Fowl Not Foul - January, February, March 2001

The 2 year olds	The 1 year olds & younger
Flathead the 2 year old Ancona hen	Sillyoggin the 3 month old Cornish Game cockerel
Little Wing the 2 year old black Jersey Giant	Pita & Moojee the 3 month old Cream Legbar pullets
Ashley the 2 year old Exchequer Leghorn	Ceiliog & Kellagh the 3 month old Cream Legbar cockerels
Nineteen 2 year old Ex-Battery hens	Ayam Betina the 3 month old Barnevelder pullet
	Alektor the 3 month old Barnevelder cockerel
	Pivnyk the 3 month old Maran cockerel
	Jogoo the 3 month old Maran pullet
	Kura the 3 month old Silver Campine cockerel
	Kuritsa the 3 month old Silver Campine pullet

The young cockerels and pullets sleep in the shed at the bottom of the garden, and the rest of the flock sleep in the henhouse at the top of the garden. They mingle together during the day, and appear to get on very well with each other - mainly because the youngsters always defer to the authoritarian behaviour of the older birds!

January 2001

During January we had some more snow, and very cold damp weather, with temperatures dropping to -7C and even -10C at night. Daytime temperatures rarely rose above 0C. The chickens hated the cold, the geese didn't seem to mind as much, as they are more adapted to coping with freezing temperatures. The hens would spend most of their time hiding under shelters, and sitting on perches so that they didn't have to have their feet in contact with the cold ground for very long. During this cold weather, I gave the birds protein and carbohydrate supplements of corned beef, cat food, extra corn and extra bread, all mixed in with their regular food of layers pellets and mixed corn. I mixed their food using hot water, so that the birds could appreciate having a warm feed at least once per day.

Also, during the first week of January, poor Nicad began to look ill. She spent a lot of time fluffed and lethargic. She also lost her appetite. I brought her indoors for observation and to make her more comfortable. Unfortunately, my efforts to save her were in vain, as she slowly deteriorated, until on 15th January, we couldn't bear to see her suffer any more and took her to the Vet for euthanasia.

Always a character, Nicad will not be forgotten

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Pictures of the fowl taken on 21st January 2001:-

Above: Professor Hawking scratching in the rabbit hutch, watched by some curious ex-battery hens (rescued November 2000)

Above left : 9-Volt & co using a shelter. Above right: Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma and some of the recently rescued battery hens.

Above: Alektor and Ayam Betina the Barnevelders. These two Barnevelders look almost exactly the same - I can only tell the difference between them by examining the webs of their toes - Alektor has only one single perforation in one of her foot webs, whereas Ayam Betina has one perforatin in both feet. I originallly thought that they would be pullet and cockerel, but it now definitely appears that both are pullets....Alektor will just have to put up with her boys' name, as it was given to her as a chick and seems pointless to change.

Above: Ceiliog the Cream Legbar cockerel. Ceiliog still attempts to crow, and has very nearly perfected the art.....but not completely.

Above, front to back: Moojee the Cream Legbar pullet, Green the rescued battery hen, Pita the Cream Legbar pullet & Jogoo the Marans pullet. Pita and Moojee have not started to lay eggs yet.

Above: Ashley the Exchequer Leghorn hen & Kura the Silver Campine cockerel. Kura has started to crow as well! He started trying to crow in November, but has now perfected the art. He is the first of the cockerels to perfect the crowing art, and has been the first of the cockerels to mature, despite being the smallest and lightest male bird in the flock.

Above from left to right: Kuritsa the Silver Campine pullet, Ceiliog the Cream Legbar cockerel, Sillyoggin the Indian Game cockerel and Pita the Cream Legbar pullet (with an obsured Barnevelder in the background)

Above: Red the recently rescued battery hen, emerging from the polytunnel shelter

Above: Sillyoggin the Indian Game cockerel. Sillyoggin has been the slowest cockerel to mature from the September batch of chicks. His tail is nearly fully grown - it looks small because Indian/Cornish Game cockerels have small tails, and small feathers in general compared with other chickens. Sillyoggin has not started to crow yet, and I have not seen him attempt to.

The wet, cold nasty weather continued throughout January, meaning that we could not arrange to have the fencing work done on our piece of woodland.

During February 2001 I noticed that 9-Volt had grown long spurs on her legs. These had first begun to appear during 2000, starting as small horny bumps on the hens' legs. They had continued to grow slowly, and at this time have reached just under 1" length. Though I wasn't worried by this, knowing that it was probably just the effects of a hormonal imbalance, I decided to seek veterinary advice just to be sure. The Vet told me this: '9-Volt is obviously changing sex, this is not unusual. Hens or evolutionarily primative. Sex is determined by the balance of hormones. If a hen has an adrenal tumour, which produces a little more male homone to be produced, then the male characteristics may exceed the female, such that the overt impression is that the hen has become a cock. Nothing needs to be done - just be proud that you have a different chicken.'

Above : 9-Volt's spurs. Below: 9-Volt, showing her henny hackle & tail, comb and wattles, and spurred legs.

During February an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease was reported in the East of England. Immediately, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) ordered all farms and riding establishments to take precautions by placing disinfected straw mats at the entrances and exits of their properties, so that anyone entering and leaving the premises would have to pass through the disinfectant

. As the days went by, more and more cases were reported. The disease spread quickly, and by the end of February it was affecting almost every county in England. Many farmers had to slaughter their livestock, either because it was infected, or to try to curb the spread of the disease from county to county. Luckily, Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)only affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and goats (deer can also catch and carry the disease, but wild deer appear to be less susceptible to actually catching the disease than farmed deer), but can be carried by other animals such as horses. Any creature can act as a carrier for the disease, including humans, who may carry it on their shoes, clothes and vehicles, and pets such as dogs can also carry and potentially spread Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). Therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) ordered that all public footpaths, commons and parks be closed to the public, in order to try to control the spread of the disease.

Luckily, chickens are not affected by FMD (though of course they could carry it if they came into contact with it), so their lives were completely safe. However, the access to the woodland we were renting for the chickens had been closed off. We could not gain access to the land to put the fencing up. If we did need access, we would have to disinfect ourselves on entrance and exit. Thus, we decided to leave all the chickens in the back garden until the FMD crisis was over, and we could gain acces to the land again.

The wet and cold weather continued, with occaisional bouts of snow showers. The garden became extremely muddy, and I battled against this by shovelling away the wet liquid mud on the surface of the ground, and spreading bark chippings and sawdust around in an attempt to soak up the excess moisture from the ground and make a cleaner environment for the fowl. The bark and sawdust will work their way into the soil and form a useful humus layer.

Foot and Mouth Disease continued to spread across Britain, and our woodland remained cordoned off. The wet weather also continued, much to our annoyance and inconvenience.

On Sunday 4th March we collected a white Silkie pullet from a lady living near Gloucester. During conversation I discovered that the lady was the same woman who had supplied us with our first two chickens, Bert and Ernie the Cream Legbars, back in 1997. Unfortunately, I had mislaid her telephone number at the time, and so was unable to contact her again. It was great to meet her again, and see her collection of birds. Sadly she had lost all her Cream Legbars since 1997, and wanted to get some more, so I promised her some fertile eggs from my present Cream Legbars, once they had started laying.

We brought the little four month old Silkie home, and placed her in a cage in the living room to get accustomed to her new environment. Silkies are strange birds, and this one was no exception. They have very odd feathers which are soft and extremely fluffy. This is because the Silkie feathers have no microscopically sized hooks (called barbules) which interlock each feather strand together in the normal bird feather. Silkie feathers also have abundant underfluff, giving the bird's plumage a soft and silky texture not unlike the fur of a rabbit. Because of this odd feathering, Silkies have an almost woolly appearance, and their plumage is not waterproof. They have five toes, and slaty blue-black legs, face, comb and wattles - even the birds' skin is black! The gene for this woolly feather type is closely linked to the gene for broodiness, Silkies are persistent broodies and have been used for centuries as broody hens. Originating in Asia, they have been known in Europe since the early 1500's.

The young birds which arrived as chicks at the end of September continued to mature well, despite the difficult conditions. All the cockerels had started to crow by the first week in March and Pivnyk had started to try to mate with some of the ex-battery hens. Pivnyk, being a young male, hadn't realised or learnt that there is a certain etiquette to the chicken mating procedure....and the ex-battery hens he was trying to mate with didn't realise about etiquette either - Pivnyk would simply grab an ex-battery hen by the back of the head and try to push her to the ground. Some of the hens would protest and attack him, but other ex-battery girls would simply crouch and allow Pivnyk to jump on their backs - although he didn't have a clue what he was supposed to be doing once a hen was crouching for him ! Because of this, I decided that the time had come to seperate the flock into different groups:

At the top of the garden I made an enclosure to contain the geese; the four cockerels Pivnyk, Sillyoggin, Kellagh and Kura; and the older hens Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma, White Tara, 9-Volt, Duracell, Ashley, Flathead, Roadkill and Little Wing. I hoped that the older hens would teach the young cockerels some manners.

In the main part of the garden I set up a new henhouse for 17 of the newest ex-battery hens. The young pullets Kuritsa, Jogoo, Ayam Betina and Alektor were to share the house with them.

A seperate enclosure near the top of the main part of the garden was constructed for Ceiliog (the most handsome Cream Legbar cockerel), and the two pullets Moojee and Pita. With this trio I placed two ex-battery hens: Purple (wearing a purple ring), because she had decided to befriend the young chickens when they were first moved from the living room in the house to the shed in the back garden; and Blue (wearing a blue ring), a dark-coloured hen whom I thought would produce intersestingly patterned offspring with Ceiliog. I also added Dave the Silkie pullet because I thought that the company of a smaller group of birds would suit her better than if I had put her in any of the other enclosures containing larger groups.

The chickens didn't seem to mind being segregated into different flocks like this, and quickly learned to get on together. Even the four cockerels in the enclosure at the top of the garden quickly sorted out a pecking order. If any fights broke out lasting more than a few seconds, the goose and gander would walk over to investigate and would invariably break up the fight - which was very useful as, having never kept cockerels before, I was concerned that fights may get out of hand.

All the cockerels were now mature, with Kura the Silver Campine maturing first, followed by Ceiliog the Cream Legbar, Pivnyk the Marans, and Kellagh the other Cream Legbar. Sillyoggin the Indian Game was the last to mature, maybe because he is a meat type bird (apparently, egg-type breeds mature more quickly than those bred exclusively for their meat. This is probably because more profit can be made from egg-type birds if they mature early). Every morning when I let the chickens out, Kura the top cockerel amuses us by puffing out his body feathers, raising his hackles, dropping his wings, and chasing Pivnyk around their enclosure for a few laps to remind poor Pivnyk of his superiority. Kura is small and highly intelligent, whereas Pivnyk is massive and not very quick witted - I'm sure that Pivvy would not let Kura get away with this is he was any brighter !

On 13th March I was delighted to find that the Barnevelder pullets had started to lay eggs! They were now five months old, and were laying small brown eggs. I was rather disappointed with the colour, as Barnevelder eggs are supposed to be dark brown, and though these were a shade darker than the Jersey Giant eggs and darkest eggs the ISA Browns had been producing, they were still not as dark as I had expected them to be.

Jogoo the Marans pullet started laying on 23rd March. I was extremely pleased with her, as her eggs were of a rich brown undercolour overlain with many, many pigmented spots, giving the egg the overall apperarance of being a lovely dark stippled conker (or horse-chestnut tree seed).

On 31st March I was delighted to find that one of the Cream Legbar pullets had laid her first egg. It was a pretty blue colour, just like Ernie's first eggs.

The Geese	The 5 year olds	The 4 year olds	The 3 year olds
Pseudo-Swan the 5 year old Embden gander	Nicad, 9-Volt and Duracell, the 5 year old Ex-Battery hens	Professor Mendel the 4 year old Ex-Battery hen	White Tara the 3 year old Light Sussex hen
Sian the 7 year old Brecon Buff goose	Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma the 5 year old Partridge Brahma hen	Professor Hawking, the 4 year old Ex-Battery hen	Roadkill, the 3 year old crossbred leghorn bantam hen