Sweetcorn

This is excise for our girls! They love it!

Dust bath

Well with the spring clean, also come the clean dust bath. However, Penny and Margo were not impressed and decided to make their own!!

I'm afraid the pics aren't that clear, but think you can get the general idea!

Spring clean!!!

Well, as saturday is the only sunny day forcast for the bank holiday it was Spring clean day for the girls!!!

We took the cube apart as much as we could and washed it on the lawn with a power washer!!! Thank fully it didn't take too long. Although there was MUCH poo to deal with! We waited until Penny and Sweetie had laid, Penny is up to 45g now, she's such a good girl, and then when mad with a bucket! Coops was loving it as I think he secretly lurves chicken poop!

The girls took it all in their stride and Penny, Babette and Hazel had their normal chat on the high perch. they just love it up there!!!

Worried about Margo

Poor ol' Margo.... we are worried about her....... She hasn't laid since last week. She seem fine in herself, but I'm not sure... I've posted on the Omlet site for some advice, as I know it takes a while for them to get into the swing of things, but this does seem odd....

She has a few symptoms..... she scoffing ALOT, but they do eat more when they start laying, her comb is no longer bright red but pink, and she has poop like water! Not nice..... The concensus is that she may have worms.. I've already ordered some Flubenvet but am kicking myself that I didn't do it earlier as i'll have to wait until tuesday now....

Then we will have to work out how to give a minute amount to each hen on half a grape, and for seven days!!!!!!!!!!! Will be a military operation....... wish me luck!

Preparing for Lottie!

Well, as you know, Claire and Duke are going away for a well deserved holiday, and when this happens we return the doggie sitting favor and Lottie has a little holiday too!!! We always love having Lottie here as she is such a big personality it's like having a whole other person in the house!

However, this time we have the added complication of 6 flappy chooks in the garden..... Lottie being of the working variety will be beside herself!

We have already had a trial run, and it went brilliantly! We kept her on a lead and she was very quiet albeit very interested in them.... we had invested in a mega pump action waterpistol just in case but it wasn't needed! You could have knocked us down with a feather, as even when Benji came there was a degree of swarking and flapping.... and it's not pleasant to see. So we were on full alert!!!!

We are sure now that Claire and Duke think we were being over cautious for our new additions but it previously had not been a pretty sight! Regardless we are jubilant that things went well....

The plan was though to put a temporary fence around the cube and run to stop Coops and Lottie forming a pack and chasing them round and round. Plus the first weekend she is here I am home alone as Nick is at the farm for Janes birthday bash!!!

So the fence is up and looking good.... is not too visiable and will do a good job.... Nick toiled away and did it very quickly on our only sunny day!!!

Desperate Hazel!!!!!!!!

Well, the girls know where the door is now. Every time we go anywhere near the run they make a break for the door, hoping that I'm about to chuck something yummy through it! Yummy is a very broad term mind, it could be corn, worms, fruit, cabbage, lettuce.... wouldn't make the most of us do back flips, but the girls literally climb over eachother to reach it first.... Once at the door should it open they ALL huddle and try to squeeze through it at the same time....... A tricky manouvre with me with my knee in the door, a bowl of goodies AND coops trying to wedge himself through from the other side!!!

Anyway...................... when you have to bodily go in you have to sort of flap the top half of the front down, stop coops from doing a sneaking high jump, bend at a strange angle and lauch yourself in whilst of course carrying treats and a back sack to sit on, as you wouldn't want to get a dirty bum! Nick of course in waiting patiently and laughing ready to hold the flap up once I am in and covered in rabbid chooks scrabbing about for food!!!!

So, the flap was undone.... we began to open while cooing nicely for them to wait nicely, when Hazel takes a running jump and is up through the 6inch gap in a jiffy!!!!!!!! Not good... she was silent and deadly! I was so shocked but managed to 'catch' her by her very skinny body and wedge her against my chest! We then forced the flap shut with her still squashed in my hands - painful! I was trying very carefuly to put her down, but the angle made it impossible and she made a flappy 'plop' onto the floor looking very put out!!!!

Man they know what's out there and are desperate to find it!!!

A three egg day!!!!!!!!!!

Well, how lucky are we!!!!!!!!!!

I went out this morning only to find 2 very light coloured eggies in the nesting box!!! Now I know that one belonged to Penny, Margo lays fairly dark brown speckled eggs, so it's not hers... so am guessing that Sweetie is responsible. Nick had found her lurking in the nesting box over the weekend just getting a feel of the place :-))) so maybe it is her... her comb is still quite small, but maybe she an early starter!!!

When I went out there later, there was margo's one warm and waiting for me!! Clever girl.... she's always an after noon girl!!!

I took 4 small eggs in a box over to nannys, our first gift of eggs! We are very proud of our girls.. now though we'd like them to concentrate on producing one over 40gms, that seems to be the ceiling at the moment!

We also gave them a few crusts cut up as a treat today, and the yummed it up! Will remember that one... have put their Bokashi bran in a cup and they've scoffed that down too, so maybe i'll stop putting it in their food now......

Clever, clever girls!!!