bokbokosaurus

Replaced all the straw in the run with turf, in the hope of creating an environment that was a) more natural for them and b) easier to clean. They've eaten all the grass. Ah well. Nobody's crop or poo seems to have suffered from the sudden influx of green stuff. It is easier to clean, though, and I can throw some of their food onto the ground so they can scratch for it. The end of one of the runs is just compost, for dust-bathing. Actually, I need to refill that and top it up with diatomaceous earth. They still have straw in the nest boxes, so they have decent nesting material for laying their eggs in (and sleeping in, for that matter). I'm going back and forth on the wood shavings in the main coop. Definitely easier to poo-pick than the straw was, but also more prone to getting into the water bowl and jamming up the sliding door.

Bethan has pointed out that, since the first time I came into their lives and changed stuff everything got about a million times better, I may have given them a set of seriously unreasonable expectations. Now every time I clean out the coop they probably think the dawn of utopia is nigh. Possibly. If the dawn of utopia involves fresh wood shavings and lavender-scented disinfectant. That's a very specific, very unambitious utopia right there.

The other day they learnt about cabbages on strings. I hung one from the ceiling of the run so they'd have something to investigate and peck at. First they stared at it in horror - okay, so they'd never have seen one in their lives before. It was gonna take a while before they realised it was an edible toy. Then they seemed to decide that, since it wasn't actively coming to get them, they'd ignore it and maybe it would go away. Eventually Arky had a tentative nibble. But when I came by to put them to bed later, they'd torn off half the leaves and eaten about half the ones they'd torn off. And by the end of the next day, there were just the stalks left. So I think we can call that a success.

Limpy-legs Arky is getting more confident by the day. She's overtaken Trex in the pecking order - obviously the one I name after the badass carnivorous dinosaur ends up bottom hen, because that's how my life rolls - and is often the last to go to bed at night. Not because the others are keeping her out; just because pottering around pecking stuff is serious business and she hasn't finished yet, thank you very much. And today when I was cleaning out the nest boxes, she became the first to realise "hey, we can escape this way!" and jumped up onto the rim while I had the lid propped open. I didn't think her wobbly little legs were up to that, but apparently they were. Time to start working on that bigger run, if she's getting restless.

I've also identified another egg-layer - the smaller, shiny brown ones are Dippy's.

Oh, and I bought a styptic pencil for dealing with injuries. They're the lip-balm-looking things you use to stop shaving cuts bleeding. I figured better to have one when I don't (yet) need it than the other way around. That reminds me, I need to order some gentian violet spray.

So:

- Dippy's breath is fine, and I'll give them extra grit and check her crop's empty this morning. I also checked Trex's, in case that was why her crop wasn't filling up, and hers was okay too. I think. I had quite a fight to get her to open her beak; it was one of those jobs where you need at least three arms.

- Trex ate more, though not enough for a totally full crop. No more soft eggs yesterday.

- Put Vaseline on Steg's leg.

- Arky doesn't seem to have thrown up again.

They all seem reasonably okay in themselves. I mean, touch wood. But they're all quite active, and eating and drinking, and no-one's standing around with her eyes shut or her feathers fluffed up. Good signs.

I think Steg has climbed the pecking order to #2, and Trex has dropped to #3.

I went on a small chicken-products shopping spree yesterday. Got corn for winter, wood shavings for the coop floor (still experimenting with different types of bedding), ceramic food bowls, more mixed grit, and a pestle and mortar (local shops only sell pellets, not mash, but the difference is just shape). I couldn't find any calcium supplements locally, so I bought one of those Condition Pek blocks and ground it up and fed them that.

Arky discovered the dust bath. Since day one they've had a cat-litter-tray full of compost and diatomaceous earth, but mostly they've ignored and/or tried to eat it. Yesterday Arky spent a good fifteen minutes rolling around in there, flinging dust up between her feathers. Steg the mad digger came over and started kicking straw around obnoxiously close, and Dippy the top hen came and stood menacingly and pecked her a few times, but Arky wasn't getting out till she was done. She was in chicken spa heaven.