Northern Flights
Songster
Not smelly, more ornery. A quick history of these 4 Bovans hens, we got them at a hair over 16 weeks and they integrated extremely well to their new home. There was a little aggression as they sorted out the pecking order, rather quickly it turned out, and we were extremely relieved that there were no injuries. Unknown to us, some time likely in August or September (earlier even?) they all picked up tapeworm and their behaviour became a bit lethargic but nothing alarming. We just assumed this was normal for hens as they age. However, since discovering the worm segments in their castings and the subsequent intensive deworming regime they have definitely become a lot more active and unfortunately, much more aggressive to their cohorts.
They did indeed begin to rapidly put on weight after deworming and we have adjusted the diet accordingly. We even hired Richard Simmons but that turned out to be a huge mistake, again I digress... (Open that link with extreme caution. Open while calmly seated in a restraint chair and bind any loose arms and legs with duct tape. Do not attempt to operate machinery while viewing) Their weights are currently at the high end of the Bovans specs, (opens a .pdf, see page 68 "Bodyweight Rearing Graph") ~2kg plus or minus 100 grams or so. Fluid intake is vigorous and they are extremely active as I said, even venturing out onto the frozen tundra from time to time, something they rarely did before unless heavily bribed.
You all know what the egg song is and they used to do it virtually every time they taxied away from the gate after disembarking their passengers, but for months they stopped entirely. We were informed by other chicken-heads that we should count our lucky stars that our hens were calm and got along so well and it became unusual for them to make any sort of fuss, aside from the daily filth-bath wriggling about like a mental-case etc, and they pretty much spent their days grazing and digging more and more enormous pits in places they shouldn't.
For the past week or so they have all begun doing the egg song again, but it has a dance routine included now. Imagine going to the theatre to see Phantom of the Opera and the cast has been reduced to 4 ridiculous birds and you have it. Lots of strutting about all tall and splendid looking, egging(!) each other on to more spectacular heights of bird like silliness. It was all fun and games until yesterday when what I think was an actual fight broke out in a shelter box we put around their free-range food and water station. All of a sudden 4 hens were flapping all over the inside of the box and 3 actually flew right out the door! Pandemonium. And finally some questions:
Just what sort of behavioural stages do healthy free ranging hens with no rooster go through as they age? Am I right to think this aggression is likely due to several expected factors (tapeworm recovery, increased vigour, steadily increasing length of day, age?) and they are in fact returning to "normal"? Is aggression a fair bit more common with healthy birds, as opposed to wormy critters with bandy legs and bad breath? (Ok I confess the bandy legs and bad breath part is a bit of an exaggeration)
Thanks for reading this massive wall of gibberish, and forgive my dangling so many participles quite shamelessly in front of the children. I guess I owe you all a pint of Draught after work today.
PS, slightly used former fitness instructor available for hire. Enquire within.
They did indeed begin to rapidly put on weight after deworming and we have adjusted the diet accordingly. We even hired Richard Simmons but that turned out to be a huge mistake, again I digress... (Open that link with extreme caution. Open while calmly seated in a restraint chair and bind any loose arms and legs with duct tape. Do not attempt to operate machinery while viewing) Their weights are currently at the high end of the Bovans specs, (opens a .pdf, see page 68 "Bodyweight Rearing Graph") ~2kg plus or minus 100 grams or so. Fluid intake is vigorous and they are extremely active as I said, even venturing out onto the frozen tundra from time to time, something they rarely did before unless heavily bribed.
You all know what the egg song is and they used to do it virtually every time they taxied away from the gate after disembarking their passengers, but for months they stopped entirely. We were informed by other chicken-heads that we should count our lucky stars that our hens were calm and got along so well and it became unusual for them to make any sort of fuss, aside from the daily filth-bath wriggling about like a mental-case etc, and they pretty much spent their days grazing and digging more and more enormous pits in places they shouldn't.
For the past week or so they have all begun doing the egg song again, but it has a dance routine included now. Imagine going to the theatre to see Phantom of the Opera and the cast has been reduced to 4 ridiculous birds and you have it. Lots of strutting about all tall and splendid looking, egging(!) each other on to more spectacular heights of bird like silliness. It was all fun and games until yesterday when what I think was an actual fight broke out in a shelter box we put around their free-range food and water station. All of a sudden 4 hens were flapping all over the inside of the box and 3 actually flew right out the door! Pandemonium. And finally some questions:
Just what sort of behavioural stages do healthy free ranging hens with no rooster go through as they age? Am I right to think this aggression is likely due to several expected factors (tapeworm recovery, increased vigour, steadily increasing length of day, age?) and they are in fact returning to "normal"? Is aggression a fair bit more common with healthy birds, as opposed to wormy critters with bandy legs and bad breath? (Ok I confess the bandy legs and bad breath part is a bit of an exaggeration)
Thanks for reading this massive wall of gibberish, and forgive my dangling so many participles quite shamelessly in front of the children. I guess I owe you all a pint of Draught after work today.
PS, slightly used former fitness instructor available for hire. Enquire within.
