemed to be more easy-going but actually it was only a precursor to having maternal feelings herself.

And you guessed it, the next morning she was huddled next to Florence in the nesting area.

Jemima had it bad last year so I was not surprised by this change from ‘head hen’ to ‘mother hen’.

So instead of Florence being given a ‘behave yourself’ or ‘snap out of it’ peck by Jemima, the two of them would now comfortably nestled together under the tree (after being ousted from their broody area).

So now there were three sensible girls – Dottie, Ava and Mabel.

Mabel was still angry at Florence but, oddly, ignored Jemima, who she still respected.

And then one day, I went to the coop to let/take the bantams out and Mabel, up on the top as always, fluffed her feathers up and made an angry sound at me. She even moved her head around to see where my hand was, was Mabel going to peck me?

Not you as well,  Mabel?

I have resigned myself to a summer of lifting the three broodies out and keeping an eye on them to make sure they are eating and drinking. Little Ava and Dottie are, so far, behaving themselves … so far!

https://cosycottageandthequestforthegoodlife.wordpress.com/2018/06/23/brooding-buddies/

An interview with Florence

Florence was very privileged to be interviewed a couple of months ago by Doodlepip of A Guy Called Bloke’s blog. She gained permission from Head Hen Jemima to be spokeshen for the other Bantam Girls. 

To see her interview, visit:

Petz Interviews – The Cosy Cottage Chicken Clan 76

(And if you know of any furry/feathered etc pals who would like to be interviewed, visit the above website) 🙂 🐔

The mystery of the pixie egg

A few months ago, I came across a tiny egg. Now bantam eggs are small compared to the average hen’s egg (maybe about half the size) but this was a tinier than tiny egg. Was it laid by a quail? Or a leprechaun’s hen? Pictured above is the pixie egg next to a bantam egg. The bantam egg is half the size of a full-size egg so can you imagine how petite this one was? 

I had never seen the like.

Just to make sure no fairy chickens had infiltrated my hens’ coop  I looked for a rational explanation in my library.

And in Frances Bassom’s Chicken Breeds and Care, Frances reasoned why this may have happened.

She said, ‘When a hen is just starting out on her laying career, she occasionally lays very tiny ‘wind eggs’. They can frequently be as small as a marble and usually have no yolk’.

Why this happens is because of ‘a small leak of albumen into the oviduct’. A shell covers this albumen, thanks to the response of the ‘egg-producing mechanism’.

Once the chicken starts laying regularly, wind eggs are infrequent, concludes Frances.

So who was the culprit of this wind egg?

I reckon Ava, as, along with Mabel, she is the youngest of the girls and had previously only laid a few eggs before this cute but remarkable one appeared.

And no, I never ate it.

 

A little pear tree

As I have earlier mentioned, plants and hens sometimes – often – don’t go together. Either the plants don’t like the chickens and end up poisoning them (Thankfully I think my bantams are too canny to eat poison, touch wood) or the hens like the plants – too much, unfortunately, as it can often be a case of a nibble here, a nibble there, and suddenly the greenery has vanished into thin air.

One solution is to get a fruit tree. The tree leaves should be too high for hungry hens to forage and a tree bearing fruit is always a useful plant for a garden.

So here’s a big welcome to Cosy Cottage’s conference pear tree.

No, Mabel, it’s not for you to eat.

• Facts of the Day 
• 1. The conference is ‘reliable and self-fertile… It has long, pale green fruit.’
• 2. Other varieties of pear are Jargonelle, Beurre Hardy and Marguerite Marillat.
• 3. The pear’s ‘natural home is in the countries around the Mediterranean – it needs more warmth and sunshine than an apple tree’ if it is to fruit well.
• Information courtesy of Growing Food by Anna Pavord