Allotment update & problem chickens ... ...

We've actually had some sunshine, and for more than a few hours, so I took the opportunity to visit the plot, not much to report, although things are progressing at a nice pace, the spuds are doing okay, but will need lots of water, which means many trips to the tap with buckets and watering cans.


The spuds -

Still got some growing to do.

The strawberry plants seem to be doing okay as well, soon have some fruit on them - 

Best keep the kids away from them, or they'll disappear quickly.

I also managed to get some more peas in the ground and some broad beans (bit later than I intended) and I got a row of turnips in, quite like a nice turnip, there's a fair bit of weeding to do in amongst the stuff that's already been sown, but I shall probably leave that for a slightly less warm day, it was very hot.

The string for the peas and beans - 

The kids love peas straight from the plant, but then who doesn't.

 And apart from the odd bit of weeding that's about all I did, just keeping on top of things really.

You may or may not know that we have 3 chickens at the moment, and for the most part it's been pretty much plain sailing, but we have had some small issues, although not really a problem to be honest it's all adding to our chicken keeping experience.

Problem chicken - 'A' (also known as Zelda)

She's fine now, and doing well despite the problems.

Yes meet Zelda (subject 'A') we noticed a couple of weeks ago that she seemed to be staying away from the other chickens, and she seemed kind of down and not very enthusiastic about anything, not even food, it was then that we noticed her crop was very large, and felt like a balloon full of water, it was also very warm to the touch.

So after some checking online we discovered that she may have something called sour crop, which is essentially a fungal infection caused by the crop not emptying and the food that's in it fermenting, and that's what would have happened had we not discovered that for some odd reason the daft chicken had some how swallowed a large stone which had basically blocked her crop and was stopping it from emptying.

One of the things you can do to help with sour crop is to pick the chicken up and tip it forward which make the bird vomit, not very pleasant, and it has to be done with some care as you can cause the chicken to choke, this is how we discovered the stone, it came out on the second attempt at getting her to vomit (luckily) and after that she was fine, we did give her some natural yoghurt which helps balance the bacteria in the crop out, they really like natural yoghurt by the way, I am pleased to say that Zelda is now back to her old self, which basically means eating anything that moves.

And now subject 'B'(also known as Dotty)

Wot you looking at ! ?

This is more a normal problem, if there is such a thing, it seems Dotty has turned a touch broody (okay a lot broody) this is basically a natural response to laying eggs, she's trying to hatch them, which might not seem like a problem, however the eggs aren't going to hatch, and so she's sitting on any eggs she finds and staying there, and because of this she isn't eating as much as she should, chickens have been known to starve themselves trying to hatch eggs, not good.

The treatment for this is patience (on our part) we've been disrupting her when she's in the nest boxes, we've also been taking the eggs away when they are laid, although Dotty herself has stopped laying, and as soon as the other chicken have laid we now shut off the nest box altogether, we've also been leaving it shut over night as well, it sounds mean but it's for the best, and at least now once she realises she can't get into the nest boxes she goes and eats and scratches about like she should be doing.

Ideally we would separate her from the other so that disruptions to the other hens is kept at a minimum, but we aren't really set up for that, and things aren't too bad, in fact I'd go as far as to say things are slowly improving, one of the other things we tried and had results from is putting Dotty into a bucket of cold water, yes you read that right, because she is running very warm (she's basically a walking incubator) using cold water cools her down, and because she can't get back to the nest boxes she's not able to warm up as quickly, this apparently cures them of the broodiness, so far it seems she is much less broody than she was, but the main thing is she's eating and not likely to starve any time soon, I'll keep you updated.

Thanks for reading.

It's all go here ... ...

It has been a some what hectic few weeks, well it always is this time of year, what with getting ready for veg growing, fixing all the stuff in the garden that's been damaged over winter (fences mainly) and general tidying up.
And then there's more of the same at the allotment, I'd have to say though we've done a lot of prep work in order to have a productive year, and of course the chickens are keeping us busy, all of them are now laying eggs, and on average we're getting at least 2 eggs a day and 3 eggs every other day, and the chickens are still young, so egg production may increase a bit over the next few weeks, fresh eggs every morning, can't beat it.

Fresh eggs -

Yum.

 

On the subject of chickens I've made a few adjustments to their accommodation since they first moved in, the coop and run now have an extra 3 foot section, that has a door (makes life easier) and the run section now has a roof, which can be removed on sunny days, I only built it because the chickens really dislike the rain, well ours do.

Door section -

Makes things easier.

 

With the roof on -

The roof gives them some shelter.

I have also sectioned off the bottom part of the garden where their coop is, so now they have even more space in which to do chicken related stuff, so far none have escaped (fingers crossed they won't start trying) the kids are still (after 4 weeks) very into chickens, they spend most of their time with them now, helping them dig up worms and such like.

New fencing to contain chickens -

They have already looked at it with a 'we can get over that' eye.

 One of the major jobs I really wanted to get done was the green house, for the last few years we've had one of those metal framed things with a plastic cover, and for the last few years the cover has fallen apart, it's like the plastic has degraded, so this year I decided enough was enough, I'm not going to buy another cover for it, and so I covered it in wood (from the massive pile of pallets I had) well some of it, it's got a plastic roof and windows on two sides.

Used to look like this (only green) -

Not much, but it worked.

 

Basically what I did was fix planks of wood to the metal frame, and I've also added a little extra support so the thing doesn't fall down, I'm happy to report it's quite sturdy and seems to be working well, and it was given a coat of green paint by my lovely wife.

New green house -

Excuse the bins.

 You can see how it's put together, I've just replaced the plastic cover with wood, I had to change the roof slightly, but on the plus side we now have an extra water collection device, which is good seeing as they are banning hoses in this neck of the woods, I just need a new waterbutt or some kind of container.

The other side of the green house -

It gets quite a lot of light.

 The door is now a door, rather than a flap of plastic you roll up -

A proper door.

In all it's cost about £30 to fix the green house, I only had to buy the plastic sheeting, the whole thing is much stronger, and I can get more stuff in it now because I can add more shelves.
We've already started some things off, like turnips,broccoli,tomatoes,squashes and a load of other stuff.

I also made some small boxes to fit on one of the walls which we've started growing radishes in and small chantenay carrots.

Wall boxes -

Really easy to make.

  You might guess that we are trying to use the spaces we have in the best way possible, and this shows that even if you don't have a garden a couple of wall boxes can be used to grow a wide range of things.

And lastly the allotment is already in production, well it will be when the stuff grows, I planted a few rows of spuds at the beginning of March, about 60 spuds in all, and we've managed to get most of the plot dug over and ready for planting, we also put in about 5 rows of carrots,6 rows of peas (more to go in later on) a shed load of onions, some parsnips and some celeriac, which if you haven't eaten is very tasty cooked, it's also nice raw in some homemade coleslaw, I'm sure I've planted some other stuff as well (brain like a sieve) we have however got some interesting stuff to grow this year, not that spuds and such like aren't interesting, we have some purple carrots, yellow tomatoes, yellow cucumbers, which are called lemon cucumbers, because they grow ball shaped rather than long and thin, we've also got some spaghetti squashes to grow along with luffa's (loofahs) and even some liquorice plants.

The spud rows -

Much more than we planted last year.

And that's about it really, other than loads of gardening we've been looking after chickens and trying to get into gear for the spring and summer, I'll keep you posted on the progress of the garden and the allotment, and anything else we get up to, I have also managed to move my shop site to another provider (it's not quite finished yet) and I've also been turning some new stuff, so if you have a spare minute go and have a look and see what you think - www.the-shed-and-beyond.co.uk (opens in new window)

Thanks for reading.