Day 490: Run modifications (continued)

And I think they'll be continuing for a very long time!

We turned the cube around, putting it flat up against a mesh panel where we will eventually make an access flap so cleaning the poo trays is easier. We also put back some of the wooden perches that the girls had in the run at the old house and they just LOVE them! They've been up there all afternoon LOL. Now there's more space, we moved the feeders around and put the super glug back, so it's harder for Roxy to guard them all and stop the smallest (Gabrielle) eating and drinking. As I was positioning the rail for the superglug, all the big girls were trying to drink out of it even though it was empty! It's been months since they last used it and I'm impressed that they haven't forgotten what it's for! Tallulah was particularly busy with it - so I imagine they had lots of them in the farm... By the way, she's feathered up BEAUTIFULLY! She was shaking her tail feathers and stretching her wings this afternoon and she's a big, fluffy, feathery, buxom lady now :o)

Gabrielle actually ate and drank from bowls held by ME this afternoon without complaining too much. In fact, I even managed to stroke her ears (albeit briefly) without her even whining, which is completely unheard of. Her feathers are growing back beautifully - her neck is now fully feathered and she has lots of tufts on her wings. I hope they grow back the golden colour that they were before - at the moment she's very grey but I think that's just her downy feathers. So she's eating and drinking - she had nutridrops in private porridge again. I really think that all the pots I made her before might just have saved her life in the freezing weather we had!

So tomorrow, we'll probably do more tidying and possibly make the access hatch. We'll see! :o)

Day 489: Extended run

Last night, when the girls were tucked up in the Cube (Mr Nora had to put Gabby to bed again, yep she's resorting to her old tricks), we extended the cube. Previously, we'd had two narrow panels joined together to make an end panel. So we separated them again, made up a new end panel and put the short panels on the sides to extend the run by another 3 feet. We put slabs down, moved the panels around, put the roof on and tidied up,

The girls this morning were over the moon! Next job is to design the opening panels to allow me to access the poo trays and egg port. We'll also fix up some perches and then we're ALMOST back to how we had the run at the old house :o)

Gabby is still in her moult - she's growing tufty new feathers and is looking more fluffy now, like she's covered in down :o) She's happily eating and drinking though and we think the extra space will help - gives her room to escape!

Day 478: Gabrielle update

It's struck me that she's not EIGHT months old - we got her 8 months ago and she was 16 weeks old. So that makes her coming up to a year old - so her first moult isn't so wildly off, timing wise.

They're all fine, shame about the snow when two of our girls are moulting! They're all getting extra rations - corn in warm pellet-porridge. Corn is fattening so keeps them warm. We cut down on it in the summer months. I'll also give Gabrielle extra mealworms, as her moult looks to be getting quite severe now! The poo trays and nest boxes were all beautifully lined with her feathers {shock}. But she seems fine in herself. Just have to make sure she's eating up the treats and goodies, to keep her energy up. She needs to keep warm AND grow new feathers and that takes a LOT of energy!

They're all tucked up in the cube now - all six of them go to bed INSIDE now, we just shut the door to keep them toasty at night :o)

Day 476: Gabrielle news

She's fine... eating, drinking, just not laying! In fact, she's.... drum roll.... MOULTING! A bit early - they're not supposed to moult until they're over a year old so I wasn't expecting her to moult this winter as she's only 8 months old! Still, it explains a lot. And she's happy in herself so no need to panic (I hope!), just a few feathers missing under her chin and a few sticking out and looking loose around her wings. Extra straw in their beds anyway, seeing as we've had snow a couple of weeks ago - and MORE today!

Day 470: Settling in

So we're in our new house. The girls had a temporary run (the Eglu attached to a metal rabbit run) followed, a week later, by a temporary walk-in run (two fence panels making the two ends with parts of the old run to form the front and back). The girls seem happy enough - except for Gabrielle, the smallest and bottom of the pecking order. She's shy about getting food so I've been giving her private porridge with corn and mealworms and a splash of Nutri-drops to fatten her up. She hasn't laid for 12 days (yep, no green eggs for nearly a fortnight) so either she's a bit put out by the move or just off-lay for winter (well, she's the nearest we have to a pure breed and that's perfectly natural behaviour for them).

The other girls are all fine!