Attack of the fox?

Saw the Fox tonight again, hanging around at dusk...so shot outside to lock in all the chickens, even though they were all inside the electric fenceing...

All hens present and correct at bedtime , including the wild rover Spot, who I managed to shut in tonight!
So...I decided to do a big swap around when all the birds were sleepy, later...so he and the 2 Legbars are then in the Eglu run for a few days and the others can come outside in the electric fence area or, stay inside the bigger secure run.

LATER TONIGHT UPDATE....

Tonight was a bit...worrying ,though..

I went out to get Spot the feral cockerel from inside the hen house to transfer him to another closed run and house. I did that and then opened up the big house and run where the other two ( recently ) gone feral Legbar hens were enclosed. Got one, shut door, trudged to Eglu where Spot was, put Legbar hen in with him.

Went back to get Legbar no 2...she flew out of the door as soon as I opened it!..and ran around in the dark squarking madly.....she got the other side of the electic fence and then, as I went to try to grab her...she and I froze because the fox was there...Foxy made a lunge for the hen , I shouted and Foxy backed off BUT just stood there, growling...about 6 foot away from me?

I grabbed Legbar hen, shouted again at Foxy and finally it ran off into the wood.....

All 3 Legbars are now shut inside the Eglu and run, where they will stay for a few days, and the other 9 hens will be inside the secure runs for the next few days as well..

Have NEVER seen a fox "square up" to a human like that before...it really wasn't scared at all....

a bit worrying TBH......

Late night fox activities

At 9 pm on Sunday I went out to shut the chickens in the Orchard, they won't go to bed for at least another hour or so at this time of year but are content to be shut in the Orchard until they deign to go inside their runs and houses.

But.....there was no Capt Flint, no Ginger, no Henny and no Long John Silver.

This was serious as the two cockerels are NEVER away from the hens and Henny and Ginger, as joint top hens are always together and always waiting for their food, or have taken already up their spots in Peckingham or Cluckingham Palace.

The other hens were all very agitated and I finally found Ginger, unhurt but shaking, inside the Eglu, where she hasn't lived for 1 1/2 years.

No sign of Henny or the cockerels, though....:-(

I went to look around the garden, and then went out into the wood. By this time it was dark and I had to use a torch.

I very quickly found Capt Flint, lying on his side with his neck twisted, wheezing and eyes closing over. Feathers all around him, he couldn't even stand up and was obviously not going to make it.

I left him lying on the ground, to go and get Compostman as I needed some help in sorting all this out and finding the others. When I came back, Capt Flint had gone...he had managed to get up and get himself into a load of nettles and brambles and try as we might, we couldn't get hold of him...he was mighty lively for a "dead" bird.

So...after wading through nettles and brambles for a very long time in the dark, we finally had to leave him to the night...

So...next morning, I go to open up the hens and who is sitting on top of the Dorking run? yep, Cap't Flint!

he is absolutely fine, eating, drinking, mating (!) and generally being, well, a Cockerel.

I am astonished, I really am.

Henny and Long John Silver also re appeared, which was good!

Willow lays an egg!

This is Willow. She is a very sweet, rather shy, very small Silver Dorking pullet. This was Willow yesterday, she kept on fussing around, repeatedly going in and out of the Eglu, not settling down to eat or dust bathe...she seemed agitated, so I watched her carefully for a bit to see if she was OK. Willow is very scared of "the big hens" and never goes near Cluckingham Palace, where they all live, so imagine my surprise when I opened up the nest box and saw...this! I had noticed her comb was looking more red in the last few days and she had started to squat when I went near her, so I had a good idea what might be going on.... and later on I found ....this! A tiny egg! it weighed about 40 g, as compared to the Henny one next to it which was 85 g. Willow came strutting out of Cluckingham Palace, SO pleased with herself! She proclaimed to the WHOLE WORLD very loudly that she HAD LAID AN EGG!!!! Long John Silver was very agitated all the time she was sitting inside the nest box, he kept on running back and forth... and finally settled on standing next to it...he was VERY pleased when she finally emerged!

Chickenailia Jan 2009

It is that time again! January has whizzed by in a wrtiting-portfolio-and-not-much else blur (for me) but I DO have the egg and general behaviour report for all things chicken related here at Compost Mansions ;-))

Despite January being of very short day lengths, and thus in theory being one of the lowest egg producing months, I have had a good lot of eggs from all the girls. It started badly, the first few weeks went very wrong! I was cock a hoop over how well the girls had done in December, if you remember and then I had hardly any eggs the first week of Jan!

Henny laid 20 eggs in December after coming back into lay from her moult and I was eggspecting a good lot of eggs from my best and biggest egg layer. But then she stopped! She HAS just started again and laid a good total of 5 eggs in the last 5 days.

Ginger started (finally) to squat for me and then came back into lay and has laid 9 eggs in 9 days, so I am hopeful that Henny and Ginger will be contributing regularly to the feed bill very soon!



Attilla laid 12 eggs and has more nice new feathers on her wings and bottom now, she looks very smart!

Cathy has laid no eggs at all but is a sweet ex battery hen and "purrs" most sweetly. I have finally managed to capture her purring on video! Listen carefully!And she IS purring, I think you will agree!




Sweetiepie started laying 4 days after she left the Sweetie Six to their own devices and had laid 13 eggs in 15 days at the end of December. She has continued this trend and laid a grand total of 27 eggs this month so is a joint star of the month with Babs!

Genghis Hen has been in fine form this month, no illnesses at all, she DID lay a very strange "egg" last week though, ...poor old girl :-(

The forced egg laying (due to the artificial light they are kept under) messes up battery hens sometimes and they just can't lay properly afterwards.....




But yet again, the absolute stars are Sweetie, Babs and Goldie! Yep the new girls laid the most eggs! Babs laid 27 and Goldie laid a magnificent 28 eggs out of a possible 31.

Goldie is therefore Chicken of the Week (see top right sidebar)

Babs head feathers are slowly growing back (she lost them due to being pecked, poor thing) and I have had to paint some magic purple spray on her head to stop the feather pecking. She was NOT impressed with this process I can tell you...

The Silver Dorkings continue to delight, Cap't Flint is now as large as the big girls although he still keeps a respectful distance from them. They all bully him and he keeps well away!



Long John Silver is very friendly to me and I hope that continues. He has just started mounting the hens and yesterday he "had a go" at Henny, Ginger, Babs, Goldie and Cathy! Phew where does he get the energy? He has also (this week) started to crow.....but that's OK, it's rather nice!



Ruby, Violet, Buffy and Willow are very sweet and now cluck rather than giving strangled squarks all the time.

With the weather being so cold I have been giving the chickens warm mash and lots of extra treats and high protein nibbles to keep them warm and happy and as a reward because I love them so.

As we have been having short days and it has been quite overcast and gloomy on some days the girls are doing really well to lay so many eggs! Hen egg laying is controlled by day light so we really are getting a good return from our girlies.

They laid 110 eggs this month, which is really pretty good. From 6 egglaying hens
(forget about Genghis and Cathy the ex battys) they have averaged 3.5 eggs per day, which isn't bad going I think! AND the egg laying was 5 or 6 a day from the 6 laying hens this last week. Hopefully the better weather, the end of moulting and the beginning of the fab four Dorking girls coming into lay will mean more eggs for me to sell and recoup some of the feed bill as well.

I have, however, finally broken even with the feed bill this month....the girls have earned their keep this month, quite literally!

THANK you all, my lovely, lovely girls and boys, you make my life very happy!)



Henny and Sweetiepie.

Cock fighting!

I went out yesterday to put the chickens to bed and found Long John Silver Dorking with a bloody throat, looking very sorry for himself in the corner of the Broody Ark. His beautiful speckled white neck feathers were covered with blood, it looked dreadful and at first I feared the worst,( fox, cat, mink attack etc)

So, I picked him up, tucked him close up under my arm for comfort and carried him over to the garage, where there was better light and the chicken first aid kit lives. I examined Long John Silver and it transpired he only had a small wound on one of his wattles (the red bits of skin which hang down underneath the beak) and was fine everywhere else. Phew!

We put on some surgical gloves (I had a job as its hard to do with a chicken under your arm!) then Compostman opened the sterile saline sachet and wipes for me (as I had my hands full of Long John Silver!) and then I gently cleaned away all the blood and had a good look at the wound. It was actually not bad, a small nick only, just it had bled a lot! I puffed some Veterinary Wound powder on to the area and made sure there was no blood visible any more (as the other chickens will go for any bloody wound and peck at it). I wondered about putting on some Gentian Violet but decided not.

I then gentled poor old Long John Silver a bit, gave him some corn in my hand and petted him till he had calmed down, then put him in his run (with Ruby and Buffy to snuggle up to for company) for the night.

Compostman said he had seen Long John and Cap't Flint squaring up to each other earlier on, so it must have been as a result of a fight. I had already separated out the two cockerels a few days ago into separate runs and houses at night time because of their increased aggressiveness to each other. I had put Cap't Flint in the Eglu with Violet and Willow, Long John Silver had the Broody Ark with Ruby and Buffy

This did seem to have worked as they are only in there overnight and the rest of the time they have LOADS of space to avoid each other and the "big" hens!




My problem at the moment is the cockerels are still too young to dominate the big hens, who chase them and laugh at them, quite frankly!

My long term plan is to put let one cockerel have a harem in Cluckingham Palace and the other have a harem in the Eglu, and they can all just work it out! As there is plenty of space and enough hens this should work OK, I have seen it work quite happily before....but not until the cockerels are big enough to actually "persuade" the older hens that they WANT to be part of the harem!

So...in the meantime Cluckingham Palace is off limits because it is occupied by the "big girls" and I have to sort this out for myself...and make sure the cockerels are separated out at night.

Teenagers! Honestly!