Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[ManueB]

It was 3/37 this morning. The leaves are turning orange and red and starting to fall ; the chicken's feathers are now all over the place !
I had the impression they were moulting early this year but looking back at last year pictures, it depends on which chicken. Théo and Chipie are late, whereas Merle, Léa and Gaston are early. And all the chickens born in 2023, and Piou-piou, did not moult last year at all.
They are all doing good, and adapting to the cooler shorter days. I'm just a bit worried for Lilly's foot. It is swelling more and more but she is too full of pin and broken feathers to attempt to get the abscess cut open.
Merle has turned broody again but I have a feeling she will not be so dedicated with the cold coming in and her moult, at least I hope so.

I've been and maybe will be less active on BYC for a while. I've been trying to keep up with all the threads, even if I'm not reacting.

Yes. It is a fan dancing.
View attachment 3957920

This was my best fan dancer. Hopefully once she feels fully better after the implant moult, she will do that again !

A few pictures from this morning.

Chipie gets easily cold especially missing all those feathers. She's so small compared to Annette!

Laure

Three sisters, Mélisse, Laure, Annette.

Piou-piou eats so many worms and tiny crickets...her crop is so huge at roost time she can barely jump on the trunk we made her as a step to her roost.

 

[ManueB]

This morning toward 8 there was an attack on the chickens while I was inside. No casualties, just a huge scare for the chickens. As usual it took me about twenty minutes to find them all, which is always scary. It hadn't happened in a very long time, so we have been much less careful these last months. I sometimes spend an hour and a half inside without checking on them, which I never do in the weeks after an attack. But this morning I was barely in for a few minutes to turn the laundry on when I heard a strange chicken noise. I would describe it as a muffled pain sound. Then Gaston called so I rushed out, but didn't see any predators. I quickly understood that there had been an attack from the chickens attitude. Lilly and Alba were both in the run completely frozen and looking terrified. In the coop I found Nieva, Kara, Chipie and Merle hiding behind the door all huddled together. Then under the laurel tree I found Annette, Mélisse and Lulu, and last, Léa and Laure who were very well hidden crouching. Piou-piou and Théo were outside and Théo was in a panic, probably because he couldn't see Merle and know if she was safe. He flew in the chicken yard and got into a fight with Gaston. It lasted a while, they were not really hurting one another but Théo was panting heavily and his comb was turning purple , so I picked him up and carried him out. He went to hide in Piou-piou's nest inside the wood shed, and stayed hidden there for a while, until I brought Merle hoping to get him to calm down.
It took them all morning to recover from their fright. I am remaining watchful in case it wasn't a hawk, but something on the ground that could still be around.

We had a lot of rain on monday and overall mostly grey, autumn weather the last two weeks. It's quite unusual that we have so little sunshine for a long period, but I don't mind having a real autumn and not feeling like jumping from summer to winter as is usually the case here.
The chickens are going to bed really early now, before five, unless the sun shows up like yesterday and they will stay out a bit longer to enjoy it. Gaston looks exhausted at the end of the day. Lulu is always the last one out, she goes to roost about twenty to thirty minutes after the other chickens, and yesterday Gaston chased her with wings and tail wide spread out, back in the coop. I think he is too tired to wait patiently for her as he usually does.

Pictures from yesterday.

No tail left ! Of all the feathers I've picked up, surprisingly Léa's are the most beautiful. It doesn't really show on her, but they are a striking contrast of red with a black tip.

Merle has stopped sitting. I could tell she wasn't committed this time and indeed she stopped after just a few days, for the first time ..ever !

Théo hiding this morning in the woodshed.

While Merle perched on one of the stack and toppled everything down flying off.

Annette having a lone rainy worm buffet where my partner dug out the potatoes.

 

[RoyalChick]

This morning toward 8 there was an attack on the chickens while I was inside. No casualties, just a huge scare for the chickens. As usual it took me about twenty minutes to find them all, which is always scary. It hadn't happened in a very long time, so we have been much less careful these last months. I sometimes spend an hour and a half inside without checking on them, which I never do in the weeks after an attack. But this morning I was barely in for a few minutes to turn the laundry on when I heard a strange chicken noise. I would describe it as a muffled pain sound. Then Gaston called so I rushed out, but didn't see any predators. I quickly understood that there had been an attack from the chickens attitude. Lilly and Alba were both in the run completely frozen and looking terrified. In the coop I found Nieva, Kara, Chipie and Merle hiding behind the door all huddled together. Then under the laurel tree I found Annette, Mélisse and Lulu, and last, Léa and Laure who were very well hidden crouching. Piou-piou and Théo were outside and Théo was in a panic, probably because he couldn't see Merle and know if she was safe. He flew in the chicken yard and got into a fight with Gaston. It lasted a while, they were not really hurting one another but Théo was panting heavily and his comb was turning purple , so I picked him up and carried him out. He went to hide in Piou-piou's nest inside the wood shed, and stayed hidden there for a while, until I brought Merle hoping to get him to calm down.
It took them all morning to recover from their fright. I am remaining watchful in case it wasn't a hawk, but something on the ground that could still be around.

We had a lot of rain on monday and overall mostly grey, autumn weather the last two weeks. It's quite unusual that we have so little sunshine for a long period, but I don't mind having a real autumn and not feeling like jumping from summer to winter as is usually the case here.
The chickens are going to bed really early now, before five, unless the sun shows up like yesterday and they will stay out a bit longer to enjoy it. Gaston looks exhausted at the end of the day. Lulu is always the last one out, she goes to roost about twenty to thirty minutes after the other chickens, and yesterday Gaston chased her with wings and tail wide spread out, back in the coop. I think he is too tired to wait patiently for her as he usually does.

Pictures from yesterday.
View attachment 3961254View attachment 3961255
No tail left ! Of all the feathers I've picked up, surprisingly Léa's are the most beautiful. It doesn't really show on her, but they are a striking contrast of red with a black tip.
View attachment 3961256View attachment 3961258
Merle has stopped sitting. I could tell she wasn't committed this time and indeed she stopped after just a few days, for the first time ..ever !
View attachment 3961259View attachment 3961267View attachment 3961268View attachment 3961269View attachment 3961270View attachment 3961271
Théo hiding this morning in the woodshed.
View attachment 3961272
While Merle perched on one of the stack and toppled everything down flying off.
View attachment 3961273
Annette having a lone rainy worm buffet where my partner dug out the potatoes.
View attachment 3961274

Yikes. Sounds scary. Glad everyone is OK.
Maybe you could persuade Merle to share the wisdom of not sitting with Tassels who is as determined as ever!
Not yet freezing but definite old at night and there she is absolutely determined!

 

[Perris]

Yikes. Sounds scary. Glad everyone is OK.

x2 And let's hope whatever it was moves on quickly.

 

[BDutch]

It took them all morning to recover from their fright. I am remaining watchful in case it wasn't a hawk, but something on the ground that could still be around.

X3
Nasty whatever predator it was. Good they are survived without injuries.

If its something on 4 feet who frightened the chickens, they probably would go up in a tree and not hide on the ground.

 

[MaryJanet]

X4

I'm doubly shocked because Merle's not sitting?!

 

[RoyalChick]

X4

I'm doubly shocked because Merle's not sitting?!

Don’t worry, Tassels is!

 

[MaryJanet]

Don’t worry, Tassels is!

Then all is right in the world

 

[ManueB]

Yikes. Sounds scary. Glad everyone is OK.
Maybe you could persuade Merle to share the wisdom of not sitting with Tassels who is as determined as ever!
Not yet freezing but definite old at night and there she is absolutely determined!

I would actually also love to know why Merle gave up this time !
She has been ever since she began to lay a very stubborn and regular broody. I've kept count of her sitting 138 days now since the beginning of January. She lays ten to fourteen eggs, goes broody for three to six weeks, then it usually takes her ten days to start laying again.
She is also very dramatic about where she will lay and she needs three or four days to chose where her next nest will be, which makes sense if she thinks of it as the place where she will hatch her babies.
I probably don't take the shortest way to break broodies : she is locked in a crate in the morning while the hens lay, then locked out of the coop during the day, so she stays outside. Then at the end of the afternoon when I open the coop for the hens that want to roost, she gets a bit of time on the nest until I put her back in the crate for the night.
And I haven't done anything different this time. Maybe she is getting older ? She is starting to moult, but last year this did not stop her from sitting at all. And the same could be said for the shorter days and colder temperatures.
One thing I noticed is that just before she began sitting, she pooped a few days in a row on her egg while laying, as she was beginning to spend a long time on the nest. This never happened to her before. So maybe she didn't feel up to it this time ?

She always gets really fat before beginning to sit so I don't worry about her at all, but she's a fun little trouble hen to have around when she is not broody. If we ever let a hen hatch again, she will be the one of course. But that would be in a long time unless we suddenly get a bunch of unexpected losses in the flock.

X3
Nasty whatever predator it was. Good they are survived without injuries.

If its something on 4 feet who frightened the chickens, they probably would go up in a tree and not hide on the ground.

I'm also almost sure it was a hawk. We have had only one fox attacks in these four and a half years, but countless attempts from hawks.

This morning the chickens are completely back to their normal selves with a lot of drama at roost time.

Roosters anecdotes.
Théo was a pain yesterday. He got in a fight with Gaston again, going after Merle at roost time, and he attacked me several times during the day when I would not let him in the chicken yard. It's rather cute when I pick him up wearing gloves, he attacks my glove while I'm holding him and tries to peck it to death . I don't feel a thing with the gloves even though they are not very thick, but he would probably hurt me a bit if I had bare hands.
I realised he never had a hatch day celebration. When Gaston the farmer gave him to us, he wasn't really sure about his age. I think he was around three months old, looking at the photos then. So, he probably turned three years old in september.
I guess he won't become nicer now, he's well past the cockerel stage !

The week he arrived here in November 2021 in quarantine

15 December 2021

January 2022

Looking back at old pictures, I see his comb already had it's weird hole in the middle. So it likely wasn't from a wound, or it happened before he arrived here.

By Bob's comments about rehoming Versace and the fact that rehoming means you accept to loose control, also made me think of Pied-Beau. I'm still happy we did not let him stay with the couple who wanted to adopt him even though I also felt bad for them. We weren't so keen initially that he was going over to Gaston's place because there are many things we don't like about how his chickens are kept. But the fact is that it turned out well. Gaston's son has made a number of changes on the way they manage their flocks, and while some of these are not things I would do, it has improved their flock's life. They had many losses to predations this year as always, but he had also done a lot to protect the chickens.
Whenever we go to Gaston's place and it's daytime we check on Pied-Beau. He is doing great and they are very happy with him as dominant rooster. I know that he may end up dying from a fox or weasel attack sooner than I'd like, but he will have had a good life up to then. This showed up in my photos app Thursday as it was a year ago. We were hands off with those chicks, but he loved to hang out with us.

Two weeks ago, my partner did some work for Gaston and went to see Pied-Beau with some walnuts. The rooster climbed on his lap to eat them ! Not sure if he remembered him or if it was due to his love of walnuts, but still it shows that he remains very trusting toward humans.

We had two really beautiful days. Everything is still damp but the chickens seem to enjoy the sun being back as much as we do.

 

[Perris]

glad to read that calm has returned and they've all got over the shock now. The photos are gorgeous, as usual.