Age is just a number

Titian having a snooze by the summerhouse

Tu-Tu is our oldest chicken - she must be, because she laid eggs from the day she arrived in our chicken coop;  it was quite some time before the others joined in.  But I suspect that Titian is much older - well mentally anyway.

She still looks just as beautiful as she ever did.  She's a lovely rich reddish-brown colour (if you ignore the white feather near her bum) and her feathers are glossy and sleek.  So what if the odd little bunch of feathers stick out at peculiar angles and who is going to notice the occasional light brown one dotted about here and there.

And this girl has a mind of her own.   Last year she remembered that Rhode Island Reds are dual-purpose birds, being both meat and egg producers.   So although she had laid gorgeous big brown eggs in her first year, last year she didn't bother much.   I don't think she actually intended that we should stuff her with lemons and stick her in the oven.   I suspect she was just making a point, in her own inimitable fashion.

She's returned to prolific egg laying again now.   These days her eggs are still brown, but that's where the similarity with her early eggs stops.  Her current products are half the size they were before and each of them has a cute pointy top.  The shells are paper-thin too.   It doesn't matter what we feed her to try and thicken them up a bit, they remain stubbornly fragile.

Maybe she's just decided to make sure we don't eat too much fried stuff. If you break her eggs into a frying pan you discover that although the yolks are nice and big, there's not much white and what there is, is watery and sticks tenaciously to the pan.   We've learned to scramble all Titian's eggs.   For one thing it's safer breaking them over a bowl.   You may end up with bits of shell in there too, but at least Titian's eggs aren't draped across the kitchen counter and dripping onto the floor that's just been washed.

She's only three, so in real terms she's a middle-aged Rhode Island Red, not an old girl at all.   But just as some people are old at 25, I rather imagine the same applies to other creatures too.   Maybe Titian falls into that category.

This and that

There can't be too many people who've been nagged by a wild pheasant, but it happened to me last week.

I was sitting in the garden with the chickens when I heard a soft muttering, which definitely wasn't coming from the chickens.   I looked up and there was Mrs Pheasant on my garden wall, glaring at me.

Our lovely neighbourhood female pheasant

She's usually around at mid-afternoon and if I'm out too, I drop a few handfuls of corn into the field for her.  When she sees me, she comes running over, knowing there's food to be had.   Evidently she wanted her afternoon tea now and what was I doing?  Chatting to chickens, that's what!

She graciously posed for No. 1 Son, while I sorted her food out.   She's a lovely bird and no photograph could possibly do justice to the subtle shading and patterns of her feathers. 

Moving on ......

A couple of weeks ago the floor of the spare coop fell down into the cage below.   Both Titian and Pom-Pom like to lay their eggs on the cage floor, so it was fortunate that neither of them were there when the floor nose-dived.

A couple of days later, I was having a headcount and realised Titian was missing.  I looked everywhere!  I went back and forth between the garden and the run, looking in places that even tinyTu-Tu couldn't have squeezed into.   I was beginning to get frantic when I had a brainwave.  I opened up the side door of the spare coop and there was Titian, comfortably settled in the nest box.  She gave me a look that clearly said, "Do you mind?  I could do with a little privacy here."   With no floor, all she'd had to do was hop up into this new inner sanctum - much more secluded than the cage below.  Evidently Rebecca has found this hidy hole too, because one of her eggs was in there today.

Pom-Pom, on the other hand, isn't bothered about privacy one little bit.   No. 1 Son had cut a hedge and piled the clippings in the garden to await being chopped up and put on the compost heap.   Pom-Pom spotted this neat heap of twigs and leaves, decided it would make a good nest, and started stomping around to flatten it down a bit.

Pom-Pom starts organising a nest suitable for a high-class hen like her

It mattered not one iota that the pile was large and she was small.  This is one determined little hen.  It took her a while, but eventually she had flattened a nice-sized area.   Then she looked around, decided there was something not quite right about it and laid her egg near the dustbath.

And finally we come to one of the Three Musketeers a.k.a. Fizz.   You'll need to remember what his headgear looks like - droopy these days, so here's a reminder:

He managed to get someone else's fluffy, downy white feather attached to his own hairdo.  It drooped elegantly down from near the top of his head at a decidedly rakish angle.   He reminded me so much of the impetuous, reckless young D'Artagnon.  It could only happen to him!

Titian has a cantankerous day

It was a lovely, hazy morning when I went down to open up the chickens this morning.  The sun (which has now disappeared yet again) was busy burning off the mist that lingered lazily over the field at the back of the garden.  Two Canada geese and their three teenaged youngsters had dropped by to inspect the lake which has formed there again - thanks to all the recent rain. There was a calm, peaceful air about the place.

This was in complete contrast to  a few days ago, when there was complete mayhem!

Earlier in the day, when the coop had been opened up, Titian and Fizz had had a glaring match.  Necks were stretched forward, beaks were mere inches apart and they glowered at each other.   Neither was prepared to look away first.   At least not until Fizz forgot why he was glowering and took himself off for breakfast.

All was fine until that afternoon when the chickens and I went into the garden.   Titian and Fizz found themselves on the lawn, about a yard apart.   Fizz was wondering which girl to bonk next;  Punk was handy, but Tu-Tu was looking rather tempting.   So it came as a complete surprise when Titian fluffed up her chest feathers and charged at him.  

The force of her onslaught sent him staggering into the temporary chickenwire fence.   Deciding that a getaway was his best defence, he tried to escape.   But Titian employed some fancy footwork (for a heavyweight) and walloped him just as he reached the hen run gate.

He took off again and managed to get as far as the smoking shelter when Titian caught up with him and hostilities continued.   And this time, she had reinforcements.   Rebecca came galloping in and jumped on Fizz's back.  I could almost hear the thought rushing through her little brain, "Now you know what I have to put up with!"

I was about to intervene when Fizz managed to fly up onto the smoking shelter roof and from there into the upper part of the run.   Titian decided she'd done enough to teach him a lesson and wandered back into the garden.   Rebecca, looking hugely disappointed, followed her out.

There was no obvious reason for either the morning scowls or the afternoon fracas.   Maybe Titian was irritated because Fizz has been bullying Irene (see my last post).  Or maybe it was something else entirely.   You can never tell with chickens, can you.

Apologies and news update

First, profound apologies for the long silence.  I had to meet a publishing deadline for a new book (not chicken-related) to be published later this year, so everything else had to be put on hold.

Right then, chicken run news.

Well it goes without saying that Fizz features in the headlines, doesn't it.   And not everything he's been doing is amusing.

For some reason best known to himself, he has started bullying Irene!  Whether he's getting his own back for all the times in the past that she's sorted him out, I really don't know.  So when I'm down there with them I sit with my mister full of water and squirt him with it when he attacks her.  I'm not terribly sure how much good that's doing though.   His head feather arrangement seems to act like a rainhat and the water just runs off his back.  When he's been squirted, he stands looking vaguely confused.  I suspect he's trying to work out whether he felt something, or if it was just in his imagination.

Then we come to Maggie

She's gone broody and I'm having a battle royal trying to stop her.  We simply don't have room for any more chickens, much as I'd love some.   The coop is certainly big enough for 2 or 3 more, but I don't want to overcrowd the run.   So every morning I let 7 chickens out of the coop.  Then I have to go round, open the nestbox up and remove Maggie.  Then, much to everyone's annoyance, I close up the pop-hole until late afternoon.   I keep hoping that Maggie's hot, sweaty breast will have time to cool down and that her hormones will think twice too.  But no.  As soon as she realises that the nestbox is accessible, she gallops back up the ramp and settles down.

Oddly enough, Tu-Tu hasn't joined her.  She thought a bit about getting broody earlier in the year, but decided against it.   Previously, she's joined Maggie in the nestbox, but not this time.

The other girls go and lay their eggs on the floor in the far corner of the cage under the spare coop.  But not Tu-Tu, that's way below her dignity.  She just clenches her vent and hangs on until she can get access to a proper nestbox.  It's where she's always laid her eggs and she's too long in the tooth to change now.

Finally - a big, big thankyou to everyone who has bought the Mucky Cluckers ebook.  I'm hoping to bring out a paperback version before too long and will announce it on here.

More news next time - and I promise not to leave it so long.

Communal bathing

It was such a lovely warm day that Maggie decided it would be good to have a bath.  There's plenty of places to have one, but by the potato bag seems to be the favourite spot, so that's where she settled.

Irene popped over for a quick chat, but couldn't stop.  She had places to go, things to do;  pity she couldn't remember what they were.  But it would come to her.

Tu-Tu decided to join Maggie.  Trouble was, she wanted the best spot and Maggie was already occupying it.   Maybe if she stuck her head under the Orpington, Maggie would find it so uncomfortable that she'd move.   Worth a try.

That didn't work - in fact Pom-Pom came over to see what on earth was going on!   She's not a dustbathing fan herself, more of a sun worshipper if the truth be known.   She's happy stretching out (preferably on someone's lap), eyes closed and with one wing and one leg extended, catching a few rays.  Bliss!

 

It was a different kettle of fish altogether when Titian popped over from the other side of the garden.

Did she just want to say "hello" and share a bit of gossip?  Was she content to have a quick chat with Pom-Pom and share the day's experiences so far?   I think not ....

If you think Tu-Tu was put out at being shifted over to the tree, you can imagine how exasperated Maggie was.   She'd been robbed of the very best bathing spot.   She's not one for picking fights though.  She has a more subtle approach.

I think the idea was that if she made Titian uncomfortable enough, she'd leave.  Then Maggie could move back.

But then the last straw arrived .......

..... in the shape of Fizz.   He enjoys mixed bathing.

Unfortunately, the girls don't and, as one, they all got up and left.


PS   Sorry the photographs are not up to the usual good standard, but No. 1 Son wasn't at home, so I took them myself.

Let battle commence!

Tu-Tu

The annual battle of wills between Tu-Tu and I has begun.   It goes something like this.

I open the gate to let everyone enjoy the pleasures of completely obliterating my garden.   I count them as they come out, only to discover that there are only 7 chickens.   There should be 8.   That's OK, one of them is probably laying an egg, even though it's a bit on the late side.

So who is missing?   There's Irene eating some corn, with Rebecca as close as she can get without actually touching her.  Pom-Pom is standing on my foot, Fizz is showing Punk where there's a nice piece of ...... what on earth is that!   Titian is filling me in on the latest news, while Maggie is mowing the lawn as fast as she can get the green stuff into her beak.

So that just leaves Tu-Tu;  I might have guessed.

I know exactly where to find her, so off I go to the chicken coop and open up the lid of the nestbox area.   A pretty little lavender face looks up.   If it's possible for a chicken to give you a sweet, innocent smile, this wily old Pekin does just that.

She knows perfectly well that she's sitting on some eggs that the other girls have kindly laid for her.  The trouble is, I know it too.   I reach under her and, sure enough, there are indeed eggs - three of them to be precise.  I manage to curl my fingers round two of them, the third rolling out from beneath Tu-Tu's hot little chest.   Tu-Tu rolls the wayward egg straight back underneath her.   I finally retrieve the third egg and put all of them safely in my little plastic box.

Next, it's Tu-Tu's turn to be retrieved.   I lift her out of the nestbox, request the pleasure of her company in the garden and put her down.   She looks grumpy, right until the moment she spots that there's corn to be had;  then she takes off like a bat out of hell and gets stuck into it.

So today, my plan has worked.   But Tu-Tu and I went through all this palaver last Spring and the Summer before that.   In truth, I know as well as she does that she'll win in the end.   The time will come when, no matter what treats I tempt her with, she will go straight back to the nestbox.

The first year it happened, we got fertile Araucana eggs for her.  Last year we rather hoped that Fizz had done his duty and so we allowed her to sit on some of her friends' eggs.   Even though Maggie joined in and 'helped', not one egg hatched.

Tu-Tu is the oldest of our chickens.  We're not sure just how old she is, but she started laying eggs the day after we got her.  So she's no spring chicken (pun definitely intended).

So the question I have is this.  Do chickens go through menopause and, if they do, I wonder how long it will be before Tu-Tu goes through hers and loses interest in being broody.

Tu-Tu with her Araucana babies

Some very special visitors

The field behind our garden and its "lake"

The field behind our garden has a spring beneath it.  This often causes it to flood during the Winter months, but this year the excessive amount of rain has caused the spring to overflow and flood the field now, too.   It's shallow enough for the sheep and lambs to slosh through if they have to.  But it has been deep enough to attract a few visitors too.

We had a little Sandpiper skirting round the edges looking for insects - haven't seen one of those in the field before.   A Canada Goose and a couple of Greylags dropped in for a moment or two, but quickly left when the water didn't come much above their ankles.   But best of all, we've had ducks!   Wooohooo!   Take a look at this lot.

The first to arrive

Picture by:  Rror

Yes, OK, it's just a Mallard and you see them all over the place.   They're common as muck really.  They come across to us for a visit if there's just the smallest puddle in the middle of the field.  But if, like me, you'd dearly love to have ducks but haven't the room, any and all ducks are welcome.

Aha, but look what arrived next.

A visitor from foreign parts

Picture by:   Yoki

Mandarins!   Hows that for a bit more exotic then.   Although they breed in the UK, I've never seen them cavorting  round among our sheep before.   The Mrs. decided it really wasn't her kind of drop-in, but he liked it in these parts and has visited every day.   He floats around having a think, then paddles over to the dead oak to see what there is to see.  When he gets fed up with that, he settles down on one of the little islands and thinks some more.   He's so lovely, I could eat him!   Oops, didn't mean that literally.

And then ........... d-daaaaa

Fancied a trip to the country

Picture by:   Arpingstone

Wooohoo - two Shelducks arrived!   I would love to get me some of these for my longed-for duck pond.   They stayed all afternoon, presumably to give me time to wallow in their beauty.   Then they decided enough was enough.   They hadn't been able to find a single shellfish of any kind and there wasn't much else in our little lake to tickle their palate.   So off they went.

So I'm off to ask the farmer if he could put a plug in his field.   That way, the lake would become a permanent feature and who knows what else would find its way here.