Feather Picking

A while ago I noticed that my hen Razzy was missing feathers under her vent. I chalked it up to chicken mites, and gave them all a treatment. That was in the spring, and she still has a bald bottom.

Chickens are attracted to the color red, so her poor red bottom was attracting the others to peck her. I’m not entirely sure where the feather picking started. She might have lost feathers there due to mites. Or the others may have just started pecking at her. Ultimately it doesn’t matter now, because they are drawn to the bright red of her poor, little tush.

I did some reading and found a product called Pick-No-More by Rooster Booster. What I liked about this product is that it is a natural product. It has a scent that chickens don’t like, which deters them from pecking. There is also calendula, which helps soothe her poor, pecked bottom. You use the applicator to smooth the cream onto the affected area. It is a dark purplish gray, which blends into her feathers particularly well.

In addition to treating the bald patch, I am trying to boost the protein in their diet. Feather picking can be caused by boredom or a protein deficiency. My girls have a pretty large area to roam, so I don’t think it’s the boredom. I feed them a lot of kitchen scraps, so that could have led to a decrease in protein. I am giving them a mixture of plain yogurt with some dry cat food. Cat food works well because it has a very high percentage of protein. It’s hilarious to watch them eat the yogurt. Particularly my polish hen, who’s head feathers act like a kind of mop in the yogurt dish.

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping to see new feathers sprouting soon.

My Chickens on Swedish TV

A few weeks ago Swedish TV4 sent a reporter and cameraman to my home to talk about urban chicken keeping. It was fun and the girls were feisty – kicking dirt in my face during the interview. Nothing like keeping it real!

Take a peek at the link to see it. Not sure why the put such ugly clips of the city. My neighborhood is beautiful and leafy.

Click here for the link.

Chicken Press Junket

Yesterday I had two tv crews come to my home to discuss backyard chicken keeping. In the morning TV 4 from Sweden came. We had been postponing this for weeks due to the constant rain. Yesterday was beautiful and sunny and the chickens were happy to get out and stretch their legs. We had a hilarious interview where the chickens were happily kicking leaves and dirt all over me.

In the afternoon a Japanese tv crew came from El Mundo, which is a show on NHK. Folks who subscribe to NHK programming in the US can watch the show. They were covering lots of different angles on chicken keeping and we represented the backyard chickens as pets portion. The host, Hanna very gamely tried holding a chicken.

They were mainly interested in talking to Lindsay about her pet chickens. It was a little intense in the beginning for her, but she held her own and did a great job.

I’ll post links to these shows when they are available.

Happy Earth Day

My daughter’s school celebrated Earth Day  on Friday. It has become an annual event in which I bring my chickens. The kids love seeing our unusual chickens. Many have never seen a live chicken before, so it’s fun to hear their reactions. I bring a big tub of spinach for the kids to feed the chickens.

We had the worm compost table next to the chickens, so the kids had a blast picking out worms and bringing them over to feed the chickens. The chickens ate like queens!

This little guy was smitten with the chickens. Whenever his mother lost him in the crowd, she just came back to me and there he was. She finally gave up and just hung out with us.

A friend brought her beekeeping equipment and lots of photos to show the kids about bees. She had popsicle sticks to dip into the honey for tasting. The smart kids used the sticks to dig for worms and then feed them to the chickens.

Hope you are having as much fun on Earth Day!

 

Back in the Saddle

Around Ground Hog’s Day the days get long enough to trigger my hens laying mechanism. This year I had new ones who layed all winter long. When March began my old biddies didn’t start laying. Weeks went by without an egg, so I thought they must have hit chicken menopause. They are almost 5 years old after all. Actually I have no idea when chickens stop laying.

A few days ago, however, I saw a green egg that looked slightly darker than Edie’s eggs. I wasn’t sure until a white egg appeared. Those belong to Andie my silver laced polish hen. Seems like my old gals have decided to begin laying at the solstice now.

 

Wait for me!

Since Razzy laid her first egg, we’ve been on egg watch for Edie’s first egg. She was running back and forth between the large run and the nest box this morning, which is a sure sign of something brewing. It must be very strange to feel like something is about to pop out of you. She has  no parents to give her “the talk” after all. We put a golf ball in the nest box to give the new girls an idea of where the eggs should go. Edie didn’t take the hint.

Thanksgiving Gift

Our two newest chickens have been on the point of lay for some time. Razzamatazz (Razzy) especially has been showing signs of maturing. Her comb has turned a deep red and her legs have become a brighter yellow. In addition to that, when you pet her back she squats down, which is another sign of being mature. The squat is the submissive mating stance if you must know.

Our first generation of chickens laid their first egg on Ground Hog’s Day. I was hoping for a Thanksgiving egg this time. Razzy waited until we got back from our Berkshire Thanksgiving to lay her egg. So yesterday, while we were outside raking leaves and reading the paper in the 63 degree weather, Razzy started announcing she was ready to lay. She was extremely vocal as she paced between the run and the nest box. After a couple of hours, she produced a beautiful, small, pinkish brown egg.

Introducing New Chickens to a Flock

Ever wonder what became of our cute little chicks? In a matter of weeks they turned into huge monster chickens. This is what they looked like when they first came:

The first one is Edie and the second one is Razzamatazz (yes, I let a 7 year-old name her). Here they are now:

They are now integrated with the other girls, which has been a bit of a process (and is still going on). Any time a new chicken is introduced to a flock, there is a disturbance in the pecking order and the top hen has to re-establish her dominance. This translates to mean that there is usually an initial smack down. I read various accounts on how to add new hens to a flock and then came up with my own version. First of all, I waited until the chicks were a couple of months old and big enough that they wouldn’t be hurt when (and I mean when) the older ones beat them up.

In my set-up, I have the Eglu, which has a 9′ run attached to the coop. We built a 10’x10′ enclosure to extend the run. This enclosure isn’t predator proof, so we lock the door to the Eglu’s run at night to keep our gals safe at night. We have a wire dog crate, which is what we used in our office with the heat lamp when the girls were younger. We brought the crate into the extended run and wrapped it with layers of chicken wire to make it predator proof. This served as the coop for the chicks at night. During the day, we would let the chicks out of the crate into the extended run. The 2 older ones stayed in the Eglu’s run. I would then let both groups into the yard when I had time to spend in the yard. This got them used to one another and also gave the little ones places to hide when the older ones ran after them to peck them. I was surprised that Andie, my polish hen was the aggressor. Lulu just saves her aggression for me I guess. After several weeks of this, we decided that it was time for the final phase of the flock integration. We opened the door to the larger enclosure and let the two groups mingle. We kept the crate open as a place for the girls to hide. They spent a lot of time on top of it. But at night, we closed the crate and the chicks followed the older hens into the coop of the Eglu.

Here are some tips I can give on integrating a flock.

  • You can do it as slowly or quickly as you want. I chose to do it more slowly in the hopes they would get used to each other and prevent the fighting. This didn’t really happen.
  • Provide several food and water stations. The established flock has a tendency to guard the food from the newcomers. You want to make sure the new hens are getting enough to eat and drink.
  • Provide some sort of place for the newcomers to escape from the older ones. Ours used to fly on top of the dog crate and hang out there. That’s where we put the chick food. We took that out and now have a perch in the extended run. The older hens don’t seem interested in this at all, so it is the place where the young ones can go to escape from the old meanies.
  • Expect some pecking while they establish their pecking order, but keep an eye out to make sure nobody is getting too hurt or wounded.  Andie mostly would sneak up behind one of the chicks and peck them soundly on the tush. They now just try to avoid her as much as possible.
So, I don’t have a love affair between the new and the old hens, but they co-habitate and nobody is getting hurt anymore. I think that’s about the best I could expect.

Heedley Pecked Me in the Eye


This hilarious book arrived in the mail a couple of days ago with a note saying get well. It didn’t say who sent it though. It is a very, very funny book. I guess I am not the only one who has gotten pecked in the eye by a chicken.

Let me know if you are the person who sent this to me.

Hen Pecked! A Cautionary Tale


Chickens like to explore their world with their beaks. Their minds work somewhat along these lines…What’s that green thing? Peck. What’s that creepy crawly thing? Peck. What’s that shiny thing? Peck….you get the idea.

As you can imagine, I am used to getting pecked by my girls. They especially love the color red, so if I ever have colored nail polish on my toes, those are fair game. They also love anything that resembles a worm. There have been very comical episodes of them pulling on my shoe laces, or clothing ties. I posted them grabbing my knitting a month or so ago when they were still indoors.

Anyway, with all this pecking, I am very careful with my face. The girls don’t mean to be vicious (except for my dear Lulu), they just explore by pecking. Yesterday when I let the little ones out of the dog crate, Midnight jumped up onto my shoulder as she usually does. She’s a very sweet chicken, who likes to sit on my arm or shoulder. She kept craning her neck around to peer at my face. It made me nervous and I kept turning my face away from her. Unfortunately, while I wasn’t paying attention, she pecked me. On my eyeball. I didn’t blink in time.

The last two days have been filled with going to the eye doctor, getting antibiotic eye cream ($100/bottle!!), missing a freelance gig, and going back to the doctor. I figure that peck has cost me just shy of $700.

I had chicken for dinner last night. Just not one of mine.