A baptism of fire

Well, it's been a week since my last post and a lot has happened on the chicken front.

Firstly, and most sadly, we had to have Sunflower put to sleep on Tuesday. After noticing that she was standing around a lot last weekend, she also went off her food and had a few other unpleasant symptoms. Naturally I was worried (that's what I do best after all) so we took her to the vet on Easter Sunday (£40 vet bill on a £10 hen!). Luckily, they have a poultry specialist there who gave her antibiotics and said he thought it was peritonitis. He sent us home and asked me to ring him on Tuesday. Poor Sunflower then spent the rest of the Easter weekend in a cardboard box in our front porch with a hotwater bottle and a bed of straw. She ate next to nothing and barely drank and by Tuesday couldn't even stand. I took her back to the nice vet who, thankfully, was happy to put her to sleep. She was in a sorry state. He called me later that day to say that she had an egg stuck in her oviduct and was full of pus (yuck) and would never have survived.

Meanwhile, Blossom had spent several days on her own and in that time had mellowed considerably towards us. We're now able to stroke her and pick her up, no problems. We were really aware that hens don't like to be alone so we set about trying to find somewhere to get replacements for Sunflower. We decided to get two new ones instead of one to hopefully avoid being in the single chicken situation again. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we brought Poppy and Rosie home on Wednesday. They're Warrens from the same flock, both about seven months old and already laying.

We currently have a second run set up in our garden (goodness knows what the neighbours are thinking) so that the new hens can settle without Blossom terrorising them as she did Sunflower. Three days in and we already have the three of them free ranging together and they all slept in the Eglu last night (even if Mr Chix did have to get up at 5.30am to let them out, so fearful were we of pecking/fighting).

I never would have thought that chickens could be so very absorbing. It's amazing how much I've learned about them and despite the shaky start, we're still happy chicken keepers!