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It’s not been a good month for our chickens. Just before Christmas 2010, one of them developed a prolapse (not pretty, either to describe or see), and days of rubbing her behind with hemorrhoid cream combined with isolation in the cat kennel seemed to do the job. She was soon mixing back in with the flock, the slightly whitened and matted feathers the only sign of her ever having been ill.

Then a couple of weeks later, as 2010 went into 2011, Nik was cleaning our flock of eight hens out and he spotted another poorly bird. Another week of the very same treatment resulted in the very same outcome. And while the second patient was noticeably and visibly more distressed than the first, she seemed to recover well.



We thought we’d tracked down the problem. One hen in particular seemed to be pecking out beakfuls of feathers from her seven sisters, so we kept a closely-monitoring eye on the group and although still a matter of concern, once we’d put new wood chippings into the compound, the problem was less pronounced.

The reason why? We think they were alleviating boredom by pecking at each other; the new chippings gave them plenty of material to scratch and turn over. You only had to look at how much enjoyment they were getting from dustbathing once we’d turned the mud over to reveal dry earth, ready for the chippings to go down.

We thought all was well. We obviously thought too soon. Imagine our surprise when on Monday morning, I found Gabby (so-called because her left eye was smaller than the right one due to an encroaching eyelid) standing out on the chippings shivering, and puffed up just like Barbara was when she was poorly.

Recoiled into herself, Gabby showed little sign of wanting to do anything, and had not gone into the house the night before. We suspect now that it was due to a lack of energy, and although her rear end was a little, shall we say, messy, it showed no sign of a prolapse. So again, the cat kennel was called into service as a chicken isolation ward and we left the poorly hen for the afternoon.

After I’d been out doing the routine weekly cleaning of the compound in the afternoon, Gabby wasn’t looking well at all. Barely responding to my touch, her head was hanging low, she was hunkered down, puffed out, and hadn’t eaten a thing. With colour drained from her comb, face, and wattles, she was definitely slowly but surely dying.

We left her alone until the others had gone to bed, and then removed her gently empty sleeping carcass and, with nothing else to do, wrapped her in two bin bags and placed her gently into the refuse bin. Sudden yes, but probably all the better for it. She arrived last March with two more Rhode Rangers in our second batch of hens, and so sadly wasn’t even a year old when she died.

And, although it was only her misshapen and distorted eye and her honking noise (she never clucked and probably thought she was a goose) that endeared her to us, we were disappointed that it was her who happened to be the one who was chosen to go to the big henhouse in the sky. Silly, a chicken should be just a chicken after all, but some, occasionally, are a little more than that.

Or even two if you have them. Poor Gerry can’t even do that anymore. Her and Margot started the annual moult around two weeks ago that, unbelievably, chickens go through, too. Similar to the way that cats and dogs lose fur, the feathered moult consists of losing, well, feathers. And this year seems to be much worse for our two oldest birds. While some of the younger members of our eight-strong flock are doing the same, it’s to a lesser degree, and so fewer ginger feathers litter the floor of the coop.

But for Gerry and Margot it’s a different (and no doubt colder) story. Both of them look old, scraggy and lose feathers at the merest hint of movement. Gerry now has no feathers left at all at her tail end, so now waggles a pink, pimply stump. Margot looks bald around her face (she’s not, but appears to be), and both of them feel hard and almost scaly to the touch due to the small amount of feathers left of them and the tubes left from the missing ones. It could be worse, though; it’s not quite winter proper yet.

It’s chicken prison, or at least it was. Due to increasing demands on our egg supplies, we finally relented on 10 July and collected three more chickens from Hens4Homes. Rhode Island Rangers, the same as the most recent three we bought from Kirsty, they’ve not had an easy time settling in. We’re sure they’re even smaller than the last three additions to the coop, and with five old hens to make friends with, our new 17-week old girls have had a tough time of it.

Constantly pecked when they first arrived, they kept retreating to the new high perch that Nik had made for the coop the week before. High above the old chickens they were safe, not least because the elder chooks hadn’t really worked out what the tall perch was for. So, when that was taken away, the new girls jumped on the middle perch, again thinking they were away from any viscious beaks. Not so, as the more mature hens already used that branch to sit on, and no way were they giving that up.

So, drastic measures were called for. Raspberry netting in the middle of the chicken coop transformed the enclosure into chicken prison or a sort of Big Brother rich house, poor house arrangement. It was essential, though; it was the only way the new trio could get any respite. Putting the disused cat kennel in the corner of the new birds’ enclosure helped a little, too, as they could retreat from the hot daytime sun with no fear of older chicken reprisals.

But, it couldn’t last forever. With Margot, Gerry, Gabby and pals rebounding off the netting like space hoppers hitting a forcefield, it had to go. Beaks were getting tangled, chickens were squawking and the situation just wasn’t working as much as we’d hoped. We were also in danger of putting off the inevitable flock integration. But, since removing the netting, things have gotten worse, with the new birds spending most of their time in the Eglu or on the steps to the Eglu when we forcibly – and maybe cruelly – closed the door. But, it could be a case of being cruel to be kind.

Nursing our new three in the evening by closing all the older hens in with the exception of Gabby – she seems to at least want to make friends – so that they can eat and drink in peace and quiet seems to be helping them, although one of them does have a blue face, which we can only think is bruising from the pecking. It seems to be, with good reason, absolutely terrified, but simply has to fight back at some point. But, the week started on a positive note, as at least one of the new Rhodies has the guts to steal food from the older ones’ mouths, while all eight can stand in the same space now and not get too bothered. It’s a long way from perfect yet, but I think we just might have turned the corner.

Yes, I know she was only a chicken, but it’s sad nonetheless. Barbara, our white Sussex Ranger died on Friday morning in the coop, after we think, a short-ish illness. Apparently, all the signs were there (dirty back-end, pale-coloured comb), and the inevitable was, well, inevitable. I don’t think there’s much we could have done for her. We cleaned her up a few weeks ago, and thought we’d sorted out whatever the problem was, but obviously we hadn’t.

She went quietly, though, and looked much the same as she had done for the past few weeks, eyes closed and peacefully asleep. She’s been very quiet recently, seemingly spending most of the daylight hours asleep and resting away from our five other chickens, moving occasionally to peck at the scraps that were thrown in. On Friday, once she’d gone, I moved her to the greenhouse where she was collected by Vic (who was at the house with Andrew cutting a tree down), who disposed of her for us.

Gerry and Margot (who arrived with Barbara two years ago this coming August) seem fine, as do the newer three laying ladies. It’s strange not seeing a white bird in the coop, though. Barbara always let the world happen round her and whether the new arrivals stressed her out, we’ll never know. We do know that we’ve had five eggs a day for the past few weeks and we’re still getting the same number now; Barbara had obviously stopped laying some time ago.

We’ve had our new chickens for just over a month now and we thought they were 17 weeks old, which meant that egg laying was still 7 weeks away. But, for a couple of weeks now we’ve collected almost half-size eggs (think Cadbury’s Creme Egg dimensions) every day, and some days more than one. That can only mean one thing; one or more of our new hens is popping out eggs a little prematurely.

That would explain the size, but the new girls’ combs are nowhere near sizable yet, while their legs are still more yellow than white (the brightness fades as maturity nears). They could just be older than we thought of course, but then should the eggs still be so small? if we were in any doubt, I opened the pop hole to the nest box to find one of the new Rhodies sitting on a very warm, small egg.

It was the right colour, too, so we might have our answer. Our older chickens all lay eggs or varying shades (Barbara lays white, Gerry lash flesh colour and Margot lays brown) and although these have differed in colour each day, why would they be suddenly laying smaller eggs? Yes, they have been down in count over the winter as we had expected them to be, but now that we’re back up to collecting a more sustainable number, why would they then shrink in size?

So many questions. We’ll definitely watch the situation, but yesterday morning, did I accidentally find our phantom egg-layer?