Chickens Laying Eggs

Last Tuesday, the 23rd of August, I put in some rice straw that we sourced out from one of our neighbors in the chicken's plastic nest boxes. Earlier in the day, we heard Henrietta the pet hen, making the usual cackling sound as if she is demanding for us to provide her with a nest as she is about ready to lay an egg. As soon as I finished lining up the nest box, I brought it inside the coop and was tying the nest boxes so it would not fall down when all of a sudden, Henrietta flew right in and started scratching in the nest box. It's like she's saying "Hurry up and get out or I will lay an egg on your head!" Well I really got out as fast as I can and left her making her still cackling as if she's letting the whole neighborhood know that she is about ready to lay an egg.  The brown chicken from Kapangan who looked ready to lay an egg too was cackling also and she went on the roost and was peeking at Henrietta. She was curious on what the latter was doing or why she is scratching inside the nest. Then the brown hen jumped down and went flying on one of the nest boxes while Henrietta was making a sound as if saying "Don't get near me!". As the brown hen was contemplating on what to do next, Henrietta got out of her nest and was cackling away and by this time, the brown hen went into Henrietta's nest box. By this time, the big rooster joined Henrietta in a cackling singing contest and brown hen chimed in so there was a trio! I really believe that they are trying to tell the young brown hen that the nest is where she could lay her eggs. Since it was about lunchtime, I left the singing choir of chickens doing their concert and went inside the house to fix lunch for my hubby and myself.

As of today, the 28th of August, in spite of the rain that is lambasting our city, the native chickens are laying their eggs, well two of them anyway. Henrietta who claimed the first nest has laid 6 small eggs and the one brown pullet that came from Kapangan also laid her first egg today in the last nest box. I am assuming that they did not use the same nest box together because there is one egg in the last box so I figured that must be from the brown pullet. The brown pullet and the big rooster both came from Kapangan and they are siblings. Since one of Henrietta's chicks turned out to be a roo, so I don't know which of the two roo mated with the brown pullet. I know that Henrietta is always being chased by both rooster including all of the other chickens in the coop. They pick on her all of the time which is why her feathers are all ruffled up. Both roosters likes to jump on her whenever they get a chance. She tries to stay away from all of the other chickens but for some reason, they wouldn't let her eat in peace. Whenever she gets down from the roost or from the nest to eat, the others would chase her away. I guess maybe because she didn't grow up with the rest. I wonder if I should put her in a separate coop of her own. We still have the small coop where we used to house her when she first came to us. Maybe I will do that to keep the peace in the coop. It's just that I am wondering if I should put the big rooster in with her in the separate coop? What do you think?

Nest Boxes

Our three nest boxes are store-bought and these are the stackable plastic boxes that are used as file trays. They are easy to clean and disinfect and they are light weight. I don't have to worry about mites hiding in any crevices because there's simply nowhere to hide. Based on my searches on the Internet about providing nest boxes to the chickens, the suggested ratio is 1:4 or one nest box can be shared by four hens. So we have more than enough of nest boxes that is good for 9-10 hens. Henrietta is the only hen that we have at the moment and she stopped laying as she is in molting mode. The other three young pullets will not be ready until after 2-3 months maybe and the two young roos, I don't know yet if we're going to keep them. We use cut-up newspapers to line Henrietta's nest box.    

Feeding Trough

It is the rainy season here in the Philippines now. When we made the chicken coop, we made some provisions wherein we can feed the chickens without having to go inside the chicken coop. The blue folding aluminum chair is for us to use when we want to watch the chickens while they are eating. Sometimes, we spend hours just hanging out with the animals inside the rabbitry and we could see the chickens at the same time while they are doing their chicken business.

The picture above is the space where we feed the chickens from inside the rabbitry. We put the feeds into this orange funnel and it goes into the feeding trough which is on the other side. Since we have two 1-inch diameter PVC pipes that is inserted through the wire, we just transfer the funnel from one pipe to the other to fill up the feeding through.  

This is the feeding through inside the chicken coop. We used a half cut PVC pipe which is the same PVC pipes that we used for the gutters in the rabbitry. It is held in place with some strings that are attached to the screen wall. We do not want any unwanted visitors such as mice or rats coming inside the chicken coop during the night and eating the feeds which is why we control the feeds that we give to the chickens. We only feed them what they could finish for the day and for the night so there is not much left over food in the feeding trough that could attract unwanted visitors. The end part of this feeding trough is covered with the cut-up bottom of a 1-litter plastic bottle.

This bowl is what we use as a feeding trough for the chickens when they are in the chicken run. If we have some left over cooked rice in the pot, or some other kind of left over foods from the table, then we put it in this red bowl and they finish eating it.