Organically raised chickens, quail, fantail pigeons and the occasional guest poultry all living in 1000m2 of organic forest garden. My articles attempt to look at the poultry's view of life in the backyard and to observe and share how they thrive and survive in the environment we created for them. On the occasions when I need to intervene, I do so with a holistic approach to the bird as an individual and also to infer from the situation what this tells me about the general health, happiness and dynamics of the flock. I also look at stress management and show how to use nutrition and phytotherapy for both prevention and cure of various conditions.
LATEST ARTICLE
Raising Mealworms Organically for Optimum Poultry Protein - Part One - Sourcing/Detoxing & Creating an Environment
Can't wait for a mealworm!
I've always been concerned about the level of protein in the diet of my quail. This is not only from the point of view of egg laying but also and more importantly because from my observation that my quail undergo a complete personality change when they are short of amino acids such as L-methionine. They become fractious and argumentative with each other and shout angrily at me when they see me in the garden. ...read more
Part Two - Optimising the Environment, Population Growth & Grain Mite
As with all my work both writing and films, my intention is to share that observation is key in the understanding of how we can best raise our poultry. This also holds good for how we raise their food. Understanding how invertebrates live, reproduce and interact with their habitat, helps not only in time-saving and avoiding unnecessary labour but also in getting positive results. The first conclusion we came to was that the plastic box was not an optimum environment!......read more
These articles are on-going, they occur either as they happen to us or because someone has asked me for help with their birds and thus to share what I have learned from the experience. Below you will find my my latest YouTube video:
Organic Poultry Food For Free - Creating Leaf Mould
It is the Holy Grail of many a chicken keeper not only to get their hens to put themselves to bed, which is easy-peasy but also to get the latter (or something) to close the hen house door. To this end they invest in all kinds of ladder systems and electronic door hatches and gadgets, when maybe all they really needed to do was to plant a tree.
My mother planted this bay tree over twenty years ago now, it was a single tiny sapling about ten centimetres high and it has flavoured many a fine casserole and delicious soup since. What perhaps we didn't expect was that it was also destined to become the nightly roost for over twenty of our chickens.
I had wondered from the outset how far the making a forest garden for both ourselves and our poultry would entail a return to the latter's natural forest floor and tree-dwelling instincts. Now, having observed them in this nightly event of going to roost, I have been amazed by how complicated a ritual it is, involving seemingly individual hierarchical and group behaviours.
The choice of tree is also interesting, maybe I am reading too much into it but I am always amazed at how organised hens are and how much their practical and sybaritic needs are met in everything they do. The bay tree from a geographical point of view is protected, it is well situated against the North wall of the back of the longhouse and sheltered from the prevailing Westerlies from the sea by hedges and fencing. It is also at the heart of a mini shelter belt of acacia, horse chestnut, mulberry, climbing roses, buddleia and willow.
Being up against the house is not its only advantage, as it is right next to the door of an outbuilding, where some of the flock roost. Therefore, in the case of a sudden terrible downpour, the birds can change their minds and get indoors for the night. I also believe that psychologically, this tree, by its position has become an adjunct to the house, which makes it even safer in the minds of the hens. There is of course the fact that laurus nobilis is an evergreen, which makes it good, sheltered roosting at all seasons. It is also well covered with a thick crop of large, ovate, fleshy leaves and apart from cold weather damage loses very few of them. Thus it makes an excellent shelter from rain, hail and snow and also hides the birds from prying eyes from both above and below. At a height of over six metres it provides not only a means to get a very lofty perch but also a good view of the whole garden.
In fact it was during the recent cat trouble we experienced that those twenty plus pairs of eyes were the first to inform me of both the when and where from of the attacks. The branches of the bay are smooth and wide but also give to the wind thus maybe not only rocking the birds to sleep but also avoiding bough breakage. Another aspect of the tree is its smell, which comes not only from the aromatic leaves but also from the delicate sweet perfume of its flowers. So not only a harmonious environment in which to relax and sleep but also this makes for great sensory camouflage as I have always assumed predators can sniff birds out in their roosting places.
My observations of tree roosting are as follows and the process is even more complicated than the ritual that surrounds the perches in the hen house.
I have always been so careful to make sure that all the roosts in the hen houses were at the same height as this is crucial to avoiding power struggles. Height of roosting, as in height of crowing for cockerels is a really important factor in establishing dominance and/or can be used by inference to intimidate others. Here in the tree, the birds are beyond my interference and it is true there is a bit of squabbling that can go on in the evening with squawks of indignation. It seems places are reserved
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The evening starts with one of my larger, though not necessarily dominant (things are very fluid here) cockerels scoping out the tree with a dominant hen. They go right to the top and the dominant hen sometimes stays there. The cockerel will then crow, and as you are probably aware crowing is used to signal the 'all clear' and I am guessing this is so here and as you will witness in the film below. The cockerel 'Mr Snuggles' then returns to earth and awaits the arrival of the rest of the tree dwellers. The hens and whatever cockerels decide to stay outdoors, (these latter are not always the same, as some of them prefer to rule over the roost in the outbuilding), now start to come to roost.
They sit initially on the lower branches, where they start a sort of collective preening operation, much like the ritual of washing and teeth cleaning. There is also a general chattering and communication going on at the same time. Then as the evening progresses, they start to move up the tree to their final roosting places. Often these are, as I wrote above, designated places but they do change. For example, I have noticed in the past few days Mr Snuggles for whatever reasons romantic or otherwise, has begun to sit lower down the tree with a mother hen and her chick rather than roost at the top of the bay with his usual coterie of females.
Mr Snuggles actual job as the evening wears on, seems to be as a sweeper of sorts, as he encourages the hens to move further up the tree. He will also return to earth at any time, if he feels someone is dawdling about in the garden and he will then 'chase' them up the tree. This is much the same behaviour I have seen in dominant and even lower order cockerels in hen houses. They will patrol the garden looking for any 'stop-outs'.
The cockerels however, will have none of this, if they decide to stay out to roost they pick their own place and at their own time. Many of the hens are also unwilling to obey commands from the officious Snuggles. However, my opinion is that this behaviour is ritualistic and I somehow feel the hens, the older ones definitely, move up the tree both because they know it makes sense but also because they know it is part of the 'game'.
As the tree is right outside our bedroom and as we really don't want to annoy the neighbourhood, we do remove the two usual tree-dwelling cockerels (sometimes three) from the tree each night. To do this Andy perfected the 'pallet wood chicken elevator', a simple T piece of wood, with which either to remove the rooster at ground level from below or at tree level from above.
Here demonstrated by Bungle, our golden, black-laced Polish hen.
If it was just us, living in the middle of nowhere, as I hope it will be any day soon, I would not bother as it would help me immeasurably to get everything done in the day, if I was up with the lark aka Mr Snuggles.
Now, if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film:
However, some of our chicks still prefer snuggling up to Mummy in a nice warm nest.
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Hatching chicks is an amazing experience and without fail, planned or not, is an event which seems the harbinger of every Spring in our little smallholding/homestead. UPDATED This year 2014 has been no exception we have had five such outdoor hatches and four of them with 10 - 12 chicks!
Luckily I heard these cheeping when I went to the back door just before midnight and we quickly found a cardboard box and brought them inside.
Clementina is such a intelligent hen, I am quite sure she planned her nest under the acanthus at the back door, just because she knew \i would be there if anything went wrong. It is actually not even part of theterritory of the hen house to which she belongs.
Cute attack - the last of Fluffer's chicks hatched is camera shy
On Monday (20th of May), I finally found where little Fluffers had been hiding for the last three weeks. I’d known she was safe and well because I’d seen her and/or evidence of her, a large broody poo, every morning but had only glimpsed her at a distance. When I’d tried to follow her she’d headed off in a different direction each time. She reminded me of a ringed plover, who feigns a broken wing to lead predators away from her nest.
Hardly out of the egg herself. An early, youthful and rather naive attempt by Fluffers to sit on eggs in the garden last year. This Spring she has obviously honed her craft and grown in guile!
The Back Story
My birds are constantly outwitting Andy and I with their creative stratagems to hatch chicks and it doesn’t matter what we do or how often we check, one of them at least, per year, will always get the better of us. I remember Andy once accused me of letting them "get away with it" and so that year I replied: “you do it then”. Dutifully every morning he counted everyone into the hen houses and then carefully every evening he frisked every hen for eggs. One morning, as I looked out of the kitchen window, I saw three mother hens with one three day old chick. They had obviously been passing the egg between the three of them as he frisked the others and just for good measure, had eaten the evidence aka the shell. Thus they avoided having to leave the nest until the weather improved and their little precious charge could be taken out into the big World.
The hen in the foreground, Molly, was the chick raised by three mothers, they were actually in the hen house and even outwitted us there!
Determination - Chickles and Spot, a happy event started on its way by a pair of pigeons and later taken on by Chickles. The poor pigeons were no match for a broody intent on hatching, even though it was their nest and they were sitting patiently by the door when I arrived to remove the offender.
The Perils of Laying Away
Last year I lost two hens, who had been sitting on eggs somewhere in the garden. Judging from the evidence, purely a few broken but hatched shells, they had both been taken at the point of hatching when the chicks are at their most vociferous and the hen her most vulnerable. We have a walled and thickly hedged garden but this will not stop the stone martens and the occasional cat. This year therefore I have been very careful, even to the point of removing Chickles (film below) and her part-pigeon hatched chick, from the dovecote. It’s so much easier to remove a chick and the mother rather than eggs and a mother. The mother may reject the eggs once they have been removed and/or insist on going back to the original nest and sitting there despondently waiting for them to return. I can always usually get my hen to sit back on the eggs but it takes determination and trust. Even on the one occasion I didn’t, I’ve had another broody ready but the angst it puts us both through is worth avoiding if possible. So at the first cheap of the first chick, we’re out there with our cardboard box, ready made nest and warm welcome.
One time I didn’t even have to wait, my mother hen alerted me, she was shouting red alert from the stone planter she had been sitting in. There waiting patiently I found a large, opportunist hedgehog crunching through her unhatched eggs. We managed to save the five chicks and some eggs before he made a complete pig of himself.
A forest garden offers a great opportunity for laying away. The only enclosures we have, other than the perimeter walls and hedges is this wired arbor to the left of the photo, which keeps us safe from marauders during lunch!
Back to Fluffers
So I heard cheeping last Tuesday coming from the nettle patch under the fig tree and knew I’d located her. She was sitting on fourteen eggs, laid directly on the soil with no attempt at a nest. I think actually, witnessed by her broken feather, she may have had a nest somewhere near but had managed to move the lot under brambles and nettles to avoid the attentions of one of my young Cochin cockerels. There were two chicks already hatched out, one pipping and two ‘talking’ eggs. The whole clutch consisted of twelve eggs under her and two to the side.
Suspect No 1 Hastings, silly, youthful and very loveable, a Cochin cockerel born last year.
How to move a laying-away broody
This is so much easier to accomplish if at least one of the eggs is cheeping or has hatched. It is, of course, much, much easier if your hen is reasonably tame and trusting that you are not going to take her eggs away for good. If you find an nest and believe your hen is in danger and the eggs have not hatched, then the best solution is to move her at nightfall. If you prefer not to wait and do this in daylight, you should move her as quickly as possible to a darkened room/space .Transport the eggs in the box you are going to use for a nest., with the nest ready made and using if possible, some of the old nesting material. The box should have a closeable lid (cardboard boxes are excellent). She should see you transfer the eggs into the box and you should show her the nest but not place her directly in the box but carry her and them to safety together. Once in the dark, reintroduce her to the eggs. She may or may not sit immediately this may depend on several factors, these are in my experience:
Period of sitting: how forward are the eggs are to hatching, i.e. she is less likely to desert if she can either hear the chicks cheeping in the eggs, or has an innate knowledge of the imminent hatch.
Personality: - certain birds, even when tame with very strong recalcitrant personalities can give you a very hard time at this juncture and it really is a war of wills.
Broodiness of hen: - a very broody hen, is much more serious about sitting and/or hatching eggs and therefore much less likely to sit when you move her.
Relationship with you: this includes the knowledge your hen has of you and her trust in your reasoning in moving her. Hens are quite logical and if she trusts you, she will readily take your word for it that she is better off in a nice warm nest in the back bedroom with some great food (hint, hint) than under a nettle bed in the rain and in daily danger of being jumped on by a cockerel and nightly of being eaten by a stone marten.
With regards to No 2 above, I have even had to gently hold a bird down on her eggs to get her to sit. To avoid this happening, as it can be stressful to both parties, have another broody at hand to pop the eggs under whilst you get her to sit on a dummy nest. This way you will avoid the eggs cooling off. I always have several broodies at once and I think in most flocks broodiness is observed as something that is ‘catching’. It may seem hard on the temporary mother especially if the chicks are cheeping but I have several serial broodies who are not the slightest bit interested in chicks but love the opportunity for, peace, quiet and snacks in bed that broodiness offers!
Here’s a film I made on moving Chickles and Spot:
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Until next time, all the very best from sunny Normandie!
