I haven’t minded dealing with the chickens in the winter, but this last few weeks has been difficult. I don’t mind coming back on my lunch hour to deal with them before it gets dark, and I can cope with the swamp at the bottom of the garden, but the water freezing up has not been pleasant to deal with. Having to defrost their water probably doubles the amount of time it takes to do chicken related chores, and my hands are so cold that they hurt after cleaning them out.

The other day when I came back to clean the chickens Victoria was still in the nest box laying. I cleaned out the coop, and then she was finished just as I was about to go in. I looked inside the nest box and there were 3 eggs – 2 of them were still nice and warm. I walked back to the house with an egg in each hand which was a lovely way to warm my fingers up!

I have had problems with her escaping from the their area for a while now. She loves to fly over the electric fence and leave a trail of destruction through my garden. It hasn’t been causing me so many issues recently as I am not really growing anything at the moment, but it will start to become an issue in the spring, and I’m getting fed up of her leaving chicken poos all over the garden.

As well as this, I’m pretty sure that it’s her who starts them all off making a racket early in the morning. Again, this isn’t causing me a lot of troubles at the moment because I am getting up as soon as it is light now, but in the summer it is not fun to be awoken by a load of chickens at 5am.

The other problem with Victoria is that she is a bit of a bully. She is a lot bigger than the other chickens, and she is definitely at the top of the pecking order. I haven’t witnessed her bullying very much recently, because I hardly ever see the chickens at the moment, but yesterday was a Sunday and I spent a bit of time watching what the chickens were doing.

Yesterday morning, Meg was looking a bit miserable, and when I went over to look at her I noticed that she was actually bleeding from her comb. Then, when it started to get dark I looked out and saw that Daisy had gone to bed, and Victoria and Meg were still outside. Every time Meg tried to go in the chicken coop, Victoria would chase her out until she retreated underneath the coop. Then I watched for about 5 minutes, and every time Meg tried to come out from underneath the coop Victoria would chase her back in. It actually made me feel really sorry for her.

Poor old Meg doesn't look too happy. She clearly has blood on her comb...

After watching it for a few minutes I decided to go out and break it up – otherwise the door would end up closing and locking poor Meg outside. When I went over, I noticed that Victoria had blood on her beak which makes me pretty sure that she attacked Meg earlier. I grabbed Victoria and walked around the pen with her for a while – this seemed to calm things down. She hates being picked up and I held her until he got really upset and started flapping. Meg still hadn’t gone inside yet, so I put Victoria down, and chased her away every time she got anywhere near Meg.

I’m not really sure what to do about this – I’m starting to think that Victoria is having a negative effect on the rest of the chickens. The only solution that I can think of for her escaping is to put them back in the old run, but this would obviously mean that they have a lot less space and it doesn’t seem fair on the other chickens. The only other alternative that I can think of would be to clip her wings but I’m not sure if I want to do that either.

I don’t think there is an easy solution for the bullying. If I was choosing my chickens again I would make sure that they were all very similar in size to try and avoid this happening.

Maybe the only thing I could do would be to get rid of her and replace her with a more docile chicken – that would solve all of the problems (but probably create a load more!).

Hopefully this will stop her from escaping...

I have put a weldmesh fence on the side of the coop that she was jumping off – I don’t think she can clear the fence from the ground but she can easily jump from the coop roof into the garden. I have put the fence on the edge of the coop that she would jump off of – she can still get onto the roof (and crap all over it as usual) but she won’t be able to get out and destroy my garden. Now I just have to wait and see if it actually works…

Hopefully this will kill them!

Poultry shield is a liquid that I used to spray the inside of the coop and should hopefully get rid of red mite. Apparently it helps to destroy the mites and the eggs, and it was significantly cheaper than the spray I bought (probably cost me less than £1 to spray the whole coop compared to £15), and was also easier to apply.

The other product that I bought is diatom, which is diatomaceous earth and will hopefully prevent the mites from coming back. It works by dehydrating them, and although it won’t kill them instantly, it should help to control their numbers in the future. After I finished spraying the coop I spread a load of diatom all over the inside.

Both of these products were recommended to me on Down the Lane and those guys always seem to know what they are talking about!

Whilst I was cleaning out the coop again, I let the girls out in the garden. I must admit, whilst it has been stressful sorting all of this out, I have enjoyed letting them out in the garden again. They had great fun scratching around under my rose bush, and spreading a heap of grass clipping around the garden!

Chickens love piles of stuff, but they won't be piles once the chickens have finished with them!

I think this is going to be a problem for a long time…

The first thing that I did was to move the run away from the coop and to another part of the garden. I pushed the open side of the run up against the fence and put the chickens in there so that they couldn’t escape whilst I removed the net.

When I removed the run this is what was left behind...

I think the chickens enjoyed the grass when I moved the run

The next step was to remove the netting – I have to admit it was a lot easier to take down than it was to put up!

Here you can see what the chickens did to the ground behind the net

With the netting gone, we had access to all sides of the coop so we gave it a big clean out. First we removed all of the bedding, and then scrubbed everything down with hot soapy water. I let the coop dry and then sprayed everything with some mite spray (we used 2 cans of the stuff). I even removed the perches as they were not being used and provided more hiding places for the mites. I have included some pictures to show you the extent of the infestation.

This is the bit of wood I put in for the new nest area

Here is a (nice?) close up of the creatures...

This is the slot that the floor slides into. There were mites all along the back edge.

When I removed the percehes, this is what was lurking behind them.

As you can see the mites were everywhere! Once I had finished cleaning out the run I moved it to a new position – ready for the electric fence. I have replaced the wooden nest area with a plastic box. Hopefully this is the last of the mites…

This is the cleanest the coop has ever been!

The run in its new position

I have recently realised that my setup is not working very well for me. One reason that I think I have got so heavily infested with mites is that the coop is virtually impossible to clean out in it’s current location – in order to get to the nest box I need to squeeze into a small gap between the coop and the fence, and I only have access to the rest of the coop from one side because of the netting at the back of it and the run at the front. Also, because of the nest area that I screwed into the floor of the coop, I can’t slide the floor out to clean it.

The run itself is also causing me problems: Due to the fact that it is so long and only about a meter high, it is virtually impossible for me to clean it. This means that over the past few months, the land underneath the run has turned into a bit of a swamp. As well as the vast quantities of chicken poop that have built up, I have had a problem with one of my feeders. When I moved the feeder into the middle of the run the weather was dry and it caused no problems. The girls like to empty the feeder onto the floor, but then over then following days will eat the pellets up so nothing is wasted. Since the weather has been so wet, all of the pellets on the floor have been turning to mush and being scratched into the floor and creating a disgusting smell. This means that the floor of the run has turned into a mixture of chicken poo and fermenting layers pellets and the smell is awful! They were also getting through twice as much food as usual so I have had to move the feeder back under the coop.

The final thing that I hadn’t really considered in my setup was convenience. Due to the fact that I have to move a load of flower pots, and squeeze under the netting to get to the back of the coop, changing the girls’ food has been a nightmare.

To fix all of these problems I have decided to have a bit of a move around in the garden. I am going to move the coop to the area behind the netting, remove the netting and the run and put up an electric fence. This will allow me to enter the chickens’ area and keep it clean, and will allow access to all sides of the coop for cleaning. This should hopefully solve most of my problems…

At first I thought this was chicken poop...

...but chicken poop doesn't move!

I’m not 100% sure what these are but I think they might be the dreaded red mite. Even though most of the mites were black, when I wiped them off the dust pan and brush it left streaks of red blood over it so I think they have been feeding on the girls. This might be why they keep making such a racket every morning!

A close up of the parasites

I didn’t have time to completely clean the coop today, but I spent a good hour and a half removing all of the bedding from the floor. Most of the mites were in the nest box, so after I had cleaned it out I spread a lot of stalosan f over the floor (it is a powdered disinfectant) and blocked the nest box off so that the girls can’t sleep in there. I also removed the bedding from the rest of the coop apart from the area where the girls lay (there didn’t seem to be any mites in there).

I think this weekend will be time to give the coop a good clean out – I intend to go to my local pet shop and buy some mite powder. I will then give the coop a good clean out and replace all of the bedding, and give it a good sprinkling of mite powder.

I feel really bad for the girls – there were so many mites and they must have been driving the girls nuts! When the girls went in to sleep tonight I lifted the lid of the coop slightly to see what they would do. When they first went in, they had a good look at the wood blocking off the nest box. Then they went up to it and started pecking at it – trying to find away into the section that they normally sleep in. It was really horrible to watch – they clearly wanted to go sleep in their usual spot but I think it is best to keep them out of there for a few days.

When I got home I set up the feeder and filled it with food. I put it in the coop and straight away Daisy decided that the food would be better on the floor. I sat and watched her for about 10 minutes methodically scraping all of the pellets out onto the run floor.

Daisy making a mess

I am impressed with the quality of the feeder. It was quite expensive but it is a lot better than my other one: You can adjust the size of the gap at the bottom where the pellets fall out and it has an attached rain cover meaning that I can keep it out in the open instead of underneath the coop. The main reason I decided to get a new feeder was that the pellets used to get jammed in the bottom of the other one. Once this had happened the girls used to kick it over and the rest of the pellets would end up on the floor.

While I was watching the girls investigate their new feeder I noticed that Meg was getting picked on a bit. Daisy went straight over the the feeder, and a few minutes later Victoria followed. Every time Meg got anywhere close to it Victoria would chase her away. It was actually pretty horrible to watch

The girls had fun with thier new feeder

When I got in from work this is what I saw – as you can see, the fact that they could get to the pellets didn’t stop them from knocking the feeder over!

The next thing I did was to remove the old door and replace it with the new aluminium door and automatic opener. The door and opener cost me over £100 but hopefully it will mean that I can have a lay in on the weekends. It took me about an hour to get it fitted correctly – the main bit that was difficult was tying the knot in the bit of string that attaches the opener to the door.

The main thing that I was worried about is that the girls would get trapped outside, but they went into the house at about 9:00pm and the door shut on its own at about 9:30pm.

The new door isn't pretty but it works

The door opener is mounted above the door and raises it with a draw string

The only problem with the door opener is that I have had to mount it over some of the ventilation holes in the top of the coop. I think I am going to have to drill a few more holes tomorrow…

Well not anymore! I finally decided to do something about it and added this hi-tech invention to the side of my coop.

This took me a whole 2 minutes to do and I think it may even have cost me just over 20p...

I had some hooks in my garage and decided to tie a bit of string round them to hold the door open. When I was walking through the house to get the string I found this little rubber ring on the floor so decided to tie it on the end of the string to put over the hook – I don’t even know what it is or where it came from. It’s amazing how such a small effort has made my life easier!