Fowl NOT Foul - August 1998

On August 11th, Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma laid an egg in under five minutes ! Usually, it takes about an hour or more for a hen to lay an egg. The hens have the opportunity to make nests and lay eggs in their outdoor run, but they tend to prefer to go into the shed. They have no access to the shed from their run yet - a pop-hole connecting the two is currently under construction. So, when a hen wants to lay an egg in the shed, she will squawk until she has got my attention, and then I will let her out.

Above: Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma sitting in the old oven nestbox, ready to lay an egg.

Brahma had been squawking for half an hour before I let her out of the run and into the shed, because I was very busy that day. Immediately she jumped into her favourite nestbox, the disused oven, and settled herself down amongst the hay whilst making soft crooning noises.I shuffled around in the shed for a moment, tidying things up,and left Brahma to it. When I next looked at Brahma a couple of minutes later, she was standing up in the nest with a freshly laid wet egg between her feet ! She was looking at it surprisedly, and when I took it away from her she stared at me with a shocked expression, as if to say "how dare you steal my egg !". She then stared intently between her feet where her egg had been, as if checking that it was actually gone. She had laid the egg within five minutes, a Flock Record ! Ernie can sometimes take over two hours to lay her eggs, preferring to examine each prospective nestbox carefully, testing each one to assess it's suitability.

MichaelCaine Alan Partridge Brahma just after laying an egg. She is standing with it between her feet.

Four of the hens are now laying eggs (Ernie, Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma, Sybil and Prunella). White Tara is looking as though she is on the point of lay, and her behaviour has become more aggressive toward the other birds. She will frequently run up to one of them, stretch her neck up tall so that she looks down on the other bird, and raise her hackles so much that her neck looks like a bottle-brush ! Prunella and Sybil, being at the bottom of the flock pecking order, crouch low and act submissively, or run away. Ernie and Brahma, however, stretch up their necks to match the height of Tara's, and stare straight into her eyes, intently. This unnerves White Tara, and she lowers her hackles and retreats, realising that for the moment she remains third in the pecking order.

I have been weighing all the hens regularly, to monitor their health and condition. White Tara has been growing at a phenomenal rate, and is now the heaviest bird.

On 28th August, Sybil Hen was sitting in a nestbox, busily laying an egg. White Tara then ventured into the shed and went to the nestbox Sybil was using. Tara looked at Sybil, walked right up to her and tried to squeeze herself into the nestbox nest to Sybil, who did not move because she was in mid-egg-lay. Tara settled herself down half on the nestbox and half on top of poor Sybil, who was desperately trying to concentrate on laying her egg. Tara continued to settle herself down onto the small area of nestbox between Sybil and the wall, and Tara, being the heaviest hen, gradually pushed the other hen out of the nestbox. Sybil looked flustered, and stood up. She had only just had time to lay her egg, which hadn't had time to dry and stuck to her feathers as she stood. Tara had stolen Sybil's place in the nestbox.

On 30th August I let the hens run around in the garden while I supervised them (to ensure against any fox attacks - see May 1998 for details of fox attacks), and carried out some garden tasks. The hens quickly dispersed themselves over the area of the garden, either staying in a very loose flock, or venturing off in groups of two or three. They love to scratch in the grass ,looking for insect life and worms to eat, as well as slugs which are one of their favourite foods. At one point I saw Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma chasing a small butterfly, trying to catch it in her beak. After a while, Tara found something interesting in the grass. She kept pecking at this object of her fascination, and was so absorbed with whatever she had found that she did'nt notice me approaching to see what she was pecking at. When I got close enough, I saw that White Tara had caught a frog! The frog's body was about 7cm long, so it was quite a large frog really. Tara was having difficulty getting hold of it to kill it. The frog's skin was very slimy and slippery, and Tara couldn't get a grip on it with her beak to peck at it successfully. But Tara relentlessly attacked and chased the frog as it tried it's best to leap away from the hen's onslaught.

Soon the other hens noticed that Tara had found something interesting, and ran to her, hoping for a share of her prize. Ernie reached Tara first, and lunged to steal the frog just as Tara noticed her. White Tara struggled to pick up her frog, and could only just open her beak wide enough to accomodate it's fat body. She ran away up the garden with Ernie in pursuit, the frog still kicking it's legs in a vain attempt at escape. Tara ran around the garden with her hackles raised, the rest of the flock eagerly chasing her in the hope of a share of the doomed amphibian. However, Tara used more aggressive hen body language - fluffed out her feathers as much as she could (making her neck look like a bottle-brush!) and raised her wings slightly. She couldn't make much noise because of the struggling frog held in her beak, but the display of hen body language discouraged the rest of the flock and they left Tara in peace to finish off her prize.

White Tara managed to kill the frog, but then she had to work out how to swallow such a large mouthful. She couldn't break the frog up, she had tried to many times and failed. So she simply had to pick up the frog in lots of different ways and use a process of trial and error to attain the correct orientation which would enable her to swallow the frog. This took time, and the other hens became interested in Tara's predicament again. Eventually, White Tara managed to swallow the frog head first, with great difficulty as the body of the frog was very fat. The rest of the flock gathered around Tara as she swallowed the frog as quickly as she could, and tried to peck at the frog's feet as they stuckout from Tara's beak !

White Tara is a Rare Breed of hen called the Light Sussex, one of the first to be selectively bred for meat production only. When she is fully grown, she could weigh as muchas 9lbs ! The Light Sussex is now a rare breed because although they weigh a lot when they reach adulthood, they take a long time to mature. This was not cost-effective for the modern capitalist farmer, who would have to spend more on poultry food keeping Light Sussex than he would if he kept the modern broiler breeds, who reach their optimum weight within only six weeks. Therefore, the Light Sussex has fallen out of favour with modern poultry farmers, and is preserved only by rare breeds enthusiasts.

The table below follows White Tara's physicalalterations as she gains weight over time:

White Tara {and the late Keridwen} on 5th April 1998

White Tara {and the late Keridwen} on 3rd May 1998

White Tara {and the late Keridwen} on 15th May 1998

White Tara and Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma on 3rd July 1998

White Tara on 3rd July 1998

Ernie and White Tara on 6th August 1998

On 31st August I noticed that Michael CaineAlan Partridge Brahma was a bit smelly and had a couple of small whitish mites on her head, so I decided to give her a bath. Chicken breeders who take their birds to Shows usually bath their birds either on the day of the Show or on the day before. To bath a chicken, you need a mild shampoo such as baby shampoo, and lots of comfortably warm water. I add some Tea Tree Oil to the bathwater to kill any mites.

Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma was filthy. As soon as I stood her in the sink of warm water the dirt started seeping out from between her feathers. She didn't mind being in the water at all, and didn't mind having water gently poured over her. It took a while to make sure she was completely soaked, as her feathers were very thick and water-repellent. While I massaged the water into her feathers, Brahma stood perfectly still and behaved impeccably even when I carefully wet her head feathers. I wrapped Brahma in a towel to keep her warm while I changed the water and added more Tea Tree Oil to it. Brahma looked very strange all wet, and seemed glad when she was placed in the warm water again. I made sure to rinse all the soap from her feathers, and when I had finished I placed Brahma in a dry towel. She snuggled down into it and sat still. To dry her quickly and prevent her from catching a cold, I used a hair dryer set to cool temperature and dried her gently. She was a little worried by it at first, but as soon as she realised that it the warm air was helping her dry, she relaxed. As I dried her I checked through her feathers for mites, which was easy because they were exposed in the soaked feathers and I could see them easily. I found only dead mites, but I also found two types of dead lice, and unfortunately a few lice which had managed to withstand the Tea Tree Oil. Most of the parasites had been killed, and I will need to bath the rest of the flock as well as treat them with powder and also treat their living-quarters to fully exterminate the problem.

When Brahma was dry she looked very smart. She didn't smell so much, her feathers were shiny and her down was fluffy. She looked a very smart hen. She is also growing lots of new feathers over the ragged part on her back which was due to the cockerel at her previous home. These new feathers have darker down than the old, but their patterened area matches the rest of her plumage.

Also, on 31st August the next door neighbour knocked to say that he had seen a fox sniffing around the Ark inthe front garden. The hens were in the run in the back garden at the time. I went to investigate, and sure enough there was a thin, very mangy and scabby fox hiding behind a wall. I was surprised to see it at the front of the houses at four o'clock in the afternoon near a very busy road. Urban foxes are common in many parts of Britain, but not usually in daylight hours !

Above: The hen run attached to the shed. The wire is dug in underground to a depth of just over 12"to discourage foxes from digging underneath.