Flock Diary : September 1998
White Tara has been becoming more friendly and tolerant of people. She still does not like to be caught, and runs away if she thinks someone is trying to catch her. As soon as she is touched, however, she crouches down and stays stock still, allowing herself to be picked up and stroked (after an initial flap). She appears to quite enjoy standing on my lap if I sit in the garden chair. She stretches her neck up and looks around intently, taking in the panoramic view revealed to her from her elevated position.
Above left: White Tara and Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma; 2nd September1998
Above right: White Tara, Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma and Ernie; 2nd September 1998
At the beginning of September I started painting the currently vacant Poultry Ark in the front garden. Photoes of Stage 1 below:
During September, some rats and mice burrowed their way into the hen shed and run. They would emerge at night to steal food which the hens had spilt during the day. I kept blocking up the rodent holes persistenly, but as fast as I did this, the scavengers would simply create an alternative hole right next to the one I had just plugged. The rats and mice had also introduced fleas and mites into the hen shed - I noticed these when I gave the hens a routine body check. Each hen had a few mites or lice living around her vent area. There were not that many mites or lice, about ten to twenty on each bird, but enough to allow the insects to reproduce rapidly and cause a major problem. To get rid of these unwanted 'passengers' I made up a special mix of warm water, Eucalyptus Oil (a natural insecticide) and Tea Tree Oil (a natural antiseptic), and bathed each hen's bottom area with the special mixture. I repeated this each week, and within two weeks the number of insects reduced to less than five on each bird. I had decided to use natural remedies in order to help try and curb the spread of pests becoming immune to over-used chemical products. I would obviously need to discourage/get rid of the invading mice and rats to eradicate the mite, louse and flea problem totally. There were several ways I could do this:
By poisoning: This would be effective, but potentially lethal to the hens if they inadvertently ate some poisoned bait, and damaging to any creature who happened to eat the dead rodents. Poisoning is therefore unethical.
By trapping: Inhumane traps which kill the rodent are cruel. Therefore humane traps which simply contain the animal could be used, but this causes the problem of what to do with the animals which have been captured. To introduce the rodents to a new area would be cruel as well as illegal, and it would be difficult to kill a humanely captured animal.
By Sonic discouragement: A device could be installed which emits a high-pitched noise only audible by rodents, and intolerable to them. But unfortunately this would be beyond my price-range.
By stopping their burrowing: Concrete would be poured down their burrows, and the whole area covered with a layer of concrete. With no access, the rodents would simply have to move elsewhere.
When the rodents have been eradicated I will be able to fumigate the whole hen shed to kill all remaining lice, mites and fleas.
Hens dustbathe to help eradicate mites and lice, as well as to clean their feathers and cool their bodies in hot weather. Below are photoes of the hens dustbathing:
Above left: Ernie / Above right: White Tara
Ernie still follows me around in the garden if I am digging, and quickly picks up worms I expose for her.
Above: Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma, watched by Sybil.
When I went to let the hens out on the morningof Monday 21st September, I found Michael Caine Alan PartrigdeBrahma sitting in the oven nestbox, apparently laying an egg. When I went to check the hens at lunchtime, the Brahma was still in the nestbox. I started to wonder if she had gone broody again,as she had done in July of this year. To check for broodiness, I slowly slid my hand underneath the Brahma. If she was broody, she would shuffle and try to brood my hand, pushing it further under her body with her wings. Brahma didn't respond to my hand with broody behaviour, so I proceeded to check how many eggs she was sitting on, to see if she had laid her own egg. When I found that she had, I took her out of the nestbox and she went to forage with the other hens.
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Later that day, I returned to find that Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma was back in the oven nestbox, sitting on the eggs of Ernie, White Tara, Sybil and Prunella, as well as her own egg and three pot-eggs. She looked at me indignantly when I removed all the eggs and turfed her out of her nest - but she did not try to return, and went to forage with the other birds. As I watched the birds foraging, I noticed Sybil occaisionally stretching out her neck and twisting it in a snake-like motion. I examined her, looking down her throat for worms, but could find nothing wrong there. Sybil's crop felt slightly hard and doughy, and I decided that I should check it the following morning, to ensure that it was working properly. She also felt too thin compared to the other birds. On the following day the contents of Sybil's crop had not moved, so I looked up her condition in a poultry book and found that I could try to relieve it by home methods. I followed the instructions and gave Sybil a quarter of a pint of warm water and some pure linseed oil via a crop tube. I then massaged her crop and upended her, with the intent that Sybil would regurgitate the contents of her crop. This worked to a certain extent, but no solid matter came out of Sybil's beak. Half an hour later I tried again, giving Sybil a little more oil and water, and massaging her crop for longer. Again, no solid matter came out, and so I decided to telephone the Vet. Sybil would need an operation to empty her crop. She was weak and had also been losing weight, so it was decided that the safest option for the hen would be euthanasia. Little Sybil will not be forgotten. |
Above: Sybil, 2nd September 1998 |
Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma was still desiring to sit on eggs. If I took her out of the nestbox she would not rush to return to her false 'brood', instead she would fluff out her feathers and walk around clucking. I decided that I would try to break her broodiness before Brahma's hormone level rose so much that she would stubbornly try to sit the whole course without eating. It is more stressful for a hen to sit out a whole broody period with no eggs than to have her broodiness broken.
So that evening I closed the the oven nest, Brahma's favourite, and put her on the perch to sleep with theother hens.......In the morning I found that the Brahma had crammed herself into the space underneath the oven. So I blocked this, and Brahma simply found herself an alternative place to nest. Later on I supervised the hens and let them forage in the garden for the whole afternoon...after a while I found that Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma had made a nest under the old pine tree at the top of the garden, and was happily brooding her invisible eggs there !
As the days went by, the Brahma became consistently more broody.
Below: White Tara laying an egg in the 'Fruitbox Nestbox'
On Saturday 26th, we had the opportunity to travel to Leicester and collect five fertile eggs for the broody Brahma to hatch out. Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma came with us on the journey. She was carried to the car in her current nestbox, a convenient-to-carry fruit box filled with hay. Brahma was quite content throughout the journey as long as she could sit on her impressively sculpted nest and brood her four pot-eggs in peace. She panted a little during the first third of the journey as she got used to her strange surroundings, but soon calmed down. When we reached our destination Brahma was left in her nestbox in the car while I was shown the parents of the eggs I had come for. The father was a beautiful Leghorn cockerel, in a speckled livery of white, chestnut and a touch of black. I only saw two of his wives, who were cross-bred bantams, a black and abuff.
Back at the car, we gently swapped Brahma's pot-eggs for the fertile ones, one by one. As soon as all the fertile eggs were under Brahma, she made a little crooning noise and shuffled them closer to her body. She inspected each one, then shuffled them underneath her again, pushing herself deeper into the nest and clucking gently.
When we arrived home, Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma and her complete nestbox were put into the Ark in the front garden. There, Brahma would be able to hatch out her eggs in peace without the other birds hassling her.
Above: Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma taking a drink from the white bowl on the right of the picture. Her expertly made nest and five developing bantam X leghorn eggs are on the left of the picture.
Brahma continued to brood her eggs in the poultry Ark while I made the finishing touches to the painting of it. Ernie was allowed to peck around freely, as long as she stayed is the front garden. Shehas remembered the way from the front garden to the back garden very well, and will take the journey on her own if the mood takes her. Most of the time, Ernie was very obedient and stayed foraging in the front garden, which isn't fenced. At one point, however, I looked up from my painting to find that Ernie was gone. So I walked around to the back garden and found Ernie quite happily pecking around at the back garden gate. I picked her up and returned her to the front garden, where she stayed until I finished decorating the henhouse.
Above: The finished Poultry Ark. Below: A close-up of the 'Fishscale tiling effect' on the finished PoultryArk roof
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
