Chicken Diaries - Goodbye Spot and our first egg!

I haven't writtten in a while, but on the 27 May we disposed of Spot. Poor Spotty had many of her feathers pulled out of the back of her neck from when Spot had managed to corner her for mating (and she is still only a baby so she's not fertile nor ready for fertilization). He tore her comb and now it has an ugly scab on it.

The kids were informed that Spot would no longer be there on the Friday when they got home from school, and so they said goodbye in the morning. Later that morning I had to hold my pet down whilst my mum did the deed and she did all the plucking and cleaning for me. Now I know how to do it if I had to do it again.

We ate him that night and his meat was tough! I was told later that you need to leave the meat for 3 days before you eat it, or it will be tough.

Spotty has grown a lot, and is now the second heaviest chicken! Last Monday I weighed them.

Bubbles is the number 2 chicken of the flock, and I think she's stopped growing. She was 1287g last week and this week is 1282g. The previous week she was 1280g.

I think Cacciatore has stopped growing. She has been this weight for a few weeks now, give or take 10g. She is the smallest of the chickens yet she is the alpha hen!

Mary finally cracked the 2kg mark! Last week she was 1902g, and the week before she was  1855g. With Spot gone, Mary has become the number 3 hen of the flock.

I'm not sure if this is accurate. Last week Snowy weighed 1530g. I will have to do weekly weighs to make sure she's ok. Snowy is at the bottom of the pecking order.

Look at all the feathers missing off poor Spotty's neck! They are growing back, but she still looks like the most juvenile hen here, despite being a good weight. Last week she was 1675g, and the week before she was 1450g. She may also be going through a teenage moult, but she is eating well.

Today I went outside to clean the coop and I found an egg!

I was very excited and made everyone else come out and look. You can see the nesting boxes in the background there (amongst all the poop) and I had blocked them off because the youngest pullets were in there sleeping and pooping. Now I've taken the boxes and soup pot out and put a dummy egg in one in the hope they will lay inside the nesting boxes.

It's a tiny egg!

We made pancakes out of the tiny egg, and the yolk was very pale. The shell wasn't too thin, it seemed ok. I'm wondering who laid the egg - I suspect it was Cacciatore, but it could have been Bubbles! Both of them seem to have matured and reached maximum weight (so they must be bantams!). Now I have to go find some shell grit to give them so my eggs will have nice strong shells and nobody gets osteoporosis!

Chicken lice - treated with Pestene and Imidacloprid

I blame myself. I didn't check the chickens properly when I brought them home and I introduced them to the others on Friday and all day Saturday!

We had some practice social experiments, where we put the Wyandotte with the others and she was immediately bullied by Cacciatore, but when we put Cacciatore in the small cage, Cacciatore was bullied by Spotty, our Speckled Sussex!

So on Saturday I added them all together and watched them like hawks, separating Cacciatore when she was too vicious to Snowy (which is what my daughter named the Wyandotte). As the day went on I was happy to see them eating well, drinking well and walking around the enclosure. Bubbles was quite placid with them and Mary avoided them, hiding up in the coop.

I had dismantled the puppy pen to make an extension of the enclosure, and whilst I was inside I heard chicken squawks of distress. I run outside to see poor Snowy with Spot mounting her back, his beak holding onto her neck (like roosters do when mating) and she was entangled in the fence. I ran outside to disentangle her and as I parted her feathers I noticed tiny creatures on her skin scurrying away as I parted her feathers. I nearly dropped her in horror. Were these mites or lice?

After I separated Snowy, I grabbed Spotty and examined her - she had lice too! I put her with Snowy and examined Spot, who had no lice, and Cacciatore who also had no lice. I needed to find something to treat them straight away! Off I went to Petbarn to get some Pestene which I applied to the two chickens, though I don't know if I did it correctly.

I had never done it before so I went to youtube to see if I could find somewhere to show me how to do it, and this video was quite helpful.

We went out for dinner and I returned home and did the rest of the chickens, and it was quite easy to catch them as they were all in the coop already. They didn't like it but it needed to be done (and in fact I did it in the sandpit)

Now, I need to go and clean out the rest of the cage, and pick up all the loose feathers I had left lying around on the ground. I will redust the chickens in a few days but hopefully that will treat them. I don't think the infestation was bad - I didn't see clumps of nits on any of the feathers, but I will have another look at them tomorrow.

Edit: I take that back, there were nits - I felt them last night but didn't realise they were nits!

I wondered if you could use those flea things on them, like they do on cats and dogs with the drop on the back of the neck. I saw that someone had asked the same question on Backyard Poultry Forum, and they had used them. I went to the pet shop and got some Advantage, where the active ingredient is Imidacloprid (a very effective pesticide).

I got the formulation for kittens, which is a 0.4mL dose of a 100g/L imidacloprid solution. I figured that there are about 8 drops in 0.4mL, which means each drop contains 5mg.

Imidacloprimide is moderately toxic if ingested and low in toxicity via dermal exposure. Toxicity can be seen in 50mg/kg doses ingested (in rats) and this is way below that so it shouldn't be an issue in the chicken meat. However, the thought is rather sobering.

It lasts for a long time in the ground (and apparently is used in tree pesticides and is taken up by trees rendering them toxic to a number of insect pests, such as locusts). However it is also very toxic to bees, and in some places it is not allowed to be used due to the affect on the local bee population.

So from what I can find on the internet, it seems to persist for a while, lasting up to 4 weeks (which is good in that when the nits hatch they will die) but that's a long time for it to hang around!

Well, none of my chickens are laying, so that's not so bad. HOWEVER, we were planning on eating Spot this week, so perhaps I shouldn't have dosed him!

The Chicken Diaries - Week 19

I had my first aggressive interaction from Spot on Monday.

I had cleaned the coop in the morning, but I had come out again to do some general gardening and play with the chickens, and I was also talking on the phone to my mother. Mary was hiding up in the coop again, so I went to go check on her and I noticed a huge chicken poop so I went to go get something to clean it up.

Something bumped into my leg. It was Spot. I thought he was walking backwards again. But no! He had his hackles raised, and he leapt at my leg, with his claws outstretched, kicking me and squawking! He did it not once, but four times! And it was uncomfortable, not painful but rather uncomfortable that I admonished him for it. He stopped and then went back to his normal self, but that was surprising.

I was upset that he was so aggressive which only strengthened my resolve to dispose of him, but when I read up on the internet, I started to feel a bit guilty.

Roosters can be teenagers too, with raging hormones. They can have periods of aggression intermittently as they try to get used to their hormone urges, and as they mature, these urges settle and they may or may not become more docile. Also, with these raging hormones, they are trying to mate with all the females as well - some of whom are not quite mature enough yet to be impregnated so they go running. Sounds a lot like what Mary's doing doesn't it! Sussex chickens are slow to mature, and Mary is younger than Spot, so has been clearly trying to avoid Spot's amorous attentions. I have seen him strutting around the other two and demonstrating himself, so he's definitely playing up to the ladies.

And now I'm slaughtering him for it?

I don't know if I want fertilised eggs. Eating fertilised eggs seems wrong! And when he attacked me, surely he would do that to other attackers too, like cats and birds of prey? But, he is noisy, and it's only a matter of time before the neighbours kick up a fuss.

Bubbles only put on 27g this week (compared with 66g last week). At 1213g, maybe she is slowing down in terms of weight gain, meaning she might be a bantam!

Cacciatore put on 26g this week (compared with 28g last week) and is now 1039g. Still putting on a little bit of weight! Definitely a bantam!

Look at Mary, now weighing 1635g. She put on 76g this week (compared to 114g last week)

Spot is hard to keep still. Here he is running away! But the stable weight was 1805g, which means he put on 78g this week, which is about half of what he put on last week (141g last week)

So on Tuesday I went to Misty Gums Poultry to go get another chook, as a replacement for my rooster who will soon be soup. Paul said he had some Speckled Sussexes that might be the right age, as well as some White Wyandottes.

I was pretty keen for a Speckled Sussex, so Paul gave me one of his girls, who still looked quite young, but a decent size. As I turned to take my treasured pullet away, he asked me if I couldn't be tempted to take a second one? I shook my head with a smile, and he sweetened it with the offer of a discount, a large discount. I hesitated. What was wrong with her that he was selling her so cheap? He took me to show me - it turned out this little White Wyandotte had deformed feet, but was otherwise perfectly healthy. Reluctantly, I shook my head, but when he knocked the price down to $15... I decided I'd take her. So I ended up with TWO chickens!

I have them separated so they won't be killed as they establish a pecking order. I read that you should keep them separated but be able to see each other and then gradually introduce them. Also, I should keep them separated in case of parasites or diseases. I hope to integrate them on the weekend!

The Chicken Diaries - Week 18

We have come to the conclusion this week that Spot needs to go. He has been terrorising Mary, who won't come out of the coop unless he's not around, and we ended up having to give her free range time OUTSIDE the fence so that she could forage in peace without being hounded back into the coop by Spot. Spot with his collar loosened has put on weight again, so I will not tighten the collar again as we are now in the process of fattening him up for slaughter.

Spot weighing in at 1727g this week (1586 last week) - at least he put on 141g this week compared to not putting on any weight in the previous week! If you ask me though, he looks a bit thinner, but that could be just how his feathers are sitting. I still think he's a handsome chook. I am thinking that 2kg is the ideal weight for eating...

Bubbles is looking very sleek lately! I used to think her feathers were a bit all over the place (like messy hair) but now she looks smooth and tidy. She weighs 1185g this week (1119 last week) has put on a nice 66g since last week.

Finally Cacciatore is over 1kg weighing 1013g (985g last week) ! She put on 28g this week. I am wondering if she is a bantam she seems to put on very little weight compared to the others.

My big girl Mary has cracked 1.5kg (1549g) when last week she was 1435g. She has put on 114g this week. Which is good since she only put on 28g the previous week.

We are onto our 2nd big bag of chook feed - we're still eating pullet grower. They are still loving their oat grains and I am still a big failure when it comes to getting them used to the treadle feeder - I am starting to think that was a waste of money.

There are a ton of earthworms underneath the coop! I don't know how they survive there without the chickens eating them! I was moving the bricks around (they are stepping stools for the chooks to get to the feeder) and when I lifted up the brick a whole bunch of earthworms wriggled back into the ground. The rest of the coop is still littered with feathers and some droppings as well as a fair dose of hemp (I have been sweeping old hemp litter into the coop to put on top of the dirt). I was wondering if it was bad if I didn't clean out the inside of the coop because of all the worms eating things in there but I realised that not many people put their chicken coops straight onto dirt because of the risk of burrowing predators and rodents. So far we have been very lucky

The Chicken Diaries - Week 17

I was happy that the chickens were happy and well after we were away on holidays for 2 weeks! Everyone who looked after the chickens mentioned to us that Spot was crowing, despite his collar and we even had a recording of it.

We ended up gettting a No-Crow collar, which has mesh and looks like he will have more flexibility in his neck.

It took two tightenings to get him to be quieter but still able to eat, but he keeps running backwards with his head down to the ground, as if he's trying to get out of the collar. I could still slip the tip of my little finger under the collar so I thought it was ok.

They grew a lot in the 3 weeks since I last weighed them. So this was their weights at 16 weeks:

Spot - 1596

Mary - 1407

Bubbles - 1076

Cacciatore - 974

I think Spot looks quite handsome. But Mary is a whopper. She has grown a lot, but I worry she's a bit of an isolated chook. She hides up in the coop until all the others chooks are out, then she comes out. And she is the first one back into the coop for bedtime. She doesn't really roam around with the other 3 chickens, and just today, when it was raining, I noticed her out in the rain foraging, whilst the others were all sitting inside the coop. It smacked of sad high school behaviour! However, at least she is still eating well and not starving or stressed, she has all her feathers.

Cacciatore has been an escape artist since we came home. I found her eating my vegies again! I clipped her wings because she was flying onto the coop roof then hopping out, but I don't think it really stops her. I'm sure she didn't eat any of my vegies when I was away.

This week I weighed them and I was concerned because Spot had LOST weight, which is a concern because of the collar.

Spot - 1586

Mary - 1435

Bubbles - 1119

Cacciatore - 985

I have seen Spot eating and fed him myself. The collar he has on is lighter than the other one, which would mean he hadn't put on any weight this week.

If he loses weight again for another week I will loosen his collar, but then his crow will be louder, which means the council will come for him. Sigh, it might just be better if we had to eat him. I know many would say why don't I give him to someone who will take roosters - but I think that I had already considered the possibility he could be eaten and so I should show my determination and do what I had thought may need to be done.

The Chicken Diaries - Week 12

Cacciatore is still the little escape artist - we are constantly having to catch her and put her back inside the pen. I wish she would grow a bit bigger so she couldn't get out so easily!

Bubbles has put on 66g this week, which seems small compared to the 82g she put on the previosu week. The kids have been picking her up more, I hope that it doesn't cause her too much stress.

Cacciatore has put on 70g this week (she put on 81g last week) and is looking like a very slim chicken. I don't think she'd be good for eating!

Mary is still laying on the weight and has put on 139g this week and next week will break the 1kg mark.

And here is spot having put on another 125g this week. He's pretty consistent with his weight gain. I wonder why the girls have weight gain all over the shop.

I found out they LOVE to eat oats - the whole oats that I had been trying to sprout. Since they sprout very poorly, I have been using them as a treat to feed the chooks and try to get them to be more tame again. It's also an effort to get the kids to stop picking up frightened chooks, but they are getting better. Actually, even Spot has stopped squawking so much when cornered and picked up by the kids, compared to before. I still don't think he likes it though.

My son has been helping clean the poo out of their roosting home! I was really impressed when he took the poopascoop and the bucket and took out all the poo and put it into the compost. What a good boy!

I'm thinking I might quit the weekly weighs and switch to fortnightly. I'd like to keep weighing them till they start laying though!

The Chicken Diaries - Week 11

Not much to report, except the kids chasing the chickens around all the time has made them a little wary of being picked up! Slow movements are not too bad, I can get Cacciatore and Mary with slow movement but the other two are like little squawking rocket chickens!

But nobody escapes me and so I wrestled the chickens for their weekly photo.

Bubbles weighing in at 795g this week (put on 82g this week compared with 113g the previous week) is looking very Araucana-ey with the little cheek tufts. I inspected her comb again and it definitely only has the one row, so I'm hoping we have a girl. She is very loud with her chicken grrawww noise compared to the others who still have a bit of baby cheep.

Cacciatore is trailing the pack by a big margin now - she weighs 744g (and has put on  81g this week compared to 91g the previous week). It wouldn't surprise me if she was a bantam except that she came from the same hatching as Spot and Bubbles, so maybe she is at the bottom of the pecking order or something.

Gorgeous little Mary eats like a champ and is now a whopping 821g (having put on 155g this week compared to 124g last week). Though, when we went to the easter show and saw the size of a full sized light Sussex they were VERY BIG CHICKENS!

Spot has cracked the 1kg mark! He's put on 125g this week (pretty much the same as his 124g the previous week). I had a hell of a time chasing him around the yard and coop, he's a slippery little sucker!

We went to the Royal Easter Show on the weekend and spent a lot of time in the Poultry Pavillion, with the kids thrilled to see chickens and eggs. A comment made by HK when he was looking at the chickens was "Why do the egg laying ones look so much healthier than the meat birds?" The Hy-Line egg layers were brown and the meat breeds were white, and the meat ones just looked young and maybe not fully feathered. They probably WERE young, since meat birds are supposed to be ready to slaughter at 35 days, whereas egg layers need 18 weeks at least before they can start laying. Those meat birds did have big legs, but the purebreeds were lovely to look at, I think. No wonder everyone keeps bantams in their backyards!

I have been thinking about what breeds of chicken I would like to get, and if the Sussex temperament are anything to go by I'd love to have a whole flock of them!  Look at the marvellous colours they come in!

Buff Sussex

Speckled Sussex

Silver Sussex

This is like Lego.. you can't have just one, you want to get more!

Even though I clipped their wings, Spot is still flying onto the roof of the coop! Well, just the egg part, and so far he hasn't run away or tried to escape (though I have been told the chickens have been jumping and squeezing out through the higher, bigger holes in the Omlet fence, but running by themselves back in again). Hopefully he won't fly away!

The Chicken Diaries - Week 10

This week, guzzleguts Mary has overtaken Cacciatore in weight!

Bubbles has put on 113g this week (compared to 75g last week)!! I found that hard to believe. The kids have been picking her up more frequently though she is still very skittish. She does like to eat freshly chopped vegies though!

Cacciatore put on 91g this week (compared to 76g last week). She still jumps up on me, but with my son chasing her around, she isn't quite as welcoming as she used to be. Still comes readily when they seem my hand out with food in it!

Everyone's favourite, Mary, has put on 124g this week (up from 90g last week). She really does eat A LOT. If someone is in the Dine-A-Chook eating the crumble, it would be Mary. She is still a docile thing, but yes, she is now heavier then Cacciatore!

Look at my big boy! Weighing in at 901g (he put on 124g this week compared to 114g last week) he is still a scaredy-chook and it's so hard to get him to stay still on the weighing plate. But he will be 1kg next week!

The chooks have enjoyed perching on my garden furniture and nibbling on my container garden vegetables. But I have had enough of THAT.

Look at the poop everywhere! And my poor vegies being eaten to death, I had just made some new pots and planted some seeds and found the chooks had dug out some of the seeds (bean seeds are so big), so I decided THAT'S IT, time for some fencing.

This Omlet fencing was quite good, and portable and temporary, and though it took me a while to set up (because of the difficulty trying to figure out where the enclosure would be), I finally figured out that this was ok. The tops are a bit saggy and the chickens can get out the big squares but they can't get out the little ones down below. It's gonna make mowing the lawn a bit of a bitch now, though.

I tried sprouting some oats - ugh, that didn't go very well. Only got 3 sprouts out of it after a week, and so I fed it to the chickens but they seemed to really love it, especially Bubbles. Looks like wheat is the easiest to grow. I'll try barley next week and see how that is.

This week the chickens really got into the garden - they have decimated my wild bok choy which I didn't really mind, but they ate some and sat on the rest of it. I wouldn't mind it so much if they would EAT all of what they destroyed rather than having shredded leaves and plants lying everywhere.  So I'm giving my bok choy a break from the chooks and see if it goes to seed, and then I can have a whole lot more NEW wild bok choy.

Bubbles has the chicken clucking now (especially when stressed) but Mary is still cheeping like a chick at times. Spot does squawk when chased too. Oh, and I clipped Spot and Cacciatore's wings. They could actually fly quite high. It's not as bad as it sounds, I just chopped off the primary wings as per instructions in this picture.

It didn't hurt them and my son helped me hold the chickens, so that wasn't as traumatic as I thought.

I am worried about going away and who is going to look after the chooks. I can probably get a friend to look after them, but imagine how much poop there will be when I get back 2 weeks later! I did ask if someone could take them for 2 weeks, but people tell me that they would be killed or maimed if I tried to insert them into a new flock for 2 weeks!

The Chicken Diaries - Week 9

Everyone is now over 500g!

It's such a pain trying to catch them now. I'm wondering when I will stop doing this weighing thing. Perhaps when they start laying eggs?

Bubbles has put on 75g this week (down from 88g last week). Bubbles feathers are not smooth like the others - it makes me wonder if she has some frizzle in her genetics. No signs of a triple pea comb yet! Here's hoping!

Cacciatore has put on 76g this week (down from 79g last week). She is skittish when approached suddenly but once you have food out she will happily climb on you. At least the kids can still pick Cacciatore up.

Mary has put on 90g this week (more than her 88g last week). She eats really well. I've seen her using the Dine-a-chook very well, and she spends more time eating than I've noticed any of the others. She is also the easiest to pick up and has to put up with the kids constantly carrying her.

It is such a chore trying to catch Spot, who has now passed the 3/4 kg mark! He has put on 114g this week (down from 123g last week). Spot is quite a good looking chicken, I think. He hasn't yet started crowing, but he will be cracking the 1kg mark in a few weeks. I am thinking about getting a crow collar on him so I don't have to eat him.

Unfortunately for me, they were not very interested in the sprouts I gave them. However, I shall persist! I noticed today that they devoured zucchini when it was chopped very finely. Perhaps that's what I need to do for all their kitchen scraps.

I took pics of the grains I was sprouting. I used a mixture of wheat, barley and oats, and if you ask me, it looked like the only thing sprouting was the wheat! It's really easy - soak overnight, then put them into a container with some holes so it drains, and place that inside another container to contain the water that leaks out. Rinse it twice a day to stop the mould growing and that's it! They don't need sun or anything, I just left them on the washing machine or the kitchen bench.

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Perhaps I need to starve them a bit so they eat it. Or perhaps it's too big for them. After today, I noticed they liked their food chopped up as fine as crumble so that might what the problem is.

I was concerned lately because they hadn't been doing dust baths. I kept checking the chickens for tics and mites and so far they seem good. However, today I saw Mary dust bathing in the dirt outside the pen, and Bubbles doing it inside the pen. What a relief.

If I had paid attention, I would have realised they had been doing it already! Here are Spot and Cacciatore soaking up some sun.

And the bottom two photos you can see some depressions which is where some chicken has been fluffing around in! Look at my uprooted veggies in the other one!

Next step - train them to use the treadle!