Flock Diary:-October 1998 Part II

Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma's new family.......

On the evening of Thursday 15th October, some faint cheeping was heard emanating from under the Brahma hen, who has been incubating a clutch of five eggs for 21 days now - she must have hatched an egg !. The evening was cold, so it was decided that no investigation would be made until morning as I didn't want any hatchlings to get chilled.

On the next morning, I decided to check Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma, to see how she was, and if she did indeed have a family. The weather was cold, windy and overcast,with a fine misty drizzle in the air. I opened up the hatch of the Poultry Ark and looked inside. The Brahma fluffed herself out, clucking and crooning at me. I could faintly hear the soft cheeping of baby hens. I reached into the Ark and gently coaxed Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma to the back of her nest. First one, two, three and finally four fluffy chicks were revealed, sitting in the nest with the last remaining egg, and the broken shells of the hatched eggs. I was overjoyed to see four chicks, as I had only been expecting one chick at best because of the low hatch rate (only 20%) averaged with other chicken-breeders this year.

The chicks' cheeping became louder as soon as I moved their 'mother' away from them. Micheal Caine Alan Partridge Brahma sat upright with her neck stretched tall, staring intently down at her new family. She did not seem to mind me viewing her family, and made no attempt to return to her chicks. The chicks are all different : one is black with white wing-tips and chest, one is a plain rich chocolate brown. The other two have ground colours of yellowy-buff and gingery-buff, with a long wide dark running longitudinally down their backs, and a thin white line seperating the two colours. The yellowish chick's band is chestnut, and the gingery chick's band is brown. The yellowish chick also has a dark eye-stripe, and more chestnut stripes on its' back, giving it a chipmunk-like appearance. I telephoned Farmworld, the place in Leicester the eggs originated from, to tell them the news. Farmworld were pleased, and informed me that the Leghorn cockerel who had fathered the eggs was actually a Red-Speckled Leghorn, and that the stripes on the lighter-coloured chicks were a Leghorn feature.

Above: The four chicks on 16th October1998, one day old. Their unhatched sibling egg has been left in the nest for scale.

I placed Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma next to her food bowl, and she eagerly tucked into her meal. I left her to eat, and when I returned she had finished every morsel of food in the bowl. She was still sitting next to the bowl, and her chicks were all huddled underneath her, cheeping softly. One chick was pecking at the ground, but there was no food here, so I placed the chick in the refilled food bowl so that it could peck more productively. I could not resist fishing out the other chicks from under the Brahma and placing them inthe food bowl also. Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma, again, did not seem to mind me handling her babies - but she made anannoyed growling sound at me when I changed her water, and nearly splashed one of her chicks accidentally with a few droplets. I had added a glucose/mineral supplement to the drinking water, to ensure that the Brahma, tierd from sitting for three weeks, would have extra energy to keep the chicks warm; and that the chicks would have the fuel to metabolise their own energy to help them survive this cold, wet and windy first day of their lives.

Meanwhile, in the back garden, Ernie, WhiteTara, Prunella and the geese had not had the sense to shelter from the driving rain, and were now wet birds. Prunella had obviously stayed out the longest, as she was nearly soaked through ! Pseudo-Swan the gander and his mate were the least wet of all the birds - their extremely close-fitting dense feathers had repelled the water excellently - after all, they are waterfowl!

Since I modified the back garden gate with wire, Prunella has escaped yet again, even with her wing clipped! It is dangerous for her to leave the garden, as who knows what terrifying horrors lurk beyond the perimeter fence. To protect her from danger, I could leave her in the run all day, but it would be cruel to keep her shut in the run when all her friends are allowed out, so I have purchased some rings for the birds' legs. I have engraved these with my telephone number, so that if a bird escapes and is found before it is taken as prey by a fox or stray dog, it can be returned home safely.

Above: Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma sheltering her remaining chicks, 20th October 1998

 Unfortunately, on Saturday 17th October two of the little chicks died on their second day of life. Saturday had been a very cold day, and the early evening temperature was at or below freezing point.
When I went to check the Brahma and her family before shutting them in, I found that the brown chick and the palest chick had not managed to find their way back into the nest with their siblings. I was extremely surprised that the Brahma had not collected her family together and retreived the wayward chicks before they died from cold.
The evening temperature had lowered to minus 2 degrees C, and it was decided that the remaining chicks and their foster mother be moved to a large cage inside the house to protect them from the cold. Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma did not seem to mind this at all, as she has been in the house many times before, and is well used to it.

 

I am still trying to fathom the reason why Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma did not gather all her chicks together on that freezing second day of their lives. So far I have come to the following conclusions:

Above: the remaining ginger-coloured chick

Above: the remaining black chick

On the morning of 20th October, I had a knock on the door from the neighbours, who told me that they had seen the gander take off and fly away ! I was ever so surprised, as I did not think he would want to leave his goose, and I rushed out into the garden to assess the situation. Goose was still in the garden, calling to Pseudo-Swan - and I could hear Pseudo calling back to her, so he couldn't have gone far. Quickly, I visually scanned the nearby gardens, following the direction of the gander's calls and caught sight of Pseudo's head partly visible, peeping over a fence. He had flown into the back garden of a house three doors away, and was just waddling around, calling to his wife and exploring. I had no problem retrieving the gander, who struggled when I picked him up, and looked at me indignantly all the way back to our garden.

Now the gander had proved to me, and himself, that he could manage to take off from our garden, he would probably keep trying, and may get himself into difficulties or cause an accident by landing in an inappropriate area such as a road. To prevent this, I clipped the large flight feathers from his left wing (I usually clip the left wing in all my birds, if they need clipping.) - he watched me, and struggled throughout the procedure. I was able to hold him fairly still, and took care not to clip the feathers back too far which would hurt him. The shaft of the goose flight feather is very tough and strong, being one whole centimetre in diameter ! The lack of flight feathers on one side now means that Pseudo-Swan will not be able to generate enough lift to fly, and if he did manage to take off, his flight equipment would be unbalanced, he would not be able to control himself, and be forced to land.

I am not sure why Pseudo-Swan wanted to fly away. There could be several answers to that question:

On 22nd October the chicks fostered by Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma were doing well. The family would wake up in the morning as soon as I turned the light on. Brahma would slowly stand and stretch, clucking gently to the chicks, and lead them across to the far end of the cage to the food and water containers. Brahma walks slowly, and usually deposits her morning dropping en-route to her breakfast. The chicks follow her and copy her every move.

Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma is quite happy in the house, and carries on all her natural hen behaviour. While scratching at the floor, Brahma became a little too enthusiastic, and accidentally swiped the little ginger chick backwards with her foot. The chick was swept nearly to the other end of the cage - but it was unhurt, and shook itself back to it's feet. It made its way back to its mother, who looked down at the chick concernedly. The chick looked back at her, pecked her smartly in the eye, and walked away ! Micheal Caine Alan Partridge Brahma looked surprised, and had closed the pecked eye, but did not retaliate. She blinked for a while, and I checked Brahma's eye, but it was perfectly okay.

By 23rd October the young chicks had started fledging. Their flight feathers came through first, closely followed by tiny tail feathers. Both chicks are showing beautiful barring patterns on their newly-sprouted feathers. Shocked at the rapidity of their growth-rate, I decided to weigh the little chicks so that I could monitor their progress. Both chicks each weigh two ounces, or fifty grammes.

Above: The chicks on 23rd October 1998

By 26th October the chicks had grown many more feathers. Their wings were almost fully fledged with a complete but tiny set of flight feathers each; the 'muscular/humerus' areas of the wings still carry chick fluff. Each chick has a tiny bunch of short sprouting feathers on each shoulder. The tails ofthe chicks are becoming longer and longer, at present they protude 1cm from the roots. The tails seem to be developing into a rounded shape like a pidgeon's - I had been hoping that the tail shape would give me clues as to the sex of the chicks. However, I will not be able to distinguish the sex of the chicks until they are about seven weeks old and their adult feathers come through. Each chick now weighs 100 grammes, or 4 ounces.

It is extremely difficult to take photographs of the chicks now, as they are so active. If I put either of the chicks away from its' mother, the chick will take off and fly back toward its' mother. The baby hens are strong fliers, and are surprisingly quick. Even if I try to photograph the chicks with their mother, the chicks do not stay still for long enough. While in the cage, the chicks run and play, leaping into the air and flapping their little wings enthusiastically. They can fly up onto their mother's back with ease, and she finds this somewhat annoying - once a chick has got onto her back, Brahma puts her tail down and her head up, and the little chick slides off.

Above: Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma keeping a watchful eye on her chicks, 26th October 1998.

On 28th October the little chicks were 13 day sold. Still fledging rapidly, they now have almost complete sets of wing feathers apart from some fluff still coating the humerus area. The ginger chick has impressive 1 - 2 cm long shoulder-patches of feathers, and also some beginning to appear on its' flanks between the thighs and the tail. The black chick has fewer shoulder feathers and no visible flank feathers. Its legs seem to be taking on a greenish hue. The young chicks' tails are growing well, and are now approximately 3 cm long.

Suddenly, late on 26th October, Brahma started moulting heavily. So far she has lost two large handfuls of feathers per day, and she's still going ! She is moulting evenly all over her body, and has no big bald patches which shouldn't be there. So I'm not worried, just intrigued as to why she should suddenly start moulting so much. The other hens have been moulting very slowly but steadily over the past month - Ernie has only just started, Prunella has already replaced two of her wing feathers since I clipped her. White Tara has already done a tremendous amount of moulting this year, and will probably not moult again until next year.

Meanwhile, the geese have been doing well.Pseudo-Swan the gander has become much less vocal as he has become used to me. Both geese run to meet me when I come into the garden, but only if I am carrying the food pan ! If a person unknown to the geese comes into the garden, Pseudo is very distrustful and makes a lot of noise in an attempt to frighten away the stranger. If I prevent Pseudo going into the shed when he thinks food is there, then he gets extremely annoyed and tries to peck me. This makes cleaning the geese out a hazardous procedure - one day Pseudo got so irate that he grabbed hold of my shoelaces and held them as tightly as he could, whilst bashing my leg hard with the largest joint of his wing. This didn't bother me in the slightest, and I let him continue attacking me until he realised that his technique wasn't working. I hissed at him, and he looked up at me confusedly before trying to attack once more. Again I stayed standing where I was, simply ignoring Pseudo's onslaught and telling him that there was utterly no point in attacking me, as I was still going to clean out his shed, whatever happened. After a while I expected Pseudo-Swan to get bored, but he didn't because he was expecting food, so I shooed the geese away to the top of the garden. I could now finish cleaning the shed before the geese returned. While feeding, Pseudo-Swan will allow me to stroke his neck and back. The goose is a lovely gentle creature, and has never made any attempt to attack, she simply looks up at me sweetly.

Above: Pseudo-Swan eating grain from my hand

On 29th October, Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma was still moulting, and doing well with her family. Whilst cleaning her cage, I had left a square of pale green toilet paper on the floor to soak up some dropping residue. When the Brahma noticed the piece of tissue, she stared at it amazedly, and picked it up in her beak. She then dropped it again, looked at it, and picked it up again. She kept repeating this, and seemed to be fascinated by the coloured tissue. The chicks came to see what was going on, and both tried picking up the tissue too, but soon got bored. But Brama didn't, and kept returning to the piece of tissue and investigating it until she dropped it into the water dispenser, and I removed it completely. The chicks are growing plenty of new feathers - both now have generous amounts of growing feathers just behind their thighs and on their shoulders, with tiny feathers just coming through on the remainder of their flanks and backs. The ginger chick (who is now more of a buff-barred chick) has tiny feathers starting to grow on the sides of its' neck. Their heads and bellies are still covered in fine soft chick down.

On 31st October the chicks wighed 100 grammes,or 4 ounces each. Their feathers are still coming through, but no new feathers have appeared on their heads and bellies. Their tails are now 4 to 5 centimetres long, and they spend a lot of time exercising their flight muscles by flapping ther little wings and leaping into the air. They continue to annoy their mother by flying up onto her back. Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma is moulting still, and today I noticed an extremely large areas of feathers just starting to come through. The area is about 3cm x 6cm, and is on the shoulder of her wing. The feathers are 1 cm long, and are simply blue-looking spikes of developing feather with a protective keratin skin. Brahma has many, many more of these areas all over her body, but she still has enough feathers left to keep herself and her chicks warm.

Above three: the hen family on 31st October1998

Also on this day twenty hens were bought from aBattery Farm for £1 each. Ten were given to a friend, Eileen, and the other ten were taken home. When the hens were taken out of the battery cages and put into various boxes and crates, they were frightened and confused. On the journey home they were quiet, and most of them sat down. When we arrived at Eileen's place, her ten hens were put into a shed which had been prepared with a bed of fresh straw. The hens were clearly still very confused and scared when put onto the straw - they all sat still and stared at it with expressions of surprise. We left them to it, and took our hens home. The conditions hens live in at Battery Farms are described on my page "The life of a Pet Hen compared with the life of a Battery Hen".

The two remaining boxes held five hens each, and were taken to the back garden. The other hens, Ernie, White Tara and Prunella were living in the Poultry Ark in the front garden, so the Battery Hens would share the shed with the geese. A Vet had advised me that the rescued birds would have to have restricted space for a while, so that they would not overstrain themselves. This may even cause disasters such as sprains and broken wings and legs. The rescued birds were taken out of their boxes two by two, placed on a garden chair and photographed, then placed on the cleaned droppings board in the shed. The area was fenced off to protect the hens from the geese. The hens were provided with dry poultry mash, which is what they have been eating for all of their lives - if I gave them anything else their digestive systems would not be able to deal with it. I will have to slowly introduce other food so that their digestive systems will be able to cope with it. The same goes for space allowances, which will have to be slowly enlarged as weeks go by.

Above: the rescued Battery Hens enclosed safely, ready for their first night out of cages.

These birds are in good condition for Battery Hens. They have most of their feathers apart from bald patches at the neck, crop, head and tail. The remaining feathers have been damaged from constant rubbing against cage walls. Their combs, faces and wattles have no colour whatsoever - a couple of birds have pale pink tips to their combs, otherwise those parts are whitish. Their legs are white, with long toenails, some measuring up to three centimetres. All the birds have been debeaked on the upper mandible to a certain extent, but not as far back as the nostrils. A few beaks are twisted-looking, with the lower mandible seeming far too long. These hens are frightened of everything, and their reaction to fear is to stay still, though some struggle weakly when picked up. Their wings are thin and spindly, with no muscle whatsoever. One bird has a red-raw area at the end of its' back, near the tail. This area looks as though it has been pecked by other hens for a long time, and is about two-thirds the size of a computer mouse. Tomorrow the hens will be inspected more closely, given tags so that they can be identified easily, and given treatment such as toenail clipping and the application of Vaseline to pecked areas to discourage further pecking.

Below: The ten rescued Battery Hens on 31st October, immediately before they were placed in the above enclosure. Their overgrown toenails / claws and twisted, trimmed beaks are clearly visible in some of the pictures. The conditions hens live in at Battery Farms are described on my page "The life of a Pet Hen compared with the life of a Battery Hen".

To Flock Diary 2001 - January, February and March 2001 / April and May 2001

To Flock Diary 2000 - January 2000 / February, March, April 2000 / May 2000 / June 2000 / Stroud Show 1st July 2000 / July 2000 / August 2000 / Painswick Show 13th August 2000 / September 2000 / October, November & December 2000

To Flock Diary 1999 - January 1999 / February 1999 / March , April 1999 / May , June 1999 / Stroud Show 1999 / July 1999 / August 1999 / September 1999 / October 1999 / November 1999 / December 1999

To Flock Diary 1997 & 1998 - August to December 1997 / January, February and March 1998 / April 1998 / May 1998 / June 1998 / July 1998 / August 1998 / September 1998 / October 1998 - Part One / October 1998 - Part Two / November 1998 - Part One / November 1998 - Part Two / December 1998