Chi-Chi in the Leopard lilies

We’ve been having extremely hot weather and even my chooks have been gasping in the heat. My chickens have no problem with winter, but every summer you can find them listless in the shade, trying to cool off. Unfortunately chickens don’t bathe in water (they have sand baths) otherwise that would be a quick solution to cooling off! But they do find shady spots for a bath in the cool sand, leaving my garden looking like a volcanic eruption has taken place!

Here Chi-Chi, who unfortunately passed away a couple of months ago, takes a break amongst the Leopard lilies and ferns.

A bath and a clean nest

After Kiep's broodiness finished a couple of days ago, I decided she needed a bath after sitting on her golf ball for almost a month. (I remove eggs every day, I do not want any more chickens!) She looked decidedly drab and worse for the wear and needed a bit of special TLC.

I prepared some luke warm water in a tub and put her in. At first she struggled a bit (it was her first bath ever), but the minute she felt the warmth of the water, she actually lay down! I gently shampooed her back, chest and vent area, careful not to ruffle her feathers too much.

I remembered using vinegar as a youngster to rinse my hair after a wash when we'd run out of conditioner and it always left my hair soft and shiny. So, after a first rinse, I transferred Kiep to another tub with a bit of vinegar in the water, gave her a good rinsing, dried her gently with a towel and then used the hair dryer to get her nice and dry. I was a bit worried about the noise of the hair dryer, but she seemed to enjoy it, fluffing up her feathers to let in the hot air.

Kiep sunning herself in the bathroom court-yard

After she was all nice and dry, and oh so extremely soft and fluffy! we went out into the bathroom court-yard, where she spent a while preening and getting her feathers in the correct order again and when she was ready, I led her out to the main garden where she immediately rushed up to Artemis, greeting him with some wing-flapping and a lot of prancing around.

Kiep meeting up with Artemis after her bath

Spending some time with Artemis in the garden after a nice warm bath

Now it was time to also clean out her nest-box, which is on top of one of my art tables in my studio. I cleaned out the box thoroughly, put in fresh grass and then placed it back, all nice and clean.

Later in the morning she strutted into my studio to deliver her breakfast, but it turned into a big to-do. She took one look at the nest and, horrified, she proceeded to unpack all the grass and then putting it back to her liking before settling down to the serious job of laying the egg!

Her eggs are different after this last broody incident, much bigger and not so white, more brown.

My little girl is growing up now…

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Learning from the Chooks

I've learnt so much over the past few years from Solly's chickens. His chooks free range all over our plot and my garden and I've seen them lay eggs, hatch their babies and then watched as they grow up into teenagers and then fully integrate into the community. Of course I have my favourites, especially the abandoned or injured ones I rescue, nurse back to health and most of the time introduce them back into the flock.

Too many roosters!

Can't actually speak about a flock - they always seem to form several flocks. Many, too many, of the newly hatched chicks turn out to be roosters. And you know what happens when there are too many roosters! As teenagers they start squaring up to test their strength and then, as they come into adulthood, the serious fighting  for the available hens starts.

The hens watch, apparently unconcerned, from the side-lines, but one can't be fooled by their disinterest. Each fight is keenly watched and they have a keen eye for spotting the winner(s), who quickly claim their prize, with the chosen hens seamlessly falling into line with their chosen mates. Each rooster then has his own flock and they tend to group together and keep away from one another's territory. My heart always breaks for the losers, who end up all lonely, hanging around the perimeter, hoping for a hen to perhaps spot them. But beware them if they try to approach a specific flock's hen, she puts up one hell of a noise, alerting her rooster, who immediately puts an end to such daring cheekiness!

Soon after, the egg-laying starts, laying an egg a day until she feels she has enough to start a family and then serious business of sitting for plus/minus 21 days starts.

Mommy with her four newly-hatched babies

While the hen has her newly hatched chicks, she stays away from the flock, leading her chicks around, showing them them the territory and where all the very best tit-bits are to be found. During that time she even ignores her chosen rooster, solely concentrating on her babies and lovingly taking care of them.

But here comes the heart-break bit. When the little chicks are only a couple of weeks old, she starts showing an interest in the rooster again, with him leading her around, pointing out some lovely possible nesting places. She then totally abandons her babies (and they are FAR too young!), spending time with the rooster and even grabbing the little tit-bits I give them for herself, even pecking them and telling them to get out of the way. Then for days I have to listen to their pitiful little cheeps as they constantly call for her in their confusion, not understanding what is going on. Fortunately this unhappiness only lasts for two weeks or so and they soon learn to fend for themselves.

The four confused little chicks all on their own in the garden

 They would hang around the garden gate and as soon as I make an appearance, would follow me all over

Then, as soon as the hen is "free" from her chicks, it's a big happening in the community. Everybody will intently watch her choice of a new nest and when the first egg is laid, everybody, including the roosters, who stand watch over the event, will noisily cackle, crow and rejoice in the event, sending the little chicks scattering in fear from all the noise. And believe me, it's a racket!

One of the hens loudly voicing her discontent that her favourite nest is occupied by someone else

The intruder sits motionless, hoping nobody will spot her!

Choice of nest for any hen is another matter of contention. They all have a favourite nest and heaven forbid if anyone else dares to occupy it! Even though there are plenty of nests around, they will stand in line for that one nest, all the while trying to intimidate the occupier with insistent, loud cackling.

Another rooster standing watch as his hen searches for a perfect nesting spot

Solly's chickens are not to be confused with MY chickens living in my garden. They all originally came from Solly's stock, but never mix with their "wild" cousins, as part of my garden is walled and keeps Solly's crowd at bay. Just a bit on Solly - he is our general mechanic and handyman, living a couple of hundred meters away from the main house, where he has got his own little vegetable patch, flower garden and chicken coop, but for some reason, most of his chickens prefer to live in my back garden, nesting wherever they feel comfortable and following me around whenever I go into the back-yard. They seem to know that I know each of them and that each of them have got their own name. Or maybe it's just that they know that they are destined for the pot at Solly's place...

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Kentucky, my pet Rooster

Hope is a thing with feathers. 

That perches in the soul. 

And sings the tunes without the words. 

And never stops at all. 

- Verse from Emily Dickinson poem 

Watercolour on Bockingford

Besides my love for all animals, and for birds in particular, my love affair with chickens started in the late 70’s, when we bought our first smallholding (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa) and, of course, the first thing anybody on a smallholding does, is get chickens, ducks and geese!

After a couple of months of settling in on our new smallholding, I was given some Bantam chickens by a neighbour, and there was a mad scramble to erect some chicken coups. They were prolific little breeders and soon the yard was full of mothers with little chicks , all running like mad for a tit-bit when they see me.

One newly-hatched little fellow, however, seemed not to be able to keep up with the rest, so I duly ‘rescued’ him, carrying him around in a basket and feeding him at every opportunity. The result was Kentucky, the most beautiful specimen of a rooster I had ever seen, with bright, coppery feathers adorning his neck and the most beautiful blue, black and burgundy tail feathers a rooster could wish for! Although he ruled his chosen hens with an iron claw, he always was a bit of a loner, spending hours following me around, hens in tow, or roosting on the back of the couch in the lounge (with lots of newspapers on the floor!)

He spent many years with me, preferring to roost in the tree outside my bedroom window, in stead of the chicken coup with the rest, and my heart was broken when I went out one morning and found part of him under the tree, half eaten, killed by a Genet during the night. But he lives in my heart forever and I’m sure he’s still watching over me from chicken heaven.

My apologies that I haven't got any photographs, but this was in the days before I had a computer, wasn't much into photography and, of course, wasn't blogging yet!

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It's Friday!

I crept out of bed early with the sound of the roosters crowing to one another - 4am - put on the kettle, made my coffee and came to the computer. By the time hubby surfaced around 6.30am, I had already updated a couple of blogs, up-loaded some artwork to RedBubble, let the chooks out, fed Solly's chickens and filled all the bird feeders in the garden. Time for another cup of coffee.

It's the end of the week and the weekend is lying ahead as an extra bonus, the hours are mine to do with as I please. No need to rush and open the doors for business, no staff coming in, just two lovely days of spending time with my chooks or whatever else takes my fancy.

But today ended up being busier than usual, with a constant stream of customers and eventually, when I did manage to join Chrissie in the garden, she informed me that Missy had been sitting in one place all morning. Very worried, I approached her to see what was the matter and was greeted by her screeching like a banshee! She fluffed herself in a threatening manner and I immediately knew what the 'problem' was - when I picked her up, I saw what all the melee was about - she was sitting on a couple of eggs. She had obviously been gathering them for some time and now she was broody and ready to stay with them till the little darlings hatched...

I remove all the eggs that my chooks lay - I've got nine roaming the garden, causing havoc, and I really can't afford to have any more. Missy obviously got sick and tired of me removing her eggs out of the nest boxes in the chicken coop and decided to do the sneaky thing and find a safe spot in the garden!

Missy looking on in disgust as I remove her eggs

And I have no idea how 6 eggs escaped our attention what with Chrissie regularly cleaning up and me watering the garden every couple of days. But the girls can be very innovative when it comes to hiding their eggs!

We spent another couple of minutes searching to see if there were any more stray eggs we might have missed and that sparked a major clean-up of areas trampled flat by the girls - it is just beyond and above me as to why they would like to sit ON TOP of the plants in stead of next to or under them... .

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Snoodles, a chick with attitude!

Camera : Canon EOS 550D 

Taken in my garden (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa)

This is Snoodles, the little chick I saved from the dustbin, took her out of the egg in November 2013 and she’s been living with me in my studio. She’s getting to be a big girl now and has already joined all the other girls in the chicken coop.

As soon as Snoodles was big enough, we’d go on field trips through the garden and my wildlife pond area, where she would investigate every nook and cranny, delighting in catching the odd insect. Here she hopped on a rock, chasing after a Dragonfly.

Good luck with that Snoodles!

 Snoodles standing on my computer speaker, taking a peek at what's going on outside

Snoodles taking some time out on the edge of Jacko's chair, much to his disgust!

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Happy New Year!

Snoodles, the dustbin chick I saved out of the egg.

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