Things chicken

I now understand why people have been so pleased and even excited when I have given them a box of our girls' eggs. Not having bought eggs for a few years now, as even in the winter they lay the odd egg and this keeps us ticking over, I had forgotten just how horrid standard sold eggs are.

We made the mistake of buying organic, free range 'blue' eggs in Waitrose and I tried (that is the right word) to fry one. The yolk was bright yellow but it was flat and the white was liquid. It dried up in moments and tasted awful. I bought half a dozen free range (I could see the chickens on grass pastures with my own eyes) eggs but these too had watery whites, flat yolks and the taste was inferior. Our eggs (as anyone else who keeps their own chooks will tell you) have upstanding rounded yolks and thick, sturdy whites. Nutritionally they are worlds apart too. But then we are eating eggs that are no more a than a day or two old laid by very contented hens that forage everyday on grass. Sometimes I am eating an egg laid only moments before. No shop can compete with that. So while I think it is brilliant that shops like Waitrose will only sell and use free range eggs, I have been too spoiled to want to buy anybody else's eggs.

So we are just going without now until we can have our own again.

Why can't we eat our own? After last Winter's experience with Scaley-Leg mite when I hadn't a clue what it was, I have been watching the chickens really closely and it seemed to me a couple of weeks back that Maggie was showing early signs of having this again. Off to the vet and yes, she did.

Last time we used Vaseline and Tea-tree oil and it worked well (the vet was impressed) but I wasn't happy that we had complications with secondary leg infection with Lizzie and Bert. I treated this with anti-biotics from the vet but I felt an even more robust line was needed this time. So Ivermectin it is.

This means complete egg withdrawal from the time of first treatment to at least 7 days after the second treatment, which must take place 10-14 days after the first treatment......It also means, as we have dogs, that they are not allowed anywhere near the chicken areas at all. Especially Nellie, being a Border Collie. No idea if she has the gene that is affected of course and I don't intend to find out the nasty way. So we are both being really vigilant about our footwear when we go down the garden to ensure we don't bring any chicken poo to the top half of the garden or the house. Ivermectin ingestion can kill dogs. Dogs have died as a result of eating horse poo after a horse has been wormed with the stuff. OK I know they'd need to eat or lick a large amount of chicken poo with Ivermectin in, but I'd rather not take any chances.

We are also smearing their legs with Vaseline every three days to loosen any raised leg scales and smother any mites, and bathing their legs in warm water and teatree oil. This causes much disgruntlement. Even poor Fanny-Anne, Edna and Herb get the treatment even though they looked 'clean'. Whilst they all have a bit of a grumble, Tilly is a terrible drama-queen; she makes a awful screech when Iain lifts her off the perch as if she is about to be killed. The sound, amplified as it is by the still quiet night air, has an air of mandrake roots about it!! We are surprised that none of our neighbours have enquired! I think they are all too polite - or too afraid to ask...

All the chooks must be treated at the same time to ensure all the stages of the mite's development are hit. Regardless of whether they actually have it or not.

It is a disgusting infestation and can be carried from other flocks via wild birds. My chicken vet assured me that Maggie is exceptionally healthy (and weighed in at a highly muscley 2+kg!)with no other infestations, and lovely strong, glossy new feathers growing through in her 'moult', that I am clearly doing all the right things to care for them, but that sometimes we get caught out by these sorts of things and that I mustn't beat myself up about it. But of course, I do beat myself up about it. They didn't ask to be our chickens.

I don't want to keep animals -or birds - unless I can give them as natural a life as possible in terms of being able to exhibit natural behaviours for as much of their everyday life as possible. Although I have two eglus, I would not for instance keep two or three chickens in an eglu run, even if I could move it everyday. Our eglus are attached to a 12ftx9ftx7ft covered run that the chooks sleep in on branches for perches off the ground. Positioned behind a hedge and with sheets to protect the sides, it 'feels' to them as if they are sleeping in a tree...In the day time, they roam around the garden, eating grass, digging craters and chasing bugs...so things are pretty rosy for the birds on the whole. However....

...we have been pondering how to further improve the chickens' living arrangements for quite some time now- and trying to combine this with a bit of re-organising of the veg patch/bottom part of the garden.

Rats have forced us to evaluate the whole situation sooner, rather than later.

I have nothing personally against rats. This is a rural place. Lots of people have ducks, chooks, geese, turkeys and other livestock abound. They say most of us are never far from a rat. But I do not want them in our chicken pen, thank you very much.

In the time we have lived here we have slabbed almost the entire floor area and there is only one bit (18insx18ins) we cannot cover. Last Spring the rats realised they could dig a tunnel from under the greenhouse to get into the pen at night. I succumbed to Pasta Bait, left at the entry of the hole with surgical gloves at night, and taken down by the rats into their run to eat - and kill them. Difenicoum makes them bleed to death internally. They didn't re-emerge. And so we are hopeful they didn't enter the food chain (raptors will eat dead rat..though there is so much game here I suspect they don't need to be that desperate). A whole colony dealt with, I was feeling quite pleased...

Iain filled that hole in but new rats became more bold and subsequently dug a new route under the edge of the run - in the one tiny place Iain hadn't managed to dig wire gauge fencing down into..

More Pasta-bait. Luckily, both places are inside the veg patch and are beyond the reach of the dogs and the chooks. Anyway, the rats obligingly keeled over.

Then they got really clever. Recently I realised they had dug in again - this time from outside our garden. We don't know exactly where, but they must be tunnelling under a thick hedge - or even two - to do this.

So no more pasta bait as I will not put it in sections of drain pipe (as is recommended) because then the rats are likely to be travelling over-ground with it and God knows where they might drop it.

As we have been treating the chooks for the Scaley-Leg mite we can hear the little buggers partying, just waiting for us to finish before they come up and stuff themselves with all our lovely organic, expensive chook pellets. Certainly the rats I have seen - and they can be pretty bold - look marvellously healthy.

Not only that, but the slabs on the floor of the run mean I need straw on the floor to protect the chooks feet. Straw (or any thick layer of flooring material) can encourage Scaley-Leg to develop and recur. Things have reached a point where change is required.

So we are taking a two-pronged offensive.

Prong One is:

I have bought (at eye wincing cost) a 'Grandpa's Feeder' which the chooks are, even as I write, learning how to use with the aid of a couple of bolts to stop the treadle foot moving. All their feed is in there (including snackettes such as sunflower hearts and corn) and I believe it will take a couple of weeks to 'train' them to feed from it, eventually by standing on the treadle foot to lift the lid and access the food. These feeders are rain proof and, by all accounts, the best way to avoid rats eating the food. By my calculations, it should pay for itself in less than a year by way of saved food costs. Take away the food and the rats will find somewhere else to live. We hope.

Prong Two:

The run is going. And the chooks will have a new house/coop further up the garden. Made from 100% recycled plastic and with a really clever sensor operated door, this isn't cheap either but we hope it will give the chooks a better quality of life and make it easier for me to care for them well. The sensor is going to take some playing around with I think. But we can put a timer on it too, so that for instance, the timer can let them out in the morning, and the sensor will shut them in at night or various different permutations.

No run = no slabs = no straw. And hopefully, no rats. And, I hope too, no re-occurance of scaley-leg. But still the chooks are able to roam freely. We are hopeful of positive results...

Why a sensor? In order to avoid leaving our chooks in the run for longer than overnight, we can ask others to let out and shut in our chooks the weekends we are away; we ask our neighbours sometimes - but this is out of the question every weekend we are away for agility. It isn't fair to impose. My mother is happy to be here much of the time in the summer, but sometimes it isn't convenient. On such a regular basis we need more flexibility. Of course continuing with the pen seemed like the perfect option before the problem of rats and Scaley -leg reared their ugly heads because the chooks could be left safe from foxes and heavy weather in a large airy pen on the odd weekend we didn't want to impose on anyone to look after them. But it isn't now. After a lot of research this plan seems to offer the best outcomes - for the chooks and for us.

The coop has legs so they will have shelter in the daytime under that as well as under the yew tree or the bay bush.

As I say, one of the main reasons I first chose to buy and use a pen over 7 years ago was to keep our original 3 chooks in it all the time. I calculated that the 12ftx9ft area plus shrubs in pots, branches and other pots for them to climb on, dust bathe in and perch on would create a sufficently natural habitat for them - especially with the roof half covered. [Of course the principle (on which I based my persuasion of Iain to keep chooks in the first place!) of keeping them permanently penned lasted only a few days as I decided to let them out shortly after - just for a couple of hours of course...... - just to see how they enjoyed the garden.....and I so enjoyed seeing them quite obviously enjoying the garden that from then on they were out almost all the time......]

But now the pen is going. I don't want to shut 8 chickens in there all the time indefinitely anyway, even if there weren't the rats, straw, slab problems. But we do need something for them to sleep in overnight to protect them.... With this new coop the sensor/timer door will enable the chooks to continue to enjoy the freedom of the garden the odd time, say overnight, even when we have to leave them overnight or if my mother cannot get here til the following morning when we are off for the weekend, or if we or she wants to go out/come back late....and they won't have to be walking about on straw/slabs in the pen on any of those occasions anymore.

Another benefit of sleeping on perches as our chooks have done in the pen is that red mite are discouraged because there are no warm, damp crevices to hide in and then come out at night to suck the blood from the chooks (red mite are evil things). They won't be 'sleeping in the trees on branches', but on perches in a coop which is a bit of a pain. It feels a bit like a backward step. So to reduce the impact of that, we have gone (as with the eglus as next boxes) with plastic for our coop.

Why plastic? Well, it is hotly contested by 'traditionalists' but most evidence shows that wooden coops are renowned for encouraging red mite. They are virtually impossible to keep clean and dry inside and red mite love all the crevices and nooks that wooden chook houses are full of, never mind the felt roofing. It is red mite heaven. So far none of my chooks have ever had this - or lice (because they have several places to dry dust bathe all year round). Plastic is superior because the construction of coops made of it offer far fewer opportunities for red mite to thrive. Plastic is superior for other reasons too.

It is far, far harder for foxes or rats to chew through. It is way easier to clean, keep clean and, even more importantly, dry inside (red mite) It is a more versatile material to create chicken friendly structures out of. And it is cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

So the pen's day are numbered, it is time to move on and try something different - we just have to wait until the chooks adapt to the feeder, and we have the timer/sensor worked out on the new coop.

On Sunday, Iain has the dubious pleasure of constructing our chooks' new coop. I think I may go out for a little while.........If you look at the pictures of the instructions you'll easily see why......