A day of chickens

Today we walked down the allotment rather later than usual. When we arrived we let Leia and Rey into their outdoor run as the temperature in the greenhouse was a little higher than I liked. Without any hesitation, Rey jumped into the run with Leia following after. I clean out the greenhouse and collected two eggs. In order to keep the temperature in the greenhouse lower, we opened up the front door completely and opened up the roof panel to get a through draft.

As my husband fed and watered the girls in the main coop, I checked on Dolly. She seemed so much brighter today than yesterday which is such a relief. She had managed to knock over her water and fill the container with dirt. I thoroughly washed out the container and filled it with fresh water and a generous dose of puree garlic. It really seems to be doing the trick. My husband picked her up and I battled with Dolly to get her dose of oil, egg yolk and water. Her tongue seems to be beginning to move back towards the middle of her beak. The left side of her beak still doesn’t look quite right and there is still some of the gunk there but there is less in the middle of her beak and it doesn’t smell as bad as it did a few days ago. Here’s hoping she continues to improve! I definitely feel more hopeful today as she is walking around the run more quickly, she seems to be drinking on her own and is having a good try with her food. We still aren’t sure how much food she is managing to eat herself but she was enthusiastically pecking at her meal worms.

Before we left, I remembered that I had brought down some nail clippers to help Georgie. Her beak has grown another massive spur and she had been finding it harder to eat. After a few frantic minutes, my husband caught her and held her still whilst I trimmed off the spur. It doesn’t hurt the chicken provided you don’t cut too high up. Georgie was very good and immediately scoffed food as soon as she was put down. Hopefully she will be back to her usual happy self with a full belly tomorrow!

Now for the chicks. I had forgotten just how much chick crumb they eat and having nine balls of fluff has meant that they have pretty much eaten the entire rest of the bag I had brought home from work. Nowhere online seemed to have a next day delivery and worrying that they may not have any food after tomorrow, I called Pets at Home. Fortunately, they had a well stocked poultry section. I picked up some cleaning stuff for the main coop and managed to snaffle the last bag of chick crumb. Who knows when they will next have some. The shops have really been struggling to deal with keeping the shelves full. At least, we have enough food for the chicks for a while – although if they keep eating like they are we will need another 5kg bag in a week!

Armed now with all the cleaning chemicals, disinfectant and diatumous earth, tomorrow will be a full clean out of the main coop and the greenhouse.