Keeping hens and ducks chat. 7 July 2015 at 5:07PM edited 27 April 2021 at 11:46PM in Greenfingered MoneySaving 3.4K replies 350.7K views

Cheery_Daff

Hello 😊

@twopenny welcome to the hen thread! I confess I have no idea what's going on either! Might it be to do with the cold?! I've never heard of eggs and whites not mixing properly. Eggs do different things when they're very fresh sometimes - eg it's much harder to peel them when boiled - so maybe it's something to do with that? 

Don't know about the colour either. I do know that people often say free range gives a more orange yolk - but I also know that the chicken food we buy has marigold flowers added which also gives a more orange yolk so I don't think it's only free range! (Although ours usually are).

Do let us know if you get an answer, I think we're all intrigued now. I suppose it could be as simple as that the hens are moulting, but I don't think I've ever seen reference to that changing yolk colour- more likely to stop laying altogether.

Incidentally, we've had a proper moult this year, feathers everywhere, rather alarming! And our two remaining layers went off lay for a while. But nobody ended up bald thank goodness, and we're back up to getting about 4-6 eggs a week now, which at this time of year from 2 hens who are over 2.5 years old ain't that bad (Bessie is over 5 years old now so she's well into retirement)

I was reading back over my old MSE diary from a few years back when we had 5 relative young chickens - we gave away 6 boxes of eggs at Christmas!! 😂 30 eggs!! At the minute a single boiled egg each is a proper treat!

twopenny

Thank you for taking the time Cheery, forever a mystery.

It wasn't a one off as I tried again the next day, both to mix the egg and try a new one which wasn't quite do bad but still white that wouldn't mix.

I'm old enough to remember when eggs became scarcer in winter at times.

The weather if grim at the mo. When it cheers up I'll drive over and get some more. See what happens.

There are a lot of roadside stalls selling eggs here, a lot of flocks from pre battery hens who thrive in the outdoors eventually.

My friend use to keep 2 in her garden, Hen and Chicken, who came in the cat flap occasionally. When they got their first egg a notice went in the paper under Births.

"Congratulations to my little Hen on her first" ......... little did the paper know

Cheery_Daff

Aw, that's a lovely story twopenny! 🥰🥰

edwink

twopenny...... That's a very sweet little story.  I do hope you get to the bottom of the egg white issue you are having.


Cheery....... Talking about moulting my girls had a super moult too this time. There were feathers everywhere I actually thought a couple of my hens had been having a real go at each other or something. I kept a closer eye on them and came to the conclusion it was just the moult as I didn't witness any aggression between them at all.


I lost a hen yesterday morning, bless her.  She didn't do too bad age-wise for an ex-battery girl. I hate losing any of them 😥

Edwink x

twopenny

Glad you enjoyed it.

When the two hens were due to be delivered they didn't have a house built, it was raining hard and the garden on a steep slope.

I helped them make a pen and we put up an umbrella in the middle for shelter. It was mild enough. The house was built the following day.

She worked in a pub by night and bought home all the leavings from the meals for them as well as chicken feed and they thrived. The eggs were delicious.

It was only a break up and they were - really - homed at a farm where they could wander freely.

I have fond memories of my Great Aunts chickens when I was a child. Always wanted some but it wasn't to be - by location. I have to be content with free range hedgehogs now

StarShapedPeg

Hello all
how is everyone coping with flockdown? 

My little ones are hating being cooped up and unable to free range. I’ve taken to digging up swathes of grass and giving it to them to rip up and make a total mess of. 

We recently moved house, moving from a small house and small enclosed garden to something much much bigger with half an acre of land for them to (eventually) roam around on. Or that was the original plan. As soon as we moved in I realised we might have to curb our ideas. There are millions and I mean millions of foxes… there was even a dead one under our new house. I had five Pekins, two older girls and three little ones (about 3 months old now). Because of bird flu, the hens had to be housed in a boat house (that’s all we had as a roofed structure) so I made them a good home, they had light and straw and sand, and we moved the coop in and they had the whole place to explore. Three months in and I came home one day (we’d been out looking at bathrooms, this house needs a lot of work) and one was gone without a trace and the other he’d left for me to clean up. I was (and still am) absolutely distraught. We’ve kept hens for 10 years and never had a problem. Amazingly two were asleep where they usually are on top of a bale of straw and the other one I found wedged in behind the coop, but she’s fine, I was worried that he might have hurt her but she’s fine, now normal. So the two older ones he slaughtered and the three little ones survived. Now I’m obsessed with checking on them every five minutes. We’ve resecured the hole he gnawed his way into and put a load of rubble and panels down to make it secure but I’m worried he’s some kind of super fox. Makes me sick to think I used to feed them. My poor hens😢😢😢
obviously I’ve never had to think of these things before (maybe we we just really lucky) they were in a garden but we just never saw foxes and all three of our neighbours had dogs. I know nothing can be 100% fox proof but what to do? Double chicken wire, digging the panels into the ground? Electric fencing? I’ve now put a lock on the coop which we secure at night when they’re in. The night it happened we moved the coop into the house and they slept 10 feet away from us in case the 🤬 came back for the rest. 

edwink

Hi StarShapedPeg

I love the name flockdown although I hate flockdown itself. My girls have not seemed too happy these past couple of weeks, bless them. I've run out of ideas, to be honest. They have shredded kale, hanging broccoli, extra ground straw shavings, etc. I gave them some corn on the cob the other day and they totally ignored it and just left it sitting in their feed trough. I'm not too concerned at this point because they all appear healthy but maybe they are just a bit fed up. 


So sad to hear that you have also had a fox attack, I say also because I have had the same but not recently. I really do feel for you because it is a horrible nasty experience to go through. It was so lucky that 3 of them survived but very sad he slaughtered 2 of them. I've seen the same myself and boy is it a traumatic experience to witness. I understand about your being distraught and now have the need to keep checking on them. It's awful, really awful. 

We cemented their chicken wire boundary 3ft into the ground and added a load of bricks and rubble all the way around before pouring cement all over it.  We are confident that a fox couldn't get in around the boundary at all, it's just the 2 doorways I worry about.  One of the doors we blocked recently because we lost our last duck and that was her in and out entrance. We have 2 bolts on the hen's outer door, one halfway up the door and one lower down to give it a bit of strength. I still worry though since the fox attack as we back onto woodland.  We had ours 10 years before our attack too.

I guess the only thing you can do is to cement their boundary fence into the ground, like we have done, perhaps. Another way is to lay paving slabs all the way around their boundary so a fox can not burrow underneath if that makes sense.

Thinking of you, take care.

Edwink x

edwink

My girls are not looking too happy, bless them. We've had Avian lockdowns many times before now and they have been ok but this time they look totally bored.  They still come running over to me when I enter their run which is nice but not always interested in the treats I have for them. 

We fully cleaned out their coop yesterday and raked and cleared the top layer of ground shavings and put a fresh load down. I put some sunflower hearts and mealworms in it for them to find and that definitely helped. 

How is everyone else getting on?

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Sorry to hear your hens are seeming a little lacklustre edwink. Bless their little beaks. Ours, touch wood, seem to be doing ok. We miss having them pottering around the garden and coming into the house of course, but they seem fine. I've managed to sneak up on them a couple of times without them noticing me, and they've just been either digging, or just sitting on one of the perches preening. They do usually hear me coming though, and jump up on their little viewing platform to see what treats I've brought. They're usually busy devouring whatever I've taken though when I leave, and they don't even try to escape any more. Bit sad really, but I'm so much looking forward to when we can let them out again! 

I keep forgetting we've got our names down for two new ladies in mid January - we'll have to start making some adjustments to the run to get them in there! The time is creeping up on us!

edwink

Cheery_Daff said:

Sorry to hear your hens are seeming a little lacklustre edwink. Bless their little beaks. Ours, touch wood, seem to be doing ok. We miss having them pottering around the garden and coming into the house of course, but they seem fine. I've managed to sneak up on them a couple of times without them noticing me, and they've just been either digging, or just sitting on one of the perches preening. They do usually hear me coming though, and jump up on their little viewing platform to see what treats I've brought. They're usually busy devouring whatever I've taken though when I leave, and they don't even try to escape any more. Bit sad really, but I'm so much looking forward to when we can let them out again! 

I keep forgetting we've got our names down for two new ladies in mid January - we'll have to start making some adjustments to the run to get them in there! The time is creeping up on us!

So glad yours are doing ok Cheery.  Mine are doing a lot of sitting around, bless them. They are all well and healthy so I am not worried at all.  Oh, and mine don't try to escape either, bless them.

Just a little tip regarding extending your girl's run. If you can go bigger than planned, I would, even if just a couple more feet. Looks like they will have Avain Lockdown every winter by the way things are going so the extra space inside the run will always be welcome to your feathered friends. It will save you from having to put another extension on it later on as well 😉😉😉

Edwink x