The Chicken Blog

In the first week of January 2008 we bought three chickens with the hope of having our own free range eggs and some pets to look after.

This is our blog on how this is going with the hope of encouraging other people to follow suit.
Getting started

The Chicked Coop: About a month before we bought our chickens, our land lord very kindly lent us a chicken coop they are not using. You can find a chicken coop at your local pet store. They are typically made of wood, but a new design made in plastic is currently very popular see: www.omlet.co.uk

Fox Proofing: chickens are popular food for foxes, also badgers, stoats and minks. Rats and wild birds might also snack on the chicken feed. All of this means you need to spend a bit of time protecting the chicken coop with some good wire netting. Typically this involves putting some chicken wire in a rim around the chicken coop to prevent the fox digging under. Our hutch has a wooden bottom, but we have protected the chicken run which is used during the day with some chicken wire held down with stone slabs.

Chickens and equipment: To get started you need:

A water feeder
A food holder
Chicken feed - protein base for egg laying
Chicken feed - wheat based
Straw or saw dust for the hutch
Chickens!

We picked up all of these necessities, with three chickens and a guide book on chicken rearing for £65 from www.cotswoldchickens.co.uk.

Blog

6th January 2008
Just picked up the chickens yesterday, they had a 45 minute journey in a card board box in the car to get back to our place. They seem fine if a bit nervous and thirsty by the end of it. They were bought "point of lay", which means they are about ready to start producing eggs. We have three, already named as:

Agatha		Agatha - Top of the pecking order
Isabella		Isabella - the flighty red head
Dorothy		Dorothy - the biggest eater

8th January 2008
Our chicken guide "Keeping Pet Chickens" by Johannes Paul and William Windham suggested leaving the chickens in the coop for five days before letting them out into the garden. So far they are barely venturing out of the enclosed hutch and into the run, even though we left food and water in the run with the door wide open.

10th January 2008
Agatha seems to be at the head of the pecking order. They are all now happily strutting about in the run every day, but Agatha is usually the first out and first to gobble up any food as it arrives.

11th January 2008
Getting into the routine of letting the chickens out of the hutch in the morning, with fresh water and food.

We let them out of the coop today for the first time. We took all three of them out and put them on the lawn. Agatha was frozen stiff for about 20 seconds before leading the three of them back in a head on charge into the coop. We left the door open till it got dark. Maybe they will be a little braver in a few days.

13th January 2008
Chickens were out again today. Slightly bolder, they gathered in one corner of the garden where the foliage is slightly thicker, they all stayed out for at least an hour, before returning to the coop. Apparently when you first let them out, it is sensible to do so about an hour before dark as they naturally go back to the coop in the evening.

16th January 2008
We have had three days of heavy rain and the garden is soaked through with water. Today was the first break with some sunshine. We let the chickens out again and they seemed a bit happier to explore more of the garden. We saw the first signs of some open scrapping going off in the garden with some low level pecking between them. Agatha still seems to be top of the pecking order.

20th January 2008
We let them out most days now for about an hour. Isabella escaped today into next doors garden and then into the car park. They are getting a lot more adventurous. Had a look if any eggs have been laid - no luck so far.

24th January 2008
We are trying to get them out for about an hour a day, which can be difficult if you are working. Waking up at 6:30am and letting them out, putting them back in at 8am when I leave for work is the best possible at the moment. They are really keen to get into the garden now and explore everything. Agatha has escaped into the neighbours garden twice now, and I am slightly concerned how their two ginger cats will react to our chickens.

9th February 2008
Weather is a lot better now and we generally leave the chickens outside all day when we can. The cats are now seemingly well used to the chickens and have lost interest. The main worry are the foxes. Whilst we close them in at night, during the day if you are not in the garden a fox could be in and have all three before you know it.

We had plenty of foxes last December, but they seem to have disappeared. I think they were probably killed during some fox hunts over the New Year. Also the farmer has just started lambing in the field next door, so I expect he has shot any foxes still walking around in the day time.

No wonder foxes have moved to the cities.

17th February 2008
Dog attack!!
Woke up early this morning. I let the chickens out and went back inside, just started eating breakfast when I saw a bloke outside with a vicious looking dog and Isabella dead on the floor.

I went out with the intention of punching the blokes head in, but managed to calm down fairly quickly. Seems the dog had run through our fence and just killed Isabella. I found Dorothy hiding behind the bin in the back garden. Agatha has gone missing and we spent about an hour looking for her.

Our neighbour said it is the same dog that killed a lamb last year. We called the woman we bought the chickens from. She said we should report it as it is unacceptable to have a dog which is out of control killing things. What if it had been a child in the back garden.

I will wire proof the back fence now. Apparently there is a chance Agatha might come back tonight and that she is just hiding. If she does not we will probably get two more chickens to keep Dorothy company.

It seems you have to be very careful with chickens as almost everything has a taste for them.

Isabella, sadly killed on 17th Feb 2008. 20 weeks old and probably the tamest of the three. Had a very spoiled 6 weeks living in chicken luxury.

Evening 17th February 2008
Agatha turned up again on the lawn at about 12 noon. She must have some kind of commando hiding techniques because it was impossible to find her anywhere in the neighbourhood. We were very happy to see her though.

We now have two chickens. Not sure whether to get another one or not. I have heard that introducing one chicken to two that already know each other is a problem as they tend to really give it a hard time.

20th February 2008
We decided to buy two more chickens. One of our neighbours also keeps chickens and she thought that just two together would be a poor dynamic socially. Chickens are social animals happier in small groups.

You can introduce two new chickens to two that are already established, but apparently it is not good to just bring in one new one as it will be pecked and abused by the others.

As such we have just bought hetty - easily the smallest of the four:

And Arabella - very big for her age and brilliant white:

We bought the chickens from a small place in Henkerton nearby. They had hundreds of different chickens and exotic breeds, but do not have an internet site. These were also bought "point of lay" so are about 1 month younger than Dorothy and Agatha.

We took Agatha and Dorothy out of the coop and left them in the garden. We then put Arabella and Hetty into the coop and closed the door so they were kept apart until night fall. Agatha and Dorothy started circling the coop making loud sqwarks which we have not heard before. The other two looked terrified. I thought we might have made a mistake.

As it started to approach nightfall we let Agatha and Dorothy into the coop - Chaos!. There was an immediate fight - Agatha laying straight into Hetty pecking her all round the coop and screaming out loud. We took the two new comers out and waited till Agatha and Dorothy were settled for the night. I then dropped in Hetty and Arabella into the coop in the pitch black, feeling slightly sorry for the fear they must have at their unwelcoming flat mates.

21st February 2008
I got up at the crack of dawn to let them all out into the garden. Again there were a few scraps with the younger new comers getting a bit of a beating. I tried to keep them apart, but two hours we were off for work leaving the four of them in the coop to fight it out.

I got back home in the evening to find all four of them cuddled up in the coop trying to get to sleep. Was a relief to see the new comers were still alive and not pecked apart.

23rd February 2008
We try to give them at least two hours a day searching the garden. Hetty and Arabella are still getting pecked and chased round the garden, but every night they all cuddle up and sleep together.

24th February 2008
Have tried keeping Agatha in the coop and letting the other three out to be together. Then swapping her for Dorothy at lunch time, so each of the established hens gets to be with the new comers on her own. This seems to have reduced the bullying a bit.

28th February
There seems to be a lot more harmony in the group now. There is still some pecking and the new comers can never eat or drink while the established pair are there, but they still get pecked fairly often.

Was cleaning out the coop this morning and found our FIRST EGG. It looked a bit out of place, but was quite exciting.

It was nothing like as small as expected, only slightly smaller than the ones we had from Waitrose.

Not sure who laid it yet.

29th February 2008
Agatha was making an awful noise this morning. Walking round the garden screaming. Then she disappeared into the coop for a few minutes. Guessing what was going on I went down after she came out to find another egg - still warm - fantastic. That is fresh eggs for you. We had both eggs fried for dinner that night.

2nd March 2008
We let them out all day today as we are at home on a Sunday. Dorothy went into the hutch on her own - so we got the impression she might be about to lay just as Agatha had done a few days before. I went in to take a look and she was kind of scratching the floor of the coop and then trying to settle in. It really looked like she was about to lay.

I went back another two times to see if there was an egg, but nothing yet. So we went in and had lunch. After lunch Dorothy had just disappeared. How could that be, we had only left them for about 20 minutes and now we had lost another one. I had spent the previous Sunday fixing the fence - I covered every possible hole all around with chicken wire. We looked every where, but she was no where to be seen.

At about 4pm we saw her in the neighbours garden walking around. She even walked up to the fence for me to lean over and pick her up again. Sadly there was no egg to find - we think she disappeared to find some peace and quiet to lay without someone sticking their head in every 5 minutes.

4th March 2008
Agatha has now laid five eggs, which is not much less than one a day. We could tell Dorothy was going to lay again today as she was sort of screeching. I watched her through the living room window, sneak through a tiny space under the fence and into the neighbours garden. She then walked over to some plastic lining the neighbours trampoline is sometimes covered in. I went round to get her back (and block up the hole) - there she was under the plastic squating. I picked her up and there was the egg she had laid two days before.

I heard they can lay somewhere in your (or a neighbours garden). But ideally it is best to get them into a routine of laying in the coop.

5th March 2008
The old hutch we have been using has some bad signs of wood worm. It is also getting extremely grubby inside, and very difficult to get clean. Perhaps rashly we have gone and bought the egloo from www.omlet.co.uk. It takes a few days to deliver as apparently they are swamped with requests.
I was working away in the living room today, when I had a feeling I was being watched.

Arabella has finally discovered where we go after seeing them. Since she learned to get onto the window sills they are all at it. Almost every room in the house today there was a chicken looking in at us, slightly accusingly as if they should be in here too.

9th March 2008
We have been thinking of clipping Arabella's wings. She is constantly flying off somewhere usually into the neighbours garden. When we bought the first three, the woman at www.cotswoldchickens.com clipped one of the wings on each bird. You do this by lifting up one wing and cutting the long under feathers to be the same length as the feathers higher up. Clipping just one wing discourages them from flying off and getting lost. As our first set had their wings cut at a young age, they have tended not to fly, even once their wings will have grown back.

13th March 2008
We have been trying out a few left over foods with the chickens. They quite like old bread, so we give them the end bits of the loaf. They really like old boiled potatoes; but best of all they absolutely love spagetti. If it is still slightly moist and flexible they go crazy for it - squabbling over every piece - probably also a good way of teaching them how to swallow worms, as Agatha and Dorothy do not seem to know what to do with a worm when they find one.

15th March 2008
We finally received the new chicken house delivered from the omlet company. It came in few boxes. It took about two hours to assemble. I laid it all out on the lawn with the chicken pecking through it. I thought it would take a lot longer, but actually the last bits are really easy. Seemed to come with two screws missing, or perhaps the chickens ate them, but I found a place where we did not really need the two screws on the sliding lid.

16th March 2008
Already we can tell it is far better than the old one. Fair enough it was expensive, but we save so much time in cleaning it out and maintenance, in the long run it makes keeping them a lot better.

17th March 2008
I like the way you can slowly move the eglo around the garden, hopefully I will not have to mow the lawn much this year.

18th March 2008
Arabella laid her first egg today. We are soon going to be inumndated I think.

21st March 2008
We had our first double egg. I have never seen an egg like it, it was massive. Like a normal egg, but twice as long. I forgot to photograph it though, but there were two yokes inside.

24th March 2008
All the hens are quite comfortable now around each other. When they are in the run, there is very little pecking going off. This is partly due to the new house I think, as in the old house hetty and arabella could never get into the run without being pecked constantly.

29th March 2008
We are getting two or three eggs a day now. I have made a small sign advertising "EGGS" for sale. They are £1.50 for six which seems fair. I doubt supermarket free range hens get quite as much care as these ones.

I put the sign out and one of our neighbours driving past immediately stopped and offered to buy them - one egg they got was even laid today - so you cannot get much fresher. Their children were really excited to see the chickens.

18/4/2008

When I came this evening, I saw that Arabella our white chicken looked like she had blood all around her bottom and vent. All her white feathers on her bottom were blood stained and it looked really horrible.
At the same time I noticed that the other chickens where looking at her bum and pecking her blood stained feathers. Arabella did not seem to be distressed or in pain, but I was truly shocked. I immediately separated her from the others and put her in a box with some straw. She had a big bruise around her vent and everything looked really sore. I rang the people at Merlin Cottage in Hankerton where we bought Arabella from and they were really kind and suggested I should take them over to them so they could have a look at her.

It turned out that Arabella had some sort of rupture from laying an egg that was possibly to large for her. A blood vessel must have burst when she tried to lay the egg. Unfortunately chickens are cannibals and as soon as they see blood they go for it and will not stop pecking. Apparently, the only way to treat Arabella and give her a chance of survival is to separate her from the othes until the wound has healed. Thankfully the kind owners of Merlin Cottage offered to take her in for a few days and to keep an eye on her, as we did not have a separate chickencoop, and she can hardly stay in a box for 4 days!!

22/04/2008

Today we picked Arabella up from “Chickenhospital” at Merlin Cottage. Thank god, she has survived and her bum looks much better, even though the feathers are still quite dirty. She had some antibiotic spray on her vent which helped as well. We took her home and we were advised to stop her feeding layer pellets until she has completely healed to discourage the egg production. We fed her a corn/wheat mixture instead which she loved. At home, we kept her in box in the house over night and during the day she stayed in a rabbit run which we borrowed from the neighbour. The chickens could see each other but could not peck her.

23/04/2008

I let them all out into the garden today and I could see Hetty peeking up Arabellas bum and having a peck again. I had to separate them again, because otherwise it will never heal. In the evening we also gave her bum a bit of a wash with warm water to clean the feathers from the blood around her vent. She looked awful afterwards but after the feathers dried she looked much better. I am getting a bit tired of seeing the backend of a chicken.

24/04/2008

We tried again to let them all out together and this time it worked! Hetty seemed to have gone up in the pecking order but she ignored Arabella’s bum which by now was still looking a bit grey and dirty but there was no more blood and no more pecking. She has also been laying eggs in the last few days without any problems, but we still keep her off the layer pellets. Tonight she will sleep with the others in the coop.

25/04/2008

Thanks god, no more pecking! Everything seems to be back to normal. Arabella has done a lot of grooming herself on her bum and all the feathers are clean again and fluffy. She is laying her daily egg and seems to have no problems anymore.

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