Category: chickens

Molt ID

On By CarynIn chickens

My Faverolle hens have started their fall molt. I can tell because Jade always looks like something took a chunk of her neck and gave her a good shake. Molting isn’t pretty.

Photo description: Faverolle hen in molt, with a large section of neck feathers mossing

On the plus side, this has allowed me to identify her as Jade. All three remaining Faverolles have removed their colored leg bands in the past couple years, and I know Seashell by sight, but Jade and Schmoo are harder to tell apart, except at molting. Jade is the only one that sheds all her neck feathers at once. Schmoo kept her leg band on the longest. None of the three lay eggs anymore. They are over six years old.

Autowash

On By CarynIn chickens, Coop

In the summer I put out a chicken foot bath to help my hens cool off in the Texas heat. Yes, they tend to drink from the same water they stand in, but I haven’t yet lost a chicken to heat stroke. To keep the water relatively clean, I set up a hose on a timer to rinse the foot bath twice a day. I’ve hammered the hose end down to a slit to give the water spray some power, and it only takes a minute for the bath to do a water exchange. By putting the hose on the high side of the bath at an angle, the water swirls around the shallow dish, and floating materials, like pine shavings and feathers, spill out on the opposite side.

Photo description: chicken foot bath made from a large plant tray and a hose set up to autowash

Melon party

On By CarynIn chickens

We made a melon ball fruit salad, which leaves a good amount of melon still stuck to the rinds. We took the emptied melon halves out to the chickens.

Photo description: three Faverolle hens and one Black Star hen investigating three different melon species in rinds: honey dew, cantaloupe, and watermelon

The hens were immediately interested, and when I went back the next day, the rinds were completely cleaned out.

Photo description: three empty melon rinds on the ground

Two eggs!

On By CarynIn chickens, eggs
Photo description: hand holding two eggs, one darker brown, one almost pink

So I have at least one Faverolle hen laying eggs. I’m shocked because they stopped laying last June, 8 months ago. They are nearly 6 years old, and their window of “egg rest” gets longer every year. The almost pink colored egg on the right is a Faverolle egg. Well, it is a hatchery quality Faverolle egg. Better bred Faverolles lay eggs that can more easily be called pink. Wing Ding the Black Star hen is a good layer and the other darker egg is hers. Another clue that the eggs were laid by two different hens is the weight. Wing Ding seldom lays an egg under 60 grams, my Faverolles almost never lay an egg over 60 grams.

Egg!

On By CarynIn chickens, Coop, eggs

Wing ding the Black Star hen has started laying again.

Photo description: metal nest box lined with straw with a golf ball and egg

This is a really good demonstration of the difference between a good layer and fair layers. My Faverolles stopped laying in September and I’m not entirely sure they will ever lay again. They are coming up on their sixth year and their winter egg break keeps getting longer and longer. Even when they are laying, it isn’t every day, but closer to every other day. Wing Ding lays nearly every day. So if you are going for egg production, get a good layer. If you want sweet docile chickens and aren’t as concerned about egg production, then get Faverolles. Know that Faverolles will also be at the bottom of the pecking order if you have a mixed flock. Our flock has everything worked out so that no one’s feathers are being picked to extreme, but they have plenty of space and food and places to hide.

I’m mostly excited the Wing Ding is now laying eggs in the nest boxes in the big coop. The temporary outside coop we set up when the flock was separated gets terribly hot in the summer.