Keeping hens and ducks chat.

edwink

This was on the BBC NEWS online tonight

Bird flu: Russia detects first case of H5N8 bird flu in humans - BBC News

Edwink x

edwink

Hi everyone

Good progress here over this weekend I am very pleased to say.  We have finally added height to the hen's indoor dust bath so little Hoppy will no longer get covered in soil. To be honest it didn't take half as long as we thought it would because we found the wood we needed pretty quickly.  Also have cleaned out the hens and Hoppy's hotel, the coop, and run, so that's done for another week.

Today we finally got round to cleaning out our soak-a-ways of hen/duck poo and soil.  The contents of which are now on our newly made raised veg beds. We will order some topsoil tomorrow and that will be added as a top layer ready for planting up our new raised veg beds this year. 

All in all, progress here which is really good because normally something more pressing has needed to be done or we have decided to do something else instead because the soak-a-way job is pretty mucky to do. 

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well.

Edwink x

edwink

Hi everyone

Yesterday I noticed I have a quiet hen, bless her, I managed to give her extra warm porridge at lunchtime, and then she spent most of the late afternoon nodding off.  I have observed her quite a bit and noticed she certainly has a good appetite which is good. I'll pick her up for a cuddle today so I can check her over to see if I notice anything that is wrong with her.  From my experience of ex-batts, it is normally age related but I need to be sure in case it is something more which I need to deal with. 

Besides my quiet little hen, all the others are being complete and utter hooligans 🤣🤣🤣 so that's good because I know they are well. Hoppy is doing ok and loving her mealworm, cucumber, and kibbled corn treats.  

Hope everyone is keeping well and their feathered friends too. I'll update on my quiet hen when I know more.

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Morning Edwink, good to hear from you! 

Sorry to hear about your quiet hen though. I hope she's just having an off day and perks up nicely. Glad to hear everyone else is doing ok! 

All good with my bunch of hooligans. The young ones are definitely getting more used to us - more cheeky and less skittish. Bunty even jumped on my knee the other day, most unusual! And then later pecked my finger because she thought it might have a treat in it...

The older ones are definitely less agile now, but still lively and well, thank goodness. They're perfecting the art of grouchiness to ensure they get access to the best treats, as the young ones definitely have speed on their side. 

I can't wait til we can let them out. I've been obsessively reading the weekly reports that DEFRA produces - the last case of bird flu in captive birds in the UK was 6th Feb, and there have been no new cases in wild birds in the UK for a couple of weeks I don't think. Still cases on the continent, but it's slowing down, and most of those bird types aren't scheduled to be flying over the UK. They say the warmer weather and more daylight will mean it won't hang around in the environment as long, so surely we're not far off now??

Monday 8th will mark 12 weeks since they were shut in, so that means free range chicken meat would have to be labelled as NOT free range, although I believe because of the young age of chickens raised for meat, they just might not have raised any during the lockdown? I don't know. I read somewhere free range chickens have to have spent half their lives outside, and be no younger than (I think) 56 days when slaughtered, so I can't imagine there are many shut in to lose the label, if you see what I mean.

We've only got another 4 weeks til it makes a difference for egg producers though - after 16 weeks inside (ordered by the government, not generally), free range eggs lose their free range status, so I imagine that would be a blow to the industry (although not as much of a blow as bird flu...).

Last time we had a chicken lockdown in 2016/17, it started a week earlier around 6th Dec, but was lifted on 28th Feb. Interestingly, they announced the lift on 9th Feb, so 3 weeks notice.

I was really hoping they'd say we could be out by 8th March, but apparently not. But surely before the end of March?? Surely before the 16 week date is up?? Which means if they're going to give 3 weeks notice, we should hear within the next week?

Don't think there's anything to say they HAVE to give 3 weeks of course, they just did last time. And in some high risk areas it went on longer - we're not in one of those areas though (they're mostly round the coast and large bodies of water).

Anyway, clearly I am completely obsessed 😮😂 Chicken lockdown is bothering me personally more than human lockdown I think, although they themselves don't seem to care as long as the treats keep coming (except when they can see me digging in the garden and can't get at me, then they complain!)

edwink

Cheery_Daff said:

Anyway, clearly I am completely obsessed 😮😂 Chicken lockdown is bothering me personally more than human lockdown I think, although they themselves don't seem to care as long as the treats keep coming (except when they can see me digging in the garden and can't get at me, then they complain!)

Thanks very much for all the detail and info in your post, very useful Cheery 😗

I'm the same with the chicken lockdown bothering me and can't wait until they are allowed out again.  I miss them so much buzzing around my feet and playing me up when I am busy outside, although saying that I can get a lot more done at the moment and probably in half the time than it normally takes me 🤣🤣🤣  I don't mind being slowed down though because I really enjoy their company. 

Like you Cheery, I can't wait for the chicken lockdown to end.  Here's hoping it will be soon eh? 🤗

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

How's your quiet hen doing today edwink? Hope she's getting on ok x

edwink

Cheery_Daff said:

How's your quiet hen doing today edwink? Hope she's getting on ok x

OMG sorry, I forgot about my quiet little hen. She seems to be doing much better now from what I have seen observing her in the coop.  We checked her over and couldn't see anything that we should be worried about. My guess is she was having a really tired day as older ex-battery hens do from time to time. They are all coming up to 3 years old now, bless them.  I can't believe we have had them here for 17 months already. 

When typing my last post out I had it in my head to respond to your useful chicken lockdown info and to update on how my little quiet hen was doing but I totally forgot to mention her, sorry about that 🤗

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Aw, glad to hear she's ok xx Yes ours have tired days every now and then. We've had our older ladies over 2 years now, can't believe it! 

orangecrush

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all doing well and your feathery flocks are too.

Not much to report here - the ladies are still confined, due to bird flu and also we have no garden gate so they would be off down the road in no time!  Getting one fitted in April, hopefully in time for bird-lockdown to end?

I was hoping to ask for some advice - we want to introduce a couple of new hens to our terrible-two.  Buffy rarely layed last year (she is 5, bless her) and Ginger is infrequent and her eggs are not fabulous (often bloody).  So we were thinking of adding two more, which would probably be the most our garden could cope with. 

Firstly, is there any way to prepare for this, to minimise the squabbling?  I've read to: introduce them at night, rub them all in the same herbs, allow them to free range as much as possible, and have seperate food and water stations. 

Secondly, does anyone know where to find POL hens?  (I'm in Yorkshire)  Most of the places we looked at when we got our hens first time round are now sadly not trading.  I'm not sure about rescues as we know Buffy is a hideous bully and I would worry about her injuring them badly. 

I know we won't be able to bring any in until bird flu is clear and lockdown over anyway, but I want to do my homework!

Cheery_Daff

I don't know where to find POL hens - we just did a general internet search for ours and read some reviews (not Yorkshire though)

As for introducing them... Time and careful policing! I've only done it twice. Introduced 3 ex-batts to two other ex-batts, then later introduced 3 POL to our 3 older ex-batts. The second time was much worse!! 😮 The rescues gave as good as they got from the older ones so things settled relatively quickly, but when we got the young hens, they were scared of everything and wouldn't fight back. They still cower even now!

I'd definitely recommend separating the space for a few days at least, so they can see and shout at each other through the fence. We literally just put some mesh across one end of the run. Make sure they all have food and water, and don't block daytime access to the chicken house for the older ones (give the new ones a box to lay in if necessary, or to hide in!)

Put them all in together at night- wait til the old ones are in and settled, then plonk the new ones in too. Be prepared for a bit of scuffling. And let them out very early in the morning. 

We kept ours separate for a few days both times, removing the barrier in the evening when they were all getting sleepy and sitting with them til they went to bed, which took a while as the older ones were too grumpy to go to bed and the new ones too scared! 😂 I think after about 4 days I left them to it.

You see some people say keep them separate for a fortnight, but our set up wasn't good for that as the new ones didn't have much space. We found they did get used to each other quite quickly, although in both cases they've kept to distinct factions and while you do see them all together a lot, you rarely see one old and one new together.

They will need to sort out the pecking order, so be prepared for some pecking... but if it gets to the point where they're drawing blood/feathers you'll need to take action 😮 We've had to spray a couple of ours over the years with purple spray - usually just when they had a bald patch anyway and the others just wouldn't leave it alone...

Hope that all helps! I'm sure edwink will be along soon, she has far more experience than me and has done this loads of times! 😊