KarenE wrote: Have you decided what you want to do yet LL? Are the White Ladies going to form the new Spice Girls? Perhaps that will bring the Quail plan back in...
sandy wrote: LL if you do have quails I have lots of egg boxes ordered them by mistake
I think the Quail plan is on the back burner for now - until I see an interest in the eggs, it's not going to be worth it, but thank you for the offer
I'm still debating about the flock merge - I think I'll wait until the days start getting a lot shorter so that they spend more time in the coop than in the run .... might speed up the integration quicker.
Meanwhile, Baby has gone broody. I thought I was about to lose another Spice Girl as she anchored herself down in one of the nest boxes. Unlike the others that hid in the coop when unwell, she didn't look ill and if anything, has been a bit feisty. Never having had a hen go broody on me before, I wasn't really sure. When she did come out of the coop in a morning, she ran into the run to eat the morning greens and scratch for seeds as well as drink loads before retiring to the nest box again. I did notice she seemed to cluck and do a lot of the headless chicken act (something she would do, tucking her head right down and scuffle backwards to avoid being pecked by Scary, the bully Bluebelle) even though there was no danger of it. When I came to clean out the bedding when she was in the coop, all her feathers were standing up, she was making a sort of "chuck chuck" noise (but then she always was a chatterbox and made lots of noises so nothing particularly unusual about that) and then gave me an almighty peck .... did not look like a typical poorly hen to me. However, she has not been coming out of the coop to eat or drink for a couple of days so I was getting a bit worried especially with the recent heatwave (she must have been broiled in the nest box) so to be on the safe side, I put a little pot of water next to her and a piece of melon which she pecked at.
Yesterday I had to go to Ravenshead where there is a supplier for oyster shell (I buy it in bulk and works out cheaper, plus mealworms - where I normally get them have not been available for several weeks now) - as the owner also keeps and sells chickens, I asked about Baby and the response was most definitely broody and to turf her out of the nest box and not let her back in until later. Easier said than done - Scary has been laying daily so a bit of a compromise this morning when I shut them out for a couple of hours but no sooner had I opened the coop door, they were both in like a shot, sigh. I'll go down later after Scary has laid her egg and try again.
In one of the DTL topics on broody hens
kitla wrote: or cooling her undercarriage with water/coolpacks
I think I might give the coolpack a try