I might have been wrong in my comment about moulting hens. It might be that the new feathers come through quill first which is what we are seeing and the whole feather has fallen out first. I have spent quite a lot of time looking at Google for the answer but have found nothing that explains the feather growing cycle of hens. I will keep looking though as I am interested to know more. But what is definite is the way that the feathers grow up through the quills.
Tan Tan is still in the house with his/her bad knee, and Bandy Legs is in the stable still waddling around. We put the little chicks out Monday, we popped them in their box into the chicken shed. On Tuesday they spent the day falling out of the chicken shed and hopping back in again. Given that their first three weeks of life they are squashed in an egg, and then with these, their last few weeks have been living in a box, it is not suprising that they find the big wide world quite bemusing. Anyway, they decided to climb under the shed to go to bed, and this resulted in Ian lying on his back trying to gather the chicks in. Of course it was raining. Luckily Ian saw the funny side and did not hold it against the chicks (although he did look at me in an unpleasent way when he found he was laid in a pile of sheep deposit).
One of the little chicks seemed a bit poorly tonight so he has come into the house and warmed up. he is by far the smallest of the group so we’ll keep him/her in here for a while. It has got quite cold.
We’ve put Bertie and Gertie, Gladys and Mavis back outside. partly because B & G are such THUGS, and were bullying the others even though they must be half their size, and also because their feet aren’t so bad. Saying that, Bertie did try to climb over the fence and got his foot stuck (the same as Haidrian did when he first came here) and is limping, but nothing broken.
I had to dip the Angoras feet. This was quite a struggle. I started with a bucket but ended with a yogurt pot and just popped their feet into one of these. This was so much easier and so much less messy for me who had several bucket of foot stuff tipped over me during the process. I just grabbed their horns, grabbed a leg, stuck it in a yogurt pot full of dip and hung on grimly for two minutes.
It did take several hours, but I got them all done. Unfortunately it needs repeating in a weeks time…..