Chicken Diary

Tuesday 19th June 2012

Thinking it was the longest day, Sue got up especially!
Tomorrow darling.
(Yes, that is a dressing gown under the coat.)

In an effort to get to the bottom of what's going on with the eggs, I've decided to be organised and keep a chicken diary. I can't keep an eye on them all day, but I can take note of who's laying and the size, colour and strength of their eggs (if I can pinpoint who laid them.)

Now it may seem like favouritism, but some of our chickens have names and some don't. It tends to be the ones with character that get named. But for me to keep an egg diary, it will be easier if all the hens have names. Cockerel is just called Cocky and any young cockerels won't be named for obvious reasons!

This young Legbar cockerel looks shocked
by that last sentence.

 

Our Indian Game hen will get a name
when she starts laying.
Now there's an incentive!

Anyway, today Elvis was to be found sitting tight on her egg. She lays small, pale eggs. If I let her she would go broody again. Chestnut was also sitting and had a darker, medium-sized speckly egg under her (presumably hers) . This is good news as I've not seen her near the nest boxes for a while now. And the newly named Hazel (the scraggiest brown hen) I think laid an egg too today. Anyway, three intact eggs is an improvement at least.

As you can see in the two piccies above, the teenagers have grown up. The four of them are the friendliest chickens we have, which is a bit of a shame as three of them are cockerels. It may be that two get to live, as we could use them for breeding. So those two Legbar cockerels had better start being nice to me before I choose the lucky one!

When they were let out into the big wide world, the teenagers took readily to the new chicken house, which the established chickens have mostly ignored, but two days ago, following a sinister and heinous crime, they were evicted.

For this was when three baby chicks became two! They're still allowed back in to roost, but during the day they will have to start mixing with the others a bit more if they want to use alternative accommodation.

It's not that I suspect them of the deadly deed, though they are not totally out of the picture, it's just that Chick of Elvis and her two babies need their own pad.

In fact I do have a suspect in mind. For the past few days a dark, shadowy figure has been lurking around the chicken pen. So far I've only seen it taking corn and drink, but it would not be averse to a bit of murder and theft. It evades being photographed and keeps a weary eye.
For crows are clever birds indeed. It is entirely possible they would learn where to find easy pickings and venture inside the chicken houses to plunder a meal.
I've read that a CD hung in the doorway will keep them away. I guess it depends who the artist is?? Maybe something by The Eagles.

If this fails, a couple of the local villages hold scarecrow competitions later in the year. Maybe one of them could be kidnapped and find it's way into my chicken pen.

In a couple of weeks this lot can go out and
Chick of Elvis can move into this coop with her chicks.

Elsewhere in the chicken pen, the two French Black Marans are big enough to go out now, but they seem to like being with the younger chicks. The five Welsummers could go out too, as they've grown at an amazing rate. Two of them were even squaring up to each other today, chests flung out and neck ruffs on full display. But the four Indian Game chicks need to grow a bit more or they won't be safe from the crows or, for that matter, from Gerry who has brought in sizeable young pheasants in the past. It'll be good to let them all out together, then they won't get picked on too much.

Splitting the Hive and Blue Eggs

Sunday 20th May 2012
Nearly June now, though you wouldn't know it.

Two hives, brood chambers only.
Hopefully a successful outcome in a couple of weeks.

Too may queens
I apologise for the lack of pictures, but I had to concentrate on my bee-keeping and a camera would get in the way. The day started with a visit from a helpful fellow bee-keeper. Into the garden trudged the three of us in our space suits. We opened up the hive and had a good look at our buzzy friends. They impressed our colleague with how calm they were and how busy they had been drawing comb and bringing in new honey.

But what we were most interested in was the brood frames, which would provide a trained eye with vital clues about the state of the colony and the fitness of the queen. Many of the frames were full of sealed brood. This means that the larva inside the hexagonal cell has been sealed in by the adult bees, ready to turn into a bee itself. There were also fairly mature larvae, but a distinct lack of smaller larvae and it took us a long time to find eggs. The fact that we did meant that the queen is still laying, but the reason for so few was not obvious - maybe lack of space, the long spell of cold weather or a weak queen. There were some drone (male) cells, but not overly many.
There were queen cells too, some sealed with their giant larva sealed in a sea of white royal jelly. The first warm day next week would probably lead to a swarm. This could be followed by further cast swarms, each time halving the strength of the colony.
So, we had a decision to make. Whether to sacrifice the queen and hope that one of the new, virgin queens would be victorious over the others and find suitable drones to fertilise her. What happens is that the queen flies out of the hive high into the air in search of drones to mate with. If successful, she returns to the hive to begin laying and the colony continues with its new queen. However, that's not a guaranteed outcome, so we felt it better to take a second option, splitting the hive to create a false swarm.

We found the queen easily (she is marked with a white blob to indicate that she is a 2011 queen) and moved her frame into the new hive, placed to face the opposite direction to the original hive. We then picked out some frames of brood, pollen and honey, in effect to give her everything she would need to build a new colony. We then shut that hive over and will leave it to get on with its own business for at least two weeks.
We then went through the remaining frames, leaving only the best looking queen cells. Hopefully, nature will take its course and we may end up with two hives. We'll find out what's happened in two or three weeks. Until then we leave well alone and just wait.
The worst scenario is that we end up with no queens and not a lot of bees. The middle scenario is that the two half colonies are not strong enough to survive as two, in which case we reunite them.

For the moment, fingers stay firmly crossed.

Overall though, it was fantastic to get the chance to look through the hive with the benefit of an experienced eye and we were very, very grateful indeed.

Blue Eggs and an Immaculate Smallholding
Then it was time to keep an appointment over in Donnington, where we had arranged to visit some fellow smallholders to have a nosey around and to purchase a dozen Crested Cream Legbar eggs (the blue ones) to go in the incubator.

Roger's smallholding yesterday was a smallholding on a shoestring, making excellent use of pallets, old bath tubs, second hand polytunnels and cardboard boxes. A smallholding which had evolved organically and very successfully. Today's smallholding was equally impressive, but it couldn't have been more different. Immaculately tidy and organised it was certainly ready for its opening to the public on 17th June as part of the National Gardens Scheme.
NGS - Garden

Colin and Janet concentrate on rare breeds and have their own website, well worth a look.
http://www.thehawthornsrarebreeds.co.uk/

Prize for cutest animal of the day had to go to the day old pygmy goat, though it was a close run thing with the various punk-haired chicklets and the family dog.

 

Once again, thanks to Colin and Janet for extending a warm welcome to us.

Welcome To The World!

A Celebration of Spring Growth

Today, two of our dark brown eggs hatched - French Copper Black Marans. After our dismal attempts at hatching eggs, and with 2 of these already being smashed courtesy of Royal Mail, we were just about ready to give up on these eggs and the whole idea of trusting our postal system with delivering fragile eggs.

Your old home is needed. Out you go!

2 Crested Cream Legbars and 2 Cornish Dark Indian Game chicks take on the outside world. It didn't take long to start squabbling over a worm!

Meanwhile, in the veg garden, fending for themselves...


Glad I held off with the potatoes, or I'd have been busy heaping soil
on new sprouts to protect them from the frost.

 

Parsnips pushing through



Turnips should give a quick crop







Broad beans always seem to take an eternity to come up



 

Up come the peas

And the first asparagus - two different types. I won't harvest much this year, but from next year I can take as much as I like till about June.

The natives are well advanced now.

I love Red Dead-Nettle,
but not as much as the bees.

 

And in the orchard the young plums are in full blossom.

 

While, in the protection of the greenhouse...

These young lavenders are doing brilliantly.
Reckon I should get well over 100 plants
for the price of a packet of seeds.

Young poached-egg plants,
excellent for bees and hoverflies.
They will go under the fruit trees where the hoverfly larvae will munch any nasty aphids.

and how many Gypsophila plants will I have?

All my pepper seedlings are looking very healthy this year.

Back in the herb bed the Angelica is going mad - now in its second year it will flower and produce thousands of seeds.

And, judging by this sequence of events,  young guinea is definitely a female

Bring on frost-free nights, then things really start moving!

Egg-spansion attempts disappoint.

Sunday 1st April 2012
April Fool's Day

With two chickens going broody, one sadly passing away and a couple of others going through a late moult, egg production has failed to keep pace with demand of late.

So it was that we hatched a plan (sorry, awful pun!)  More chickens.
So, through the post came some nice blue eggs, some nice pale brown eggs and some very nice dark brown eggs - Cream Legbars, Indian Game and French Copper Black Marans.

Well, we got three from the blue eggs. All six had at least been fertile. One has splay leg, a common condition which sees the chick almost doing the splits. We have applied first aid, but I give it a 50:50 chance at the moment.
As for the Indian Game eggs. Only two hatchlings from the incubator (only 3 were ever fertile) and Elvis seems to have failed again with the 3 we gave her. So a 22% hatch rate is pretty pathetic.

Chick of Elvis, if you remember, had also decided to build herself a nest outside the confines of the chicken compound, and was sitting on two of her own eggs. That was until the hay bales slowly collapsed, along with her nest, sending the eggs tumbling to the floor. At least she is coming back into lay now and will soon be giving us an egg a day.

And the six chocaliciously dark Marans eggs? Well, they're down to four already after two arrived cracked in the post. Fingers crossed for the other four, which have now been in the incubator for a week.

The reasons for our disappointing rate of failure are not known.
Suspects include:
Time of year - is fertility rate lower early in the year?
Suppliers - the Indian Game Eggs especially have disappointed. Was the cockerel a real man?
The Post Office - I'm sure they treated our packages, labelled FRAGILE, with extreme care. Not!
Some five year old children - was the incubator opened too often?
Us - did we look after the eggs properly between receiving them and putting them to incubate?

Once we discover what is the fate of the four eggs we currently have incuabting, we shall try again!
Next time, I will look for a local supplier, so I can collect the eggs in person. We will get 12 eggs and put them all in at the same time. We will leave the incubator in a quiet place in peace.

Meanwhile, at least we still have these.

and these

 

Goose Trouble

Sunday 25th March 2012
British Summer Time!

The clocks went forward an hour last night. Everyone else lost an hour's sleep. But not me, as my life is ruled by the sun, so I just got up an hour later (which was actually exactly the same time as yesterday). The only difference is that everything everyone else does starts an hour earlier now.
Goose Trouble
The five geese we recently adopted have been nothing but trouble. The gang of three now dominate the pair and have been bullying one of them. We have not been able to lock them away in the same room at night, so have left them out, free to go into the stables as they please. This has resulted in a few stand-offs between Sue and the geese! But last night it seems the three hounded one goose and caused it to injure its leg. This was the same leg on the same goose which had previously been grabbed by a dog. We're keeping an eye on the goose for a while, but will probably try to splint its leg. There's no point calling a vet - I could buy a couple of Harrod's geese for the same price! But we don't want an animal to be suffering either.
We have separated the two groups of geese, but the three have few proper boundaries now. So this morning, at 6.45 (used to be 5.45) I was ushering three geese across a foggy road and back onto the farm! On the positive side, they were a very good traffic calming measure and it may be worth starting up a business in white robotic geese for this purpose.
Time will tell, but I suspect we will end up having to choose between the two and the three. All depends on whether the injured bird recovers.

Unlike yesterday, the thick morning air lingered on and the sun never really broke through today. When it did, it was accompanied by a decidedly chill breeze. We had a few bits and pieces to sort out today, so it seemed good to spend the last hour or so of the day mowing some of the grass. I think some of it must be related to elephant grass, judging by its rate of growth at the moment.

I do love it when I've just mown the grass in the veg garden
(which I like to refer to, more poshly, as a potager).
It accentuates the geometric design which has taken me so long to shape.

More Chicks
One of the bits and pieces we had to do was to pop into Sue's school and check the incubator. A happy surprise. Two more bluebird chicks, and one of the brown eggs was slightly cracked too, so hopefully we will soon have some Indian Game chicks as well as the Cream Legbars.

As the day came to a close, the female Hen Harrier drifted across the garden again. If this happened every day, I would still get a buzz from it every day.
Shortly after this, the air turned sharply cooler and an eerie fog rolled in across the fields.

Stopping The Rot

Saturday 24th March 2012
Pea soup

Actually, my research tells me that a pea souper refers to an industrial smog. In fact, it's called a pea souper precisely because it's not like the white fog of rural areas. You learn something every day.

The Bluebird
One of the blue eggs has hatched! If it's a girl, it will grow up to lay more blue eggs for us. If it's a boy, it should be very tasty in the autumn. Cream Legbars are autosexing - nothing rude, just means you can tell boys and girls apart as chicks... except, I can't remember how and I don't have any others to compare! For the moment, this very chirpy chick is living in a plastic box with a light bulb to keep it warm. None of the other eggs is showing any signs of life. Apparently they usually pip once one has been born. It will be disappointing if we only get one.

The Rot Sets In
More disappointment with the seeds I sowed back in February too. Germination was generally very good, especially the ten varieties of tomato I sowed. However, I have been having a serious problem with damping off, a fungal infection of the soil which affects the roots of the young seedlings, causing the stem to collapse. It spreads like wildfire, becoming airborne, and can kill off a whole tray of seeds in no time. Damping off is caused by poor conditions, in particular not enough light. I'm a bit stuck really though. The greenhouse is not heated and won't be warm enough for them, the dining room is just not bright enough. But mostly it's my own fault for making the same mistake as I've made before, killing the seedlings with kindness by making the soil too wet.
I have read that sprinkling the soil surface with cinnamon powder can solve the problem, so I have raided the spice cupboard. I'm not sure if it's too late to save some. In desperation I moved the worst affected trays to the greenhouse anyway, but this merely sped up the demise of the poor seedlings.
I'm still hoping to keep enough alive to get a decent early harvest, but I'll have to resow some varieties and accept a one month delay. Having said that, I often find that the slightly later sown seeds virtually catch up anyway.

Peas On Earth
No point worrying about it now. What's gone is gone and I'll just move on and take the best course of action from where I am now. Back on a more optimistic note, today's early fog gave way to a glorious day by early afternoon. I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours in the garden with Sue planting peas - Kelvedon Wonder and Early Onward. Also Sugar Snaps and Purple Mangetout. Peas like to clamber and climb, so various structures were improvised for them. For this we used the sticks and branches saved from pruning a red dogwood. It looks excellent. I guess the dogwood may just decide to root itself, but I don't think it'll compete with the peas and I may even get some new shrubs at the end of the season.