Theres a chicken in my bath!

Yesterday we were late home, and as such forgot to check on our feathered friends before bed. It turns out that this was a mistake. This morning we discovered that Lemon had escaped their pen and was wandering the lawn. Given how wet she was we suspect that the escape had happened yesterday, goodness knows how we'd have got on if we'd discovered this in the dark! It turns out that some of the netting used as a roof to their run was loose which would allow a chicken to fly over.

She was swiftly caught and returned to the others, yet as the day went on the rain continued to come down. Due to their habit of refusing to shelter all four of them were looking fairly wet, but Lemon looked particularly bedraggled and cold. In the end we took pity on her and brought her inside to have a chance to warm up after a night of being outside. Pepper was also brought in to keep her company. This was the result:

 We had great fun listening to the noises the pair of them made while drying off, preening and generally standing around in the bath. A whole plethora of clucks, squawks and what can only be described as purrs.

After a couple of hours we guiltily put them back out in the rain, but at least now it was their choice to be cold and wet rather than our lack of care and attention!

Photos courtesy of Joe

A little bit of Pepper

Pepper has an issue. To be more specific: Pepper has a limp. We've checked her foot, and her leg. We've poked and prodded her to see when she reacts, and she doesn't. We've watched her behaviour and she seems to be herself; she's eating happily, squabbling with the others over any treats and running around like normal. Yet she is definitely reluctant to put weight on her right leg. We're leaving her for the time being to see if she can sort herself out, but it's worrying to see her hobbling so much.

One advantage of this is that we've been spending more time with her and she seems to be responding well to regular handling. I've said before that we'd had some problems as we've tried to tame our hens, but Pepper is now in no hurry to get away from us. She seems to be happy to spend time sitting on my knee once placed there, and I even persuaded her to voluntarily climb on to my leg the other day (with the help of a handful of corn of course). This makes me happy!

Theres one in every family

When I started this blog I promised you the ups and the downs of chicken keeping. So far the experience has been mainly a positive one, and if you'd like to maintain this illusion then you might want to skip this post!

As with all pets, hens sometimes need some T.L.C. To cut a long story short, Fizzy seems to have an issue with cleanliness around her bottom. This doesn't seem to be an uncommon problem and everyone has a different suggestion as to the cause. It could be a sign of illness (usually due to diarrhoea - not a problem here) or mites or lice (no signs that we can see). It could also be because the hen is sleeping on the floor rather than on a perch (if any of ours are guilty of this it would be Pepper), or just because they have lots of fluffy feathers. As Fizzy is an Orpington (a classically fluffy breed), we think that general fluff might be the problem. Fortunately Lemon (also a very fluffy hen) has avoided this so far - one bird at a time is quite enough!

The first time this happened we kept an eye on her for a while to see if it would improve, but made a final decision that we would need to step in one sunny Saturday while the girls were all free ranging in the garden. Twenty minutes of chaos later we had four very flustered hens and one very unhappy Fizzy! Having caught her, we covered her with a towel to keep her calm, and carefully cleaned everything with a bowl of warm water and a lot of patience. Fizzy was well rewarded with grapes and everything went back to normal.

Six weeks later and we're back where we started - but a little wiser this time. We plucked Fizzy from the coop with a lot less fuss and took her inside as the weather is now much colder. Having cleaned everything again we also trimmed the feathers in that region. We checked for any signs as to why this is happening, but can't see anything, so we have to assume that it might just be a perpetual problem.

I have heard rumour that this sort of thing can improve as they get older, and that other chickens in the flock will help with grooming hard to reach areas. Until such time though I think we'll have to try to maintain a preventative approach and keep things well-trimmed. This certainly wasn't something I bargained on when getting chickens!