Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

What are those pretty blue flowers?

I'm not sure. I'll see if I can find out. I think they may be a Spring flowering bluebell, or maybe a Spanish bluebell.

 

[Shadrach]

glad to read this; a nice surprise is always a boost. Presumably you can leave the tools at your eldest's so you don't have to lug them back and fore, or is there a functioning and lockable shed at the field you can use?

She's recognized she needs to put on her big girl pants by the sound of it

rott-ing/-en wood is essential for loads of insects in one or another stage of their life cycles, so if it's been there a while, it may contain lots of present and future goodies for the girls.

sounds like a plan. I recently discovered that red currant leaves contain lactobacilli - would not have expected that! I wonder what else is in fruit bush foliage...

I haven't forgotten you asked this @fluffycrow ; the answer will be too long and complicated unless I spend some time thinking about it (as Churchill sort of said)

glad to read this; a nice surprise is always a boost. Presumably you can leave the tools at your eldest's so you don't have to lug them back and fore, or is there a functioning and lockable shed at the field you can use?

I've found somewhere to hide the tools at the field. Put anything in a shed at the field and it will get stolen. The two sheds get broken into a couple of times a year.

 

[no fly zone]

It's been my experience that doves specialize in crappy nests and abandoning them. We used to have a wisteria arbor and every spring without fail, mourning doves would build a nest, lay eggs and within a few days, the whole thing would fall out onto the patio. It's a wonder to me, that there are so many of them around.

The nest is constructed well enough. Bird spent at least a week sitting on it diligently and then just gave up I guess.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

It's been my experience that doves specialize in crappy nests and abandoning them. We used to have a wisteria arbor and every spring without fail, mourning doves would build a nest, lay eggs and within a few days, the whole thing would fall out onto the patio. It's a wonder to me, that there are so many of them around.

When we lived in Northern California (Bay Area), a pair of mourning doves would build a nest every year on a window sill a foot from the front door knob. An egg or two would appear and remain for a few days, and then the whole thing would vanish. And then the next year, there it would be again.

Hawks? A skunk? It was such a shame, because there are so few songbirds around the Bay - the prevailing winds are just too much for anything smaller than a crow, with the exception of hummingbirds.

 

[Shadrach]

Two hours today. Dry and sunny.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Two hours today. Dry and sunny.
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Shad, how do the girls seem to be doing? Fret still fretting, I guess. That Solway sure looks empty.

 

[Shadrach]

Shad, how do the girls seem to be doing? Fret still fretting, I guess. That Solway sure looks empty.

Early days yet. There's been a little more bickering than usual but otherwise nothing unusual.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Hi Perris, I see you're on, bright and early!

Would you be willing to expound upon red mites and what sorts of nooks and crannies they like? Is it mostly wood cracks and junctions? What about (for instance) hardware cloth, or your equivalent in the UK?

Sadly, I do need to put an extension on the Nestera for more open-air options. The girls are (so far) perfectly happy snuggling together on their roost, and the coop is SOOO easy to clean and maintain, but your 51.7°N latitude and my 35.6°N latitude get very different amounts of insolation (heat energy from sunlight, for those who have not had to suffer through that class), and those lovely thick black Nestera walls heat up badly.

I'm adding shade etc., but also in the interest of future expansion, I'd like to add an open air something-something to expand the run space. I don't want to have wood touching the coop for mites concerns, but what about a collar of wire HWC? Would that provide hidey-holes for mites?

Edit to add: although our weather is normally quite mild, we are at about the same latitude as Gibraltar.

 

[Perris]

Hi Perris, I see you're on, bright and early!

Would you be willing to expound upon red mites and what sorts of nooks and crannies they like? Is it mostly wood cracks and junctions? What about (for instance) hardware cloth, or your equivalent in the UK?

Sadly, I do need to put an extension on the Nestera for more open-air options. The girls are (so far) perfectly happy snuggling together on their roost, and the coop is SOOO easy to clean and maintain, but your 51.7°N latitude and my 35.6°N latitude get very different amounts of insolation (heat energy from sunlight, for those who have not had to suffer through that class), and those lovely thick black Nestera walls heat up badly.

I'm adding shade etc., but also in the interest of future expansion, I'd like to add an open air something-something to expand the run space. I don't want to have wood touching the coop for mites concerns, but what about a collar of wire HWC? Would that provide hidey-holes for mites?

Mites will find their way into a Nestera, like any other coop of course, and typically I find them hiding where sheets meet: between the covers of the circular vents and the side panel they rotate upon (I leave the covers off now, and find no mites there anymore); on the few-millimetre strip on the side wall that is covered by the ends of the 3 sides and bottom of the nest box, where it touches the main body of the coop; in the square holes where the roosts sit; on the back door where it covers the back wall; on a narrow band round the nest box roof where it sits on the side walls of the nest box; and occasionally on the underside of the poop trays. The last four are easily exposed, but where the nestbox meets the main body requires a little disassembly to get at, so whatever you do, when you add on, keep in mind that you will be wanting to take it apart periodically for a thorough wash, and make your fixings accordingly. You will find small round holes already drilled through the plastic walls for attaching a run, so I assume they are well placed for easy disassembly, but I haven't had occasion to try them out. Ditto hardware cloth, so can't advise on that either.

If you have a jet washer, that works well to dislodge mites and eggs even without partial or total disassembly, though my coops are normally located too far from taps and power for that, so I remove the nest boxes to expose their edges and hand wash with hot soapy water and a plastic scourer. Usually that's enough to remove them. And the whole job takes about half and hour once you've learned by heart how to disassemble and reassemble the nest box And no nasty chemicals or dusts needed

 

[Perris]

The two sheds get broken into a couple of times a year.

Would it be worth putting up a trail cam to identify the culprits? And perhaps printing out and posting up publicly those images caught?