Author Archives: vickieclarkebrown

Henrietta has been looking dreadful the last couple of days, her moult is quite severe and it’s making her grumpy. As the leader she’s usually a benign dictator to the rest of the flock, only giving the briefest of reprimands when absolutely necessary. But this moult has taken it out of her, she’s tired andContinue reading “Darkest Before the Dawn”

It’s Miss Henrietta Chicken-Bottom turn to be down in the dumps today. She’s moulting quite badly, which is always a difficult time for a hen. She’s also got a wonky beak, which makes it tricky for her to eat certainly things and she turns her beak up at the protein-rich sardines and sunflowers hearts whichContinue reading “A little bit of what you fancy….”

I don’t know how its been in your corner of the world recently, but here is South Yorkshire we’ve had a fairly miserable few weeks weather wise, very cold and dull. I noticed that the older girls particularly were laying thinner shelled eggs, (and no shells at all a couple of times). I know theyContinue reading “Drink in the Sun”

We’re now 10 weeks into the Berry birds retirement. Their feathers are growing back beautifully and their combs have brightened and straightened.They’ve settled in really well. But we’re still in avian lockdown, so they haven’t been able to leave the run and free range in the woodland. We haven’t really been able to make theContinue reading “Connections”

Well what a difference a week can make. Just a few days ago the vet was suggesting that little Sweetpea might be too ill to save. But we tried anyway. This week she’s gone from laying listlessly in my arms and taking her medicine without complaint to struggling to escape my cuddles and fighting beakContinue reading “You gotta have faith”

So, it’s New Years Eve 2020, and as a final kicker from this year I’m nursing a very sick hen. Sweetpea wasn’t herself yesterday, puffed up and less chatty than usual, so rather than risk it turning worse we went straight to the vet. What I wasn’t expecting was his diagnosis, probably egg yolk peritonitis,Continue reading “Remembering why.”

So with the global pandemic in the human world occurring it may have (understandably) passed people by that there is a similar crisis in the avian world. Avian flu has reached UK shores, resulting in a government ordered severe lockdown of all domestic birds. Since the 14th December all the girls have been restricted toContinue reading “Lockdown”

On a cold wet December morning during lockdown 2 we got up early, excited for what the day would bring and drove all the way across the Pennines to St Helens. Thanks to the wonderful people at British Hen Welfare Trust we were able to adopt three ex caged hens. Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe BerryContinue reading “Gloria’s Legacy – A New Hope (introducing the Berry girls)”

Little Gloria Chickenbottom has been struggling recently, we had crop issues and a potential tumour, then a severe moult. But my feisty, cheeky little girl bounced back from all of it. This weekend she slowed down again, still eating bits, still the occasional peck at one of the newbies if they got too close, butContinue reading “The Hardest Lesson”

As winter approaches the girls slow down on the laying, it’s a combination of shorter daylight hours (in a commercial environment they keep artificial daylight on 14 hours a day throughout the year), and them conserving energy to regrow feathers during moult. So we’ve gone from having 5 eggs per day in summer, to havingContinue reading “What are you worth?”