It's Day 36 in the Posh and Pecks house. Let's see how they are developing!

When we got the hens, they were approximately 16 weeks old. It's not until 21/22 weeks that they start to come into lay properly. During that period, they are basically growing up, developing their bodies in preparation to lay eggs. A strenuous exercise! Imagine yourself popping one of those out nearly every day!

When we first got them, the combs and wattles were a very pale, almost white with a pinkish tinge.
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Posh and Pecks love their afternoon free ranging in the garden as they generally get a handful of meal worms between them.

Although recently, we have decided to reduce their treats for a week to ensure that they eat all of their layers pellets as we have added some Flubenvet which is a game bird and poultry wormer. We have 2 hens and the recommended dosage per hen (per week) after you break down the huge sizes on the label is:

1Kg of feed and a quarter of a teaspoon of Flubenvet…tiny amount!
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I was off work today and was able to spend a little extra time with them.

Recently I've been reading a bit more on the www.omlet.co.uk forum about various aspects of chicken keeping including boosting their calcium intake by feeding them baked egg shells.

To be fair, when I first read that I thought it was almost cannabilistic and wasn't too impressed but researching further I found two things:

1: Apparent evidence it works
2: Another school of thought saying it doesn't, can't and is a bad thing to do.
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It's late. I should really be in bed but I'm not so hey.

Anyway, with the recent cold snap we are obviously concerned with the health of the girls but fear not!

The Eglu is tested down to -10C so we know the girls will be warm enough. They do have a big quilt on anyway (feathers) so are quite hardy.

We've also been loading their diet recently with Poultry Spice in their treats which is really meant to help them over the moult but in cold weather can also help them cope.
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I must be the luckiest bloke on the planet. Yet again, I was in the run clearing bits of poo (I'm starting to get a bit fixated!) and ran across a couple that worried me.

Apologies for the blurriness. caecal

The chicken poo was bright yellow and foamy so all sorts of things ran through my mind, especially as the hens are new and we are new to hen keeping! Disease, parasites, general unwellness, you know what I mean if you keep chickens too. It must be normal to be paranoid for their health, I hope anyway.
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