Angry Birds

It's not until DEFRA orders you to keep your flock indoors that you realise just how much poop one chicken can produce in a day. Poop, poop, poopity poop. Then squeeze out a little bit more.

Converting the polytunnel into a temporary chicken barracks seemed like a great idea when the avian flu prevention order was for 30 days only. I told the girls they'd be out by 6th January, and now ,thanks to outbreaks across the UK, their prison sentence has been extended to 28th February. I haven't told them this in the hope that their sense of time passing is not as highly developed as their sense of injustice.

By the end of week one they had stripped every shred of greenery from the rocket plant, flattened the chicken wire protecting the strawberries, flattened the strawberries, found a way under the netting protecting the over-wintering herbs & greens, eaten the spinach, covered the tat soi with soil, kicked over the chive pots and trampled the parsley. By the end of week three, one bed was peppered with dust bathing bomb craters and the top soil on most of the other beds was no longer in the beds but liberally distributed hither and thither. The girls spurn the carefully constructed roosts and reject the nest boxes transferred from their usual home, preferring to lay in the cat box and roost and poop on top of and all around it. The polytunnel is not a happy place.

Poultry forums and magazines are awash with suggestions for keeping your chickens entertained during this prolonged period of confinement. Hanging greens are ignored by my girls. They flung soil over the half apples I provided, but must have descended upon them the moment my back was turned for by tea time no trace of apple remained. Perhaps they buried them.This week I shall be testing their vanity by dangling shiny reflective CDs from the polytunnel crossbars. When they tire of those I'll wow them with the multi-coloured baler twine streamers. The transformation from polytunnel to poultry poop and play palace will be complete.

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I wrote the above on Monday. On Tuesday I realised that all was not well with the flock. Whilst the girls were scratching about and eating as usual, closer inspection revealed tell tale signs of an outbreak of scaly leg mite. We've never encountered this in our seven years of having a small free ranging flock. Confinement to the drier environment and bare soil of the polytunnel must have provided perfect conditions for the mite to flourish. Not all the girls have been affected, but a couple have bad scale lifting, making their legs look enlarged, rough and white in colour instead of smooth and pale yellowy-brown. I'm furious that this is the result of trying to abide by the DEFRA orders, when plenty of chicken-keepers blithely make no attempt to separate their flock from wild birds despite outbreaks of avian flu that get closer and closer to home.

I don't want my chickens to catch avian flu and be the reason that my and my neighbours' chickens are culled by DEFRA, but neither do I want to compromise their health in any other way. We made the decision to return them to their run and house but to use the fruit netting as a temporary roof, propped up with a wonky washing line. I had specifically avoided doing this in the first place for fear of the garden birds becoming entangled - we've had to free angry, terrified blackbirds and robins on more than one occasion when the same netting protects the black and red currants in summer. I hope that perhaps the absence of the chicken feeder for over a month might have disrupted the routine of our garden birds. So far so good. So far still scaly.

The Ripple Effect

In six years of chicken keeping, umpteen minutes of my life have been lost to chicken watching. The free range chicken is a busy bird; scratching, pecking, running, bathing in sun or dust or a big hole in the lawn, jumping, preening, stretching leg or wing or both, digging, eating, chasing, tugging (usually a frog between two chickens), eyeing up then snatching a sandwich. At some point in the day an egg may be laid, usually early morning and unseen in the safety of the nest box. Occasionally late morning and unseen in the safety of the sage bush, reed bed or atop a bank of rosebay willowherb. Just once in the afternoon in the middle of the yard watched by me.

Given this assortment of behaviours, spotting something out of the ordinary in any one chicken is not always easy, but once spotted a change in behaviour is more often than not an indicator that all is not well. Sulking, squatting, separation from flock for too long give me pause for thought. Failing to come in for corn at tea time rings alarm bells.

When Seren totally ignored the tea time clapping and calling. standing unresponsive by the house, I suspected sickness. A trail of corn got her waddling around the corner. A gentle coaxing with the hand got me a sharp peck. That in itself was a worry as the usual reaction to a coaxing hand is annoyed flapping, squawking and running off. A second gentle coaxing got a second, and harder, peck. Still Seren refused to move. Then things went really weird. Her tail went down. It kept going down. Her whole rear end went down. The front end went up. More up. More down. Until Seren was the world's first vertical chicken. Her whole body was in line with her legs. It looked awkward. She looked so tightly held in I half expected her to explode, go pop like a feathered balloon. David and I could only watch, part horrified, part fascinated. As she reached tipping point, I no longer expected an explosion, just a keeling over backwards, stiff as a board. Then out popped an egg and off she went right as rain, in search of corn as though nothing untoward whatsoever had just occurred. I stared at the spot where she'd been and where an egg now sat, glistening wetly. Rousing myself from my stunned trance, I reached down tentatively. I expected the squidgy wobble of the soft-shelled egg, but my fingers met a proper shell. I lifted it up for inspection. It wasn't an especially large egg. The only sign that it's arrival in the world might have been slightly out of the ordinary was a rippling in the shell, which is hardly surprising given the angle of departure.

Four Out, Eight In

Someone out there has got my chickens. Got them for a bargain too, just £1.50 per bird. It was Bwbach's fault. In the seven days between the hardening of my heart that led to booking them in for market day and the day The Chicken Man came to collect them, Bwbach decided to moult again. For the first few days you could track her progress around the yard and gardens by the drifts of fluffy bum feathers, like isolated patches of stubborn snow after the thaw. One morning, looking out the window down at the chicken run, I thought they'd been another death by fox, but no, just the debris from of another Bwbach grooming session, mainly tail feathers this time.

On the eve of market day, she had a part spiky, part bald, back end. Unfortunately for Glas, Tanwen and Gwen, not every prospective chicken buyer knows a moult when he/she sees one. A partially feathered chicken loses something of its eye appeal, and brings down the price of her cage mates. Last time our girls fetched just £1 per bird, so I guess a rise of 50p each over two years is better than a poke in the eye with the pointy end of a feather. My minimum wage salary only went up by 39p per hour in the same period.

So they're out there, somewhere, living in someone else's hen house, laying poo but not eggs in someone else's nest boxes.

Meanwhile, in my hen house there are eight pale faced pullets. As yet unnamed. We need to get to know each other a little better before I start allocating names. They're not at the most attractive stage of life right now, facially looking more reptile than fowl, no combs, no wattles, just blinking eyes in a scaly face. Like skinny feathered baby dinosaurs.

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The door opened at first light. By 8 a.m. all my baby dinosaurs were still in the house. No surprise there. They have never been outdoors before. Instinct hasn't yet kicked in. A tray of food (actually, a long sectioned canape serving dish retrieved from the back of the cupboard - anything high sided is tipped over in a trice by those clutchy, clumsy claws that Mother Nature gave chickens for feet) placed in side the door of the house soon breaks up the fearful huddle, they jostle for feeding space, greedily peck, peck, pecking at the layers' pellets. A cunningly laid trail of pellets from the canape dish, over the threshold, and along the ground to the main feeder eventually caught the eye of chicken number one. Out she came, wing stretch, feather shake, and in the time it took her to do a tentative lap of the house, chicken number one became Dora. The Explorer. It was meant to be.

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An hour later. Dora and four baby dinosaurs are under the hen house. Three baby dinosaurs are yet to leave the house. I hope they're not dead.

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Another hour later. Dora and six baby dinosaurs are discovering the great outdoors, spooking themselves every time a gust of wind ruffles and parts the bottom feathers. One baby dinosaur is still in the house. She's the last to venture out and needs some "gentle" encouragement. Chicken number eight became Diwetha. The last. In Welsh.

Ratty

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Feed the birds. Feed the chickens. Sure as night follows day, as a shock on the scales follows Christmas, you're feeding the rats. Fattus rattus rattus. Naughtius greedius digus hole under houseus rattus.

Nibbled corners of the hen house floor gave them away, revealed last week during poopy chicken litter clear out. Could have been mice. Mice with big teeth. Drop in production from one egg a day from four chickens to none egg a day from four chickens suggested that the finger of blame pointed squarely in the direction of rattus rattus. Sure enough, having hefted the house to one side, there, hidden under the ramp, was the offending rat hole, at least 4 inches in diameter. Glancing up towards the fence, I saw another hole directly opposite the first, leading under the fox proofing chicken wire. The little s*ds. The entrances to both holes are now filled with stones and the main exit blocked with a breeze block. There'll be no rolling away the stone by rattus rattus!

 

Of course, it is only a matter of time until rattus rattus realises that the egg buffet bar has moved just six feet to the right.

The chickens figured it out. I had visions of finding them clustered on the breeze block where their ramp had been, but I should have given them more credit as by bedtime they were forming the usual orderly queue in the correct, new, location ready for a good night's sleep, free from rowdy rattus rattus interuptions.

Bob-Bob in the House

For most of last week we shared the house with a chicken in a cage. Cochen spent her days in the dining room listening to Radio 4 and her nights chirruping to herself in the guest bedroom. I spent my days cleaning up poo from the cage, her food bowl and her water bowl (her aim is good), replenishing her food bowl and water bowl, administering vaseline to her sore legs and antiseptic cream to her wounded toe, and carrying her from bedroom to dining room to utility (and temporary treatment) room. Teri spent her days staring fixedly at Cochen's cage and her evenings staring fixedly at the closed bedroom door behind which Cochen and her cage had disappeared. When you're a dog for whom continuously following and rounding up chickens (bob-bobs in dog speak) is a daily routine, to find one in your house is a mind blowing experience. The mental struggle to maintain normal (for her) indoor obsessive compulsive behaviours while simultaneously guarding a chicken was plain to see in her furrowed brow and crazy eyes. Just one more day of this and there's the very real possibility that we would have witnessed the first spontaneously combusting collie.

So why was Cochen in caged isolation? Bumble Foot. Or rather suspected, internet diagnosed Bumble Foot. Cochen has always been missing the end of one toe and, on the same foot, with the middle toe bent upwards, pretty much at an angle of 90 degrees to where it should be. I suspect she was trampled on as a chick as when she came to us at about 24 weeks it was clear that her foot had been like that for some time. The deformity has never been a problem to her, not preventing normal scratching behaviour or causing any obvious discomfort. Until now. It started with a Ministry of Silly Walks style gait, followed by standing on one leg more often than on two legs. An inspection revealed her bent up toe to be warm and slightly swollen. A foot wash revealed a small dark scab on the pad of that toe. Browsing poultry forum photos suggested this was typical of the onset of Bumble Foot. Great name for what is essentially an infection under the skin as a result of a wound from a thorn or similar such pointy item. I don't know if the name derives from the fact that the swellings are similar to those caused by bee stings or because chickens with big swollen feet bumble about. Maybe a little bit of both. 

Cochen appeared to enjoy the warm Epsom Salts foot baths. She was less happy about the minor foot surgery to remove scab and generally dig around the little hole (sounds grim but I swear that was the advice of the poultry forum gurus and believe me, there are plenty of photos online to back this up). She was completely unfazed by life in a cage under the intense stare of a collie. She failed to make the connection as we sat nearby eating eggs for lunch. Now she's back with the flock I miss having the chirruping, clucking, bob-bob-bobbing and thud-thud-thud of furious pecking as the soundtrack to my day.

Not a pretty sight

If you're squeamish, look away now. I have two words for you, one is "pus" and the other is "chicken". Here's another word, "yuk". When you're squeezing pus out of a chicken's eye it becomes "yuk, yuk". I did warn you.

We've had a bit of a time of it with our six new chickens. Things didn't improve after my last blog post - for the first few weeks they wouldn't leave the house without supervision. If a big tall Mother Hen with two legs and a pair of wellies stood in the run they would put on a show of bravado, come out of the house, peck around, eat and drink (provided that I squatted by feeder then drinker in turn). The moment Mother Hen moved away and watched from a sneaky hiding place you could almost see the panic take hold as first one, then another realised Mother Hen had gone, and in a flurry of feathers they all rush back to the house and up the ramp. Form an orderly queue ladies! Shutting the door of the house only sent them scuttling under the house. This is how we ended up taking the chickens for walks. At first the trips were short forays into the grass outside the run - oh how they loved that first taste of green, green grass. We would take them a little further from home each time, perhaps up the steps to the yard, maybe across the yard to the bird feeder, bolder still how about up the steps from yard to front garden, and then quick as a flash they were up the steps, through the front door, pause in the porch, hop over the threshold, across the hall, into the living room. Our rug has seen many a dog or cat related accident, but chicken poo, never, until then.

  

The happy consequence of this Mother Hen role playing is that we now have five friendly, easy to pick up, fearless chickens. The unhappy consequence is that just occasionally they can be a little bit over-friendly, running to greet us, running behind us, running in front of us. The faster we move to keep ahead of them, the faster they flap to keep up the pace. Gwen is the worst. As soon as she see's me come out of the house, she lifts up her frilly knickers and heads in my direction. Moving the car is a blindspot nightmare. Carrying logs into the boiler room is a high risk activity. I've taken to hiding behind the wall, peeking round the corner to see if the coast is clear, then making a dash for it. Obviously such behaviour is for her safety and not just my sanity. On current form she will be spatchcocked alive under a wellie boot before her first birthday!

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that six became five. This is where the pus comes in, or rather out. This isn't a story that ends well. Du is no longer with us. About two weeks ago her early snuffles and occasional nostril snot bubble became something distinctly nastier. One side of her face puffed up, hot and swollen, her eye gummed shut. People round here tell me to toughen up, and think I'm a fool for taking a chicken who cost me £8 to see a vet who charges me £12 just to say hello. But when it comes to animals, I'm a softy, a melted marshmallow of a softy. Yes, I'll admit to feeling slightly foolish as I sat in the waiting room, surrounded by puppies, cats and rabbits, holding a chicken in a box (not a basket and not with chips). I honestly didn't expect to be bringing her home, but she had an antibiotic shot and her and the rest of the flock had a three day course of antibiotic water. A week later we had five perky chickens starting to lay and one very sorry for herself chicken with a face like a boxer, breathing like a snorkeller and a pus oozing eye. Could be an infection. Could be a peck in the eye gone bad. Maybe she'd pull through but always be blind in one eye. Maybe she wouldn't. I lied to a pharmacist to get her some eye drops. Twice a day we emptied her eye and dripped in the drops. She stopped hanging with the flock. She hid under the house. She lost interest in corn. It broke my heart just to look at her. It was time. One of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make, but the right one. And she never even got to lay her first egg. Rest in peace, Du.

Inside Out

I'm inside looking out. I'm inside sitting by a warm radiator watching the rain falling outside. I can see the chicken run. I can't see any chickens, but I can see two pinky beaks poking out of the chicken house doorway. I think it's fair to say that our six new chickens are unimpressed with their change of circumstances. Today they have refused to come out of the house. As there are no older birds to show them the way, I'm not sure if today's no show is reluctance to face the harsh reality of Wales in February during the wettest winter on record, or simply lack of free range experience. I'm not convinced its the latter as although their 20 week life to date from hatch to market has been confined to a barn, yesterday evening instinctive behaviour kicked in and all six birds knew what the drinker was for, knew what they would find in the feeder and knew to go to bed in the house before dark. I'm starting to worry that reluctance will be stronger than instinct and that dislike of rain will lead to dehydration and starvation. Letting your chickens die within 24 hours of arrival would not be a good thing. I think it's time to drag myself away from the warm window seat, get the waterproofs on and go have a word with the girls.

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I put a tub of pellets inside left of the door. I put a tub of water inside right of the door. Judging by the rush to get to both I'd say thirst and hunger were becoming an issue. Judging by the eagerness of certain chickens to get from water to food and back again, and the clumsiness of a chicken moving in haste, I'd say I was right to wait around and refill both upturned tubs. Twice. And again an hour later. Clearly until the girls learned either manners or the size of their feet, this was not a practical way to keep them fed and watered. Thankfully, if there's one thing a chicken can't resist, it's corn. Once the tasty corn morsels within reach of a neck at full stretch have been gobbled up, there's nothing for it but to take the plunge and emerge from the house. Once one goes, the rest of the flock will follow. I'm not ashamed to exploit the competitive greediness of chickens if it means it gets them out of the house. Of course now that they're out, I have to be sure that they've gone back in. I think it's time to drag myself away from the warm window seat once again.

Why did the chicken... ?

This year, instead of resolutions, I have questions. Let's start with how long is too long? Or more specifically, how long is too long to wait for a chicken to come back into lay? Or put another way, how soon is too soon to start considering flock redundancies and redeployment? Four weeks? Six weeks? Longer?

Egg production started to drop off in October. No surprise there - shorter days, moulting time (changing your feathers one by one is an exhausting businesses so you can hardy blame a girl for diverting energy from egg production to quill making) - but three months have passed and we're still on a work rate of one egg (or, on a good day, two eggs) from six chickens. I have my suspicions that there is some tag team egg laying going on. The one egg is never quite the same as the previous day's one egg - small, large, elongated, dark, light, scratched (does someone have rough edges on the inside?), broken shell (thank you, Mr Magpie), soft shell or no shell at all. Neither is the one egg necessarily laid in the same location as the previous day's egg - nest box one, two or three, middle of the house, halfway down the run ramp (does someone get caught by surprise?) or, current number one spot, the makeshift nest in the woodshed.

 

We've tried stalking the chickens to see who is laying when and where (as a watched kettle never boils, so a stalked chicken never lays). We've tried sawdust versus straw in the nest box (they poop in equal measure on both but two out of two poop cleaners expressed a preference for the more absorbent sawdust). We've checked the house for mites and dusted the feathery bottoms. We've wormed them. We've given them grit (as if they don't get enough while free ranging all the way down the drive). We've put garlic and cider vinegar in their water, poultry spice in their pellets. We've assessed combs for redness and legs for scaliness. We've squatted down to chicken level, looked each bird in the eye, and asked "where are the eggs?". All no avail. It's one egg a day and one egg a day only.

Are we being greedy? Are we expecting too much of our 2-3 year old birds in winter? Last year four of them laid eggs throughout winter, setting a level of service they can't now lay up to. But then last year those same four birds didn't bother to moult. Perhaps I'll wait a little longer, delay that call to the chicken man up the road, and run a warm bath to clean Blodwen's mucky bum.

But before I go, just one more question.... how on earth (no pun intended) does a mole manage to make a molehill between a concrete step and a stone wall?

Not So Magic Animal Magic

Keeping animals brings joy. Like being treated to one of Teri’s aerial displays…

   

…. or watching the chickens gossiping like old women …

 

… and witnessing trophallaxis between honey bees

(don’t be smutty, it’s the posh word for food sharing).

But with joy comes the triple whammy of helplessness, guilt and frustration. Helplessness because you want to help but don’t know how. Guilt because you wonder if it was all your fault in the first place. Frustration because saying “I’m trying to help” and “this will make you feel better” mean “blah blah blah” to the sick animal who has one eye on its escape route and the other on the loaded hypodermic needle in your hand.

Once upon a time you would have found the likes of Elvis Presley, Rhett Butler, Mr Darcy and John Cusack sipping champagne at my fantasy dinner party. Now I’m thinking of ditching John Cusack in favour of Dr Dolittle and shoving Mr Darcy out of his chair to make way for James Herriot. Dr Dolittle could teach me how to whisper words of comfort in an assortment of animal languages (well I’m learning Welsh so how much more difficult can piggish and chook-speak be). Mr Herriot could teach me all I need to know about animal anatomy, be on hand for all the tricky bits, but in return for fabulous cooking at each fantasy dinner he’ll never charge me a penny for his veterinary services. In fact, while we’re on the subject, goodbye Rhett Butler and hello Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - if all hell breaks loose and Dolittle and Herriot mess it up, the cooking tips may come in handy. Naturally Elvis retains his place at the fantasy dinner table. Afterall, someone’s got to keep my champagne glass topped up and entertain the diners as they exchange hilarious animal husbandry anecdotes.

So why the tales of woe? The bible tells us that when Noah stocked his ark, the animals came in two-by-two. What the bible didn’t go on to explain was that when the animals on the ark fell sick it wasn’t a case of two-by-two, but one after the other in quick succession. It started with a cat(and now I find myself humming the tune for Hot Chocolate’s “It Started with a kiss”!). As Charlie lacked the opposable thumb and technical savvy to check his symptoms online, I played hypochondriac by proxy. It didn’t take long to diagnose him as being on the cusp of multiple organ failure and generally knock, knock, knocking on death’s door. Cue sharp intake of breath, hand wringing, heart ache. The vet only had to say “so what seems to be the problem” for the dam to break. Rendered incapable of speech due to tears and unable to mime “he’s puking his guts up all over the stairs, please save him or I’ll never forgive you and will curse all vets ‘til kingdom come”, Dave had to come to my rescue. One neck shave, one blood test, one thryoid test, 3 injections, many pouches of dirty cat comfort food and £130 later, he’s right as rain, thinner but just as lazy. Diagnosis – poisoning.

Exactly one week later I’m stood at a sink gently massaging the abdomen and applying Vaseline to the vent of a chicken who’s standing in a bowl of warn water quietly clucking to herself. Within the hour I’m back at the vet, but with a chicken instead of a cat in my cage. One abdomen syringing (nasty, really nasty, seriously nasty), 10 traumatic days of antibiotic injections and £22 later, she’s still alive and has laid the sum total of one small funny shaped egg. Diagnosis – egg bound infected abdomen.

Two weeks later, my heart sinks as I hear the words “Fatty’s limping”. Lo and behold, within 48 hours I’m welly deep in mud watching Dave attempt to pin down 20 kilos of angry, squealing, limping pig. Don’t try this at home, kids. Believe me, not one of us is enjoying the daily bum injection. Diagnosis – God only knows, but please, please, please let it not happen again.

So what next? Well, I lost a honey bee colony. And I’m pretty sure I saw the dog limping yesterday. Is that sheep just resting?

Dirty Knickers

Dave and Phil Herriot were called into service for the first time this week. The Welsummer chickens have stopped laying for the moment, but the Rhode Island Reds have been merrily popping out one a day since they started laying back in February. 

Then Athena stopped laying and we noticed a large object hanging from her rear end. We were concerned that she may have had a prolapse (inside out vent - nasty). This could mean that she wouldn’t survive, so we donned our veterinary gear and attempted to examine her. The first stage involved Phil herding the chickens towards me, and then I tried to throw a blanket over Athena. Sounds straight forward enough, but for the fact that chickens are surprisingly speedy, especially as they are free range and not used to being handled. This went on for a while and turned into a bit of a farce, more Tristan Farnham than James Herriot!

I eventually caught her, and she remained quite calm so we whisked her into the clinic (the utility room in disguise), and ran her a warm bath. She appeared to have a huge hard growth on the exterior which was blocking her vent (the egg exit hole next to the poo exit hole, for those not familiar with a chicken's rear end). After 5 minutes in the bath and some careful massaging, the lump started breaking up, and an unpleasant aroma filled the air. The good news was that it wasn’t a prolapse, but several days worth of solidified chicken poo! It was so hard that Phil had to cut away her feathers to get the last bit off.

On returning her to the run (after a liberal application of Anusol to her sore behind - no really, that's what the poultry forum recommended - it works for piles so it works for sore chicken bums), she immediately went off and layed an egg. I can only imagine how eye watering it must have been hanging on to that poo rock for 2 days!