Keeping hens and ducks chat.

edwink

orangecrush wrote: »

Cheery I have to laugh at your ladies and their laying schedules... not cooperating with their assigned laying break! /QUOTE]


Cheery's hens are naughty menaces that's why orangecrush BUT mine are perfect little angels...... NOT :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Well not yet anyway but give them time they have only just got here ;)

Edwink

Cheery_Daff

My ladies just don't like being dictated to :rotfl:

Excellent judgment on the part of your chickens orangecrush! Mind you I strongly suspect mine would peck anyone they thought would have treats :rotfl:

We're having the joists replaced in the ceiling above the kitchen and dining room :eek: it's quite an undertaking :eek: we've never had anything done like this before. We've always done our own DIY stuff, even stuff other people wouldn't do (I learned how to plaster :rotfl: ) but replacing joists was just beyond us

The kitchen was tiny, and next to a little 'snug'. After consulting building regs bloke, we decided to take the wall out between the two rooms. Turns out it was just a chimney, so the farmer next door took the chimney stack off the roof for us, and Mr Cheery carried the whole rest of the chimney (about 6 foot by 3 foot, all the way down through the loft and 2 floors of house) out stone by stone, by himself :eek:

So they're capping off the end of the chimney wall where it hits the house wall, replacing joists above kitchen and what was the snug (they were really bent and dangerously trampoline-like so we never used the two rooms above), and we discovered two bricked up windows so they're knocking those through too :j

It's all very exciting, and also wildly messy and expensive but so far we are VERY pleased with our builders :j :j :j

They're not doing any decorating or finishing though - that will be all down to us. I confess I'm tempted to get them to do it this time but it's going to be over £5k as it is, without adding anything else on top

Anyway, the chickens are no help as I say, although they come in each evening to inspect the work :rotfl: :rotfl:

edwink

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

My ladies just don't like being dictated to :rotfl:


Anyway, the chickens are no help as I say, although they come in each evening to inspect the work :rotfl:

Orangecrush, I forgot to add........ Cheery's hens are also very stubborn not to mention incredibly nosey :rotfl:


Edwink

edwink

Hi everyone

All going ok here with my new girls and they are settling in nicely. A few have struggled with the night time routine and their hotel ladder but all in all most of them have now mastered it and take themselves off to bed :cool: A few of the more dominant hens stand at the top of the ladder on the front perch and wait for others to get to the top then peck them which I actually hate to see but with the pecking order still not established this is something hens always do, sadly It's because the more dominant hens don't want others perching as high up as they are The more dominant will always want to perch above them to show their dominance and the poor hens that are becoming lower in the pecking order struggle to get a space for themselves on the perches. There is plenty of space for them all but with these hens guarding the front perches the other hens end up turning round on the ladder and they head back down They will sort it out between themselves quite soon but in the meantime we are lifting the poor hens that are being denied a space and placing them on the perches at the back. There is a lot of shuffling going on before they settle so it is quite difficult to carry out a head count with 24 of them all bobbing about so all we see is a mass of ginger feathers. So we shut the door and leave them to settle for the night. We then go back out about 10 minutes later, so they can be counted, as by then they have finished shuffling which makes the head count much easier.

They have now found out that meal worms are a tasty alternative to the layers mashed pellets they have been so used to whilst in those awful cages plus some will now eat sunflower hearts. A few will try a little bit of lettuce but others are scared of it when I break it up and drop it around the coop floor to encourage them to forage. Some, maybe half of them have been outside the coop but others won't go further than the outer door yet. A few have just stepped outside the coop but quickly retreated back again. I'll have another go today to encourage them out and see how it goes. If I sit on the ground they will happily come towards me so that is the tactic I will use later today this time with something for me to sit on because the ground is so cold.

Mr Edwink decided earlier in the week that after the cost of the new fencing at £5k, that he would tackle the job of putting a roof on the coop :eek: I must admit I was a bit anxious over his decision to tackle this but all in all he is doing a really good job. It wasn't that I thought he wouldn't do it properly but because of his serious accident 2 years ago, I was rather nervous of him being up a ladder on the higher areas of the roof as his arm will never be 100% back to normal now. = But, I need not have worried really as he has managed perfectly and now two thirds of the roof has now been completed :dance: He is going to tackle the second row today as the weather is ok here so should be done for the girls by the end of the day, well that's his plan anyway. We have made use of scrap wood and batons that were dropped off here by builders so haven't had to buy any, which is always good. He is using new corrugated clear panels which have cost £625 and as far as Mr Edwink can tell he has enough to finish the job now. These panels are lightly tinted blue so apparently they are ideal for carports and the like as the tint in them stops the suns rays from affecting the paint on cars. At over £30 per corrugated sheet this job soon mounted up cost wise. The roof is made up so far of 10 long panels with 10 shorter ones being fitted today. My worry was that the roof would make the coop dark but it is absolutely fine. We did find some cheaper panels as we always shop round for each and everything we buy but after Mr Edwink search for them online and went out to have a look at all these panels he decided that the much more expensive ones would do the job better and hopefully will last so he only does the job once. As the old saying goes "buy cheap, buy twice" or something like that.

Hopefully I will be able to get some pics on here this weekend. I have transferred them now on to my laptop from my phone so that's a start, I guess. I hate to admit this, but I have taken just over 260 :o:o. I'm afraid I am rather snap happy when it comes to taking pictures, then it takes me ages to go through them all. In my defence there are nearly a weeks worth of photos so I have taken on average just over 40 a day:o but if the hens would just stand still when I took them it would have helped massively:D Doesn't sound too bad if I divide them up does it? but at least they are in order

All for now, I'll update soon

Edwink


(I know they are Pigeons but I couldn't find one with hens):rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

:rotfl: at your pigeon pic :rotfl:

Pleased to hear the ladies are settling in, and as you say I'm sure the pecking order will sort itself out eventually (although someone should explain that to Mildred...)
Impressed with Mr edwink putting the roof on - I confess we still haven't got round to ours we bought corrugated panels too last year but with one thing and another they never got fitted, and have now either been used for other things or broken I've now got my plastic sheeting, and took it outside to put on the other day, but we ended up deciding to leave it until the builders have gone and the temporary enclosure is down, otherwise it's going to mean lifting the ladders back and forth over the temporary fence.

So no roof, but obviously the builders aren't here today so the ladies have been let out to roam around which Beaky especially seems pleased with as she is currently clicking away laying an egg in the coal shed, her favourite laying spot :rotfl:

Mind you if this fog continues to settle I'll have to stick them back in - they won't be very pleased about that!! :eek: will wait til I've had a shower and see how it goes.

edwink

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

the temporary enclosure is down, otherwise it's going to mean lifting the ladders back and forth over the temporary fence.

So no roof, but obviously the builders aren't here today so the ladies have been let out to roam around which Beaky especially seems pleased with as she is currently clicking away laying an egg in the coal shed, her favourite laying spot :rotfl:

What happened with the temporary enclosure Cheery?. Did it get battered by this awful weather?. It's fine here today but over the past week we have had some atrocious weather and everything took a battering.

It 's taken us 10 year to even try to get this roof on Cheery. Give yourself a chance, it's only year 2 for you at your place and you go to work too on top of all you do at home in your house, for your girls and not to mention outside work too because of all the land you have. I actually think you have done incredibly well saving your rescue girls so soon after moving in especially with your workload. You should give yourself a pat on the back for all you have achieved since moving last year.

I'm sure in time the girls will get their roof but for now you have made them a secure home, they are protected, they are well looked after and most of all they a free range, so free to go wherever they want to, even in to your home where many hens would not be allowed. Mine have always been allowed to come in to our home too so I'm just the same as you Cheery and think, why not? they are part of our family after all. Like you I want to give my girls the best possible life I can but some things had to wait until we had the time of money to do them like the roof. But, like yours I am sure the hens we have cared for have always had a very happy home, were loved so much, had a much different life to the one they had before they came to live with us and best of all they were free. A roof is nothing to them really, it is being free at last and being able to wander around at their leisure doing naturally what hens do best. Be kind to yourself Cheery they will get their roof but only when you have the time to do it. As said it has taken us 10 years to get a roof on that's why we are making sure this one is permanent. We have had a few temporary roofs for them just to tie them over during a bad patch of weather because we didn't have the money over the years to buy the materials for a more permanent roof plus like you there were work commitments thrown in to the mix.

You have done extremely well for your girls Cheery and you and Mr Cheery should be so proud of yourselves.

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Nothing's wrong with the temporary enclosure - we're waiting til the builders have gone and we've taken the temporary enclosure down so we don't have to faff about hefting the ladders back and forth over the fence sorry, I think my wording wasn't quite clear

You're right though, the chickens are fine - they have their little internal roof, it's just me who's complaining about having to duck under it when I go in to clean their house out :rotfl:

orangecrush

Edwink so glad your new residents are settling in! The pecking order is horrible though isn't it I hope that with a large number, the aggression is spread around rather than one particular hen taking the brunt of it? I'm still terrified of ever needing to introduce new hens after what happened last time, and losing poor Rusty. I still feel so guilty about it!



Cheery that sounds like some epic work, but I bet it will make a huge difference! We had a teeny tiny kitchen, and extended it 2m to the side, then knocked the internal walls down so we have open plan kitchen dining room AND added a downstairs loo. The cowboy builder incident was painful. My parents had to loan us the money to get another builder in, and we still have some time left before that is paid off. But, on the plus side, it has made an enormous difference to our enjoyment of the house... now that the rage is fading haha!


This weekend Ginger and Buffy were free ranging a lot of the time, as we managed to spend time in the garden dealing with the very overgrown lawn/ jungle. As usual, once we go in they make a beeline for the patio doors where they think looking cute and starving will mean we feed them. We've got a new cat recently, who hadn't been introduced to the chicks yet. Ginger and new cat spent maybe 40 minutes in a stare-off at the door. It was hilarious! New cat likes to think he can take on the world... I suspect Ginger might have something to say about that. I was tempted to open the door to see what happened (supervised, of course!) but just as I was about to move, toddler turned up and chased the cat off. Next time!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, let us know how your introductions go orangecrush!

Dare I ask what happened with your previous hens? Don't say if it's too distressing for you of course If you've posted it in here before I must have missed it, sorry.

I don't want to hear about your cowboy builder incident though :eek: Mr Cheery has had bad experiences before (one of the reasons we often do our own DIY) and is forever checking what they're doing and fretting about it. I'm far more trusting, and am willing to leave it to the building regs man to make sure it's all sorted at the end. They seem like a nice bunch so fingers crossed!

orangecrush

We had a few unfortunate losses in a short amount of time, Cheery! We started with 3 hens, Carmen, Rainbow (don't ask) and Buffy, about 4 years ago. Carmen became eggbound and had to be put to sleep. Rainbow just dropped dead - we have no idea what happened. One morning she was just dead, as if she'd gone to sleep and not woken up. That left Buffy on her own. Buffy - despite being the best part of 4kg - was at the bottom of the pecking order so we didn't expect her to have violent tendencies, but I think she had some pent up aggression :eek::eek::eek:


Anyway, she was lonely and pulling her feathers out on her own, so we picked up 2 Shetland hens - Rusty who was 18 months and Ginger, one of her brood, who was teeny tiny at the time. For whatever reason, Buffy took an instant dislike to Rusty, and terrorised the poor girl. She pecked her really hard on the side of the head leaving an open wound that got infected and turned into an abcess She had 2 surgeries to try and clear the abcess but it kept coming back, and was obstructing her breathing and after a month of antibiotics she just wasn't well, so we had her put to sleep Rusty was the most lovely, cuddly hen. I think that's probably why she got in trouble with Buffy - she just wanted to be with henny friends! We thought we did everything by the book with introductions (sectioned off part of the coop so they could see each other but not be in direct contact) but as soon as they were allowed out to range, Buffy went on the attack. She's now chief chicken, and is so huge I can't imagine introducing another hen to her again!


On your builders - I'm sure they are lovely, and competent! It sounds like you know what you're doing anyway, this was our first house, first project... we must have smelled of naiveity from ten miles away! Our builder left us with a half finished job (that was shoddy in so many places we had to pay a fortune to get it remedied) after his gambling debts came after him and his wife kicked him out... he ran away to another part of the country, so the story goes. Ho hum!