Myxomatosis in young wild rabbits

We saw a litter of 5 very cute wild rabbits being decimated by myxomatosis. Within one month of them being old enough to leave the nest, their eyes started to swell and the rabbits eventually lost their sight. All we could do was watch... We found a couple of dead bodies in the garden the other three just disappeared. None of the five reached adulthood. The video clip below shows how the illness progressed. Don't look if you think you might not like it.

"Dinosaur" attack - Optical illusion

This pheasant looks like it is running after a small bird (a Dunnock). In fact, this is just an optical illusion. They are both minding their own business looking for seeds.

Wild rabbit family life

The events below were filmed last April. Mum, Dad and the five baby rabbits are in the garden. 

You see mum running back and forth from the warren. She is expecting a new brood and has to collect long grass to make a fresh new nest. You see the small rabbits playing and being ignored by their mum. Dad is in charge and reprimands the small rabbits when venturing too far from the den. If you like cute rabbits, you will like this video.

Dad

Five small rabbits

Mum

Buzzard attack

Last Sunday morning, we were having breakfast in the kitchen when I heard the most unusual scream-like noise. I quickly got up, walked to the dining room and saw a buzzard right by the patio door, standing underneath a white garden chair. As it kept moving its wings, I thought it was injured and could not fly. Thinking it was a great picture opportunity, I called out for Hubby to come and bring the camera. For the 30 seconds or so I was waiting, I also noticed a group of highly agitated crows flying close by in a circle. Then I realised that the screaming noise was coming from underneath the buzzard and thought the buzzard might have caught a crow. The victim certainly sounded like a distressed crow! However, the body I could just about see under the buzzard was not black like a crow but brown. So, it could not have been a crow. As I was given the camera and opened the sliding door, the buzzard flew away leaving its noisy prey behind. That’s when I realised that it was a Holly!!! Yes Holly, one of our hens. She had a very lucky escape. By the time I gave the camera back to Hubby, our chicken had run to hide under the nearest bush. She stayed there for a good half an hour eventually accepting to eat just a few seeds off my hand. Then, I managed to lure her out of her hide using tinned corn and bits of banana. I was then able to have a better look at her. Nothing major, a few missing feathers but no missing bits or obvious wound gushing blood!

For the next couple of days, she was too sore to take her daily mud bath or preen herself. Her wings looked uneven and sore. But after nearly a week, I can now say that she has made a near-full recovery. Her body still looks a bit lopsided and she is still missing a few feathers but it will take a few weeks for them to grow back.

The chair under which I found Holly and the buzzard

Wing slightly facing outwards (compare with the hen above whose
wing is nicely tucked against her body)

 A few feathers missing below the wing and around the back

In this post, you will find my nicest pictures showing my three hens mud bathing.

Chickens don't love you, they just love the food you bring

I love my chickens. They are cute, good tempered and have each their own personality.
But this is just "one way street": my chickens don't love me, they just love the food I bring.

Below is a video clip to illustrate what I mean:



They know that they will get seeds out of him!

Thrush with a headache

We found a thrush on the patio looking worse for wear. It was standing still with one eye closed and one wing slightly open. We realised that it had hit the dining room window (the little feathers stuck on the glass was a clue!) and was completely dazed.
After a few minutes, it felt a little better and hopped toward a bush with its sore eye not so closed anymore.
I hope it fully recovered!

Menstruating Chicken

One morning (1 Sept), I became very concerned about the health of Willow, our youngest hen (who was about 5 months old at the time ~ 20 weeks). 

Usually, when I open the coop door in the morning, Willow is always the first one to run to the bottom of the bird feeder to get the seeds dropped by small birds. But that day, she stayed inside the run, standing on one leg or sitting down and dozing off.

She did walk around the garden a little throughout the day but did not seem interested in scratching the ground for food like the others. She would just sit on her own and keep her eyes closed.

I went on the Internet trying to find a reason for her strange behaviour.

-       Her face keeps changing colour, from white to red, so she might have a weak heart! Or,

-       Her crop (the "bag" under the neck where food is stored) might be infected, Or,

-       A louse attack has made her unwell, etc...

Anyway, at sunset, they all went to bed as usual. The next day, I opened the door of the coop wondering if Willow‘s health had worsened overnight. But, she behaved like nothing had happened and ran past me to get to the bird feeder. Only, there was something very strange about the way she looked: she had these two huge whitish bulges underneath her beak!

Her wattles had literally ballooned overnight and her neck was swollen. She looked really, really strange!

It took a few days for the swelling to go down. And, when it did, her wattles had become “stretched” and floppy.

So, my theory is that she went through the human equivalent of menstruation. My hen had "menstruated" and obviously was suffering from PMS!

Four weeks later, Willow laid her first egg. So, she is officially a real lady!

She now has large, red comb and wattles and I expect they will still grow some more.

Below is her transformation in pictures.

1st day with us - ~ 4 months old (~16 weeks)

3 weeks later - she still looks like a dinosaur

~ 5 months old (~20 weeks) - swollen neck. Wattles are enlarged and white/purple

A few days later, the swelling is almost gone. Wattles still a bit purple at the top.

~ 5.5 months (22 weeks), wattles fully red

~6 months old (~24 weeks), comb and wattles have grown and 1st egg laid

Baby Great Tit being fed by parent

I was walking in front of our oak tree when I heard a lot of tweeting. I looked up and realised that the tree was being used as a "nursery" for birds. There were a few juveniles Great Tits hopping from branch to branch waiting for their parents to feed them and I managed to film one of them. In the small video below, you will see some lovely intimate scenes. I think I was lucky to get these scenes as these little baby birds never stay still!!!

Two chicks caught smoking weed behind the wall!

No, not really!
This is only Willow and Hazel eating grass! My picture makes them look like they are holding that piece of grass just like you would a cigarette, don't you think?

Here is a close-up of Willow with grass on her beak:

 

And what are these two doing? Hiding from me? Neigh! They are just preening.

Chickens sunbathing

"What is that lying down on the grass?", you might say...

 Is that a dead chicken?


No, not at all! And, if we have a closer look, we can see Hazel sunbathing. Slightly tilted to one side with one wing extended to catch as much of the sunrays as possible.

 The funny thing is when the hens see one of them sunbathing, they join in straight away. And, here is Willow taking a similar position, both looking in the same direction. Awe! sweet, aren't they?!

A mud bath for chickens

When having a mud bath, chickens use their wings to flip the mud onto their bodies, feathers all fluffed up to expose as much skin as possible.
Hazel having a mud bath:

 They also roll from head to tail. Below is what I managed to capture. The chicken is not actually sleeping with its head on the ground, this picture is an action shot.

 

Some pictures of Willow now:

Please Hazel, my turn to have a bath!

 


Hummmm! Loving it!

Great! That was fun!

 

Righ! Time to go! Let's shake the mud off now!

 And finally, Holly is doing it too:

Shake, shake, shake!

 

 

What treats to give chickens?

What treats to give chickens? I expect it all comes down to taste (yes, chickens all have their own personalities and preferences just like us really) but you might be interested to know what treats mine actually like. First, apart from the commercial feed made available in their coop thoughout the day, my chicken are free range so they eat all sorts of creatures and bugs that I have no control over.
They also have three other sources of food that I do have control over:
1- The bird feeder. The small wild birds that come to our bird feeder flick through the seeds in the dispenser to eat only their favourite ones. The unwanted seeds that fall on the floor attract a lot of attention from ground-feeding birds such as black birds, dunnocks and pheasants but also from wild rabbits and probably small rodents too. My hens love them too but they get even more excited when we give them a handful of seeds straight from the bag as they get to eat ALL the seeds not just the unwanted ones!
2- Treats from the kitchen. I try to feed them lots of different types of fruit and vegetable and I quickly learn which ones are their favourites. So far, here is what I know:
They go mad over: bananas, melon, tomato seeds, kiwis
They eat - apples
They don't like- most vegetables such as carrot peels, green beans and peas, onions, leeks, peppers, etc. I know! Fussy chickens!!
3- Treats from the garden. The best way for me to bond with my hens is to do gardening. At least, I feel like I am being efficient while spending time with them! I have a lot of nettles to pull so I will be kept busy for a long time.
They go mad over: earthworms (although Willow does not like them anymore), winged ants, small orange caterpillars, millipedes, small frogs (only Holly eats them though! She pecks the top of their heads a few times to kill them and then, swallows them whole, even when 3cm long!), small moths, these orange/brown "cocoon things", black beetles, flies and maggots (*), snails (you have to crush them first so they can get at them).
They eat - small slugs
 They don't like- ordinary ants, medium and large slugs, bees, wasps.

Yesterday, I found that chickens cannot eat salamanders (it  might be a newt, not sure but this is what it looks like:

Holly became really excited when she saw that creature hidden under the earth and started to peck at it to eat it. After a few seconds, she looked like she was in a lot of discomfort. She kept opening her beak and shaking her head. She then became very subdued and quiet and sat down for a long time, like she was sulking. The creature must have secreted something that gave her a really bad taste in her mouth. But, she was alright at the end because I found a tiny frog on the ground and gave it to her and she gobbled it up.

(*) - flies and maggots did not strictly come from my garden. The flies were caught indoors, slapped against a window with a magazine. As for the maggots, I found my chickens once standing next to our wheely bin only to realise that there were maggots inside. The hens were merely waiting for the maggots to wriggle their way out through the lid and onto the floor.

Chickens love corn

My free-range chickens have a soft spot for corn. Look at these eyes, full of envy. Corn is just the best treat!

Yum!

 

Free range chickens

The first day

I got a chicken coop for Christmas last year. We assembled it in May and finally got our chickens on 1 August. We bought two Gold Star pullets (a pullet is a young female up to her first year of laying eggs, at which point she becomes a hen) and called them Hazel and Willow (we decided to use tree names which are found in or near our property). Willow, the youngest, has a small comb (that little red fleshy bit on top of the head) and is very tame. Hazel is a little more timid, probably because she is that little bit older.

Timid Hazel and Greedy Willow

 

They love worms (hand picked while weeding! yurk!), corn, bird seeds and bananas. We won't give them leftover meat nor any starchy food such as bread and biscuits.



The sixth day, Hazel disappeared. After searching long and hard, we came to the conclusion that she had been taken by a fox… Sniff!... So, we locked “poor” Willow on her own in the coop for the night and decided to get her a replacement companion. But the following day, Hazel had returned! She was waiting on the grass outside our bedroom window. She had obviously decided to roost up a bush or tree instead of sleeping in her coop.  But we still bought another hen though thinking that the winter nights would be warmer if they were three in the coop.  So, please meet Holly, our third and slightly older hen, a Black Rock who is already producing eggs for us.

Holly

Pictures of wild pheasants

Our wild pheasants Donald and Mickey are no longer regulars in our garden as they were chased away by another male. Here are a few more pictures of them though.