Last Minute Dash

Realising that today was the last of my summer days off and not having done much constructive all week, I rushed out to the garden first thing, yea, ok, about 11.30am *yawns*, to see what I could do on my own about putting a second pop-hole in the shed so we can use the other half for chickens instead of the storage that has been there so far. During the course of the day I managed to get it all done, despite dodging showers and having to wait for ages for the cordless drill to recharge. Stoopid machine.

Piece-of-pride-of-the-day is the door I made from slats of perfectly good wood found at the recycling centre the last time I was there. Waste not, want not.

The shed is split in two with chicken wire down the middle and the two runs on either side of the shed can be locked so I can now have two different sets of chickens in the same garden.

Last week I had a horrible panic when I found red mite in the nest box. Then red mite under the lino. And more in the cracks in the walls. It is a horrible horrible thing to find and awfully dangerous to the chickens. The mites live in the wood during the day and then scurry to the birds at night. Normally the chooks should show a dislike of going to bed at night but mine never did. If you have chicks in the same box, the mites have been known to drain them so quickly that they die before morning.

I always knew the risk was high when I made the decision to have a shed rather than a plastic Eglu. But you kinda live in a haze of "It'll never happen to me" don't you?  

For three solid days the chickens were removed from the shed while I sprayed EVERYwhere with a solution of Jeyes fluid, about twice as strong as the recommended dose, and, funnily enough, about twice the strength recommended for treating Bird Flu from your coop! I have been smelling of Jeyes all week. Please keep your fingers crossed that they have been dealt with successfully. Now I know we can get it, I will be spraying more often. Obviously the powder I have been sprinkling hasn't been doing the job.

There are many theories about where they come from. My fear that the last girls purchased brought it in seems unfounded - more likely to be from the wild birds which have been taking advantage of the chickens being fed outdoors during this last while of good weather.

I have come up with an idea for a plastic nest box which I am hoping I can put into place this week. When it is up and running I'll let you know how successful it has been. Anything to get away from the mite-prone wooden nest box.

In the meantime, the Pekin eggs we got from Ethan and Granda's farm are well and truly under Summer now. I put the other eggs in with her as well but I suppose 19 eggs was a tad ambitious and she managed to break one of the not-so-important eggs under her. I don't have the most faith in her as a broody hen. I still think she managed to kill off a hatching chick last time and now this broken egg - if any one else becomes broody the Pekin eggs will be moved out from under her as quickly as possibe.

The kittens continue to grow and make mischief. They have now learned that they can crawl behind the tv unit and climb up the cables, through a hole in the back of the unit, to appear on the shelf on top of the dvd player. This is not endearing them to Iain, it has to be said. Jessica and I spent a good 10 minutes today trying to extract Flossie from there. No sooner had we done that but there was another kitten there. . . and so it went on until we realised that extracting them back into the room wasn't working. They had to be locked in the kitchen before they stopped reappearing!

Just so you know, there is no way they are being fed at the table, no way they are having anything other than their own food, and no way they are being allowed to eat out of our plates. Just so you know.

Chick Update . . . Kitten Update . . .

I never seem to have the time to download the photos from the camera, but the good news is we got 13 live chicks out of the 18 eggs.

Only one egg wasn't fertilised and I kinda knew that when I candled them a week before hand. One chick died within the first day - not a nice experience to feel it slipping away in your hand, and a couple of the eggs didn't hatch quickly enough and although there were chicks in them, they didn't get out in time. Still, 13 out of 18 is still a great result considering that a week before hand I thought they were all goners after the girls had abandoned them. And that it was our first time. We have 1 Pekin which we will keep if it is a girl, 2 speckledy cross breeds, 6 Marans, and the rest are Light Sussex. All of them ought to be pure breeds expect the 2 speckledies and the theory is that we will get them up in size and then sell on the ones we don't want. Keep your fingers crossed that the bulk of them are girls.

They were extremely cute and cuddly for the first few days, and there are loads of wee stories about them like the time Jessica saved one from certain death because she happened to go into the run and check on them when one of the marans was on its back in the cold water. It took all day to reheat it enough under a light in the kitchen to put it back out with the others. There was that time when we totally forgot that the kittens were in the kitchen and when I rushed back in one of them had a chick in its mouth! The chick wasn't too pleased about it and I am not sure at what point the kitten would have started to get serious about eating it.

The chicks are now so much bigger, with distinct feathers on their wings, and some of them are looking like young hens rather than chicks, all within a matter of two weeks. Lacey is taking frequent breaks away from them now in order to mingle with the others and pick up some grown up food.

We went to a fun farm today to get the kids out of the house and the owners had a couple of very nice chickens in a run with a clutch of eggs sitting. I am not sure what the chooks were, but they were nice enough for me to ask if they ever sold hatching eggs. One very long chat later with a very nice lady and I was coming home with 8 fresh eggs which should be fertilised (but can't be guaranteed) and which I am going to add to whatever Granda can find for me and put under the to broodies we have at the moment. I am hoping for a few Pekin eggs from him. I would love to find some Silkies too but no one has answered my request for these so far.

For some reason every one calls the act of broody-ness "clocking" (it sounds like clocking rather than clucking but you can never be too sure!) and slowly but surely, I am starting to slip that word in to conversations too as if I have always been around chickens!

The kittens are going from strength to strength. They are in a nice routine of sleeping through the night in the bathroom and coming back downstairs for their food. They are continuing to form their own personalities and continuing to rip me to shreds when they decide to run up my leg to settle on my shoulder. They don't seem to sit on anyone else's shoulders! They are all fairly affectionate too, all of them want cuddles but they are still maniacs when they need to get rid of some energy.

It is still impossible for me to tell them apart although they do have different markings on them and Flossie is a good lot lighter than the two boys. I suppose it is just a matter of time.

If only they would stop pooing in the bath and behind Iain's seat in the living room, we would be on to a winner!

Yes, I have to admit, I did finally put the screensaver on iTunes and let one of them watch it. That is good fun!

Chicks!

Yesterday was the day circled in the diary for the hatching to start. There had been an incident where both girls had abandoned their eggs for a short while and I was seriously doubting the eggs were still viable. I was only going to give them until today and then I was going to remove the eggs if there had been no activity with them! When I got home last night there was great excitement when I noticed one egg under Lacey was well and truly cracked.

I checked the egg several times over the course of the evening but it didn't emerge.

This morning I checked again but although the wee chick was still chirping away in the shell, no more of it had been dislodged. I ended up taking pieces of the shell off very gently as there was the possibility it would be too weak to do it itself.

I placed this wee chick in the nursery run and went to check if there were any cracked eggs under Buffy - when I lifted her up there was a fluffy chick hiding under her skirts! No need to help this one out!

I put all the eggs, the two hatchlings, and the two girls in to the nursery run and noticed at least another 4 eggs which had cracks on them. There is definitely at least 1 Maran egg started but apart from that I didn't notice which breeds were on the go. The first wee one from last night was a small egg so it will be a bantam - I am not sure if it was a Pekin egg - it is probably one of the hybrid eggs I received.

So, of course, I can't wait to get home now and see what is waiting for us! There could be a whole pile of wee chicks waiting for their dinner.

Now, in other news, Summer the Welsummer bantam, is now broody too. Do you think I ought to ask Granda for some more hatching eggs now that we know what we are doing?