ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

..the turkeys are revolting plus other mixed news from the birds

MISSING: After a ruck with the geese

 ELVIS, the little quail who found a home in my handbag and a way into the hearts of folk in a Jedburgh post office queue, has disappeared without trace. I left him basking in the sunshine with food and water by the back door while I went to find a book before joining him. After a few minutes I heard an almighty racket from the geese and dashed outside to be confonted

WAITING GAME: broody turkey's patience

could soon pay off

with an upturned miniature water bowl as the gander Jack scoffed the last remnants of Elivis's corn.  The quail had scarpered and has been Missing In Action ever since despite exhaustive searches of the immediate area. Jack, a bully by nature, was looking a little coy although totally unmoved by my distress.
 This now means two of my birds are MIA - a turkey went wandering off nearly two months ago and hasn't been seen since. I keep hoping she'll reappear with a clutch of little ones but that over optimistic view is fast fading with each day.
 Meanwhile the broody turkey who has been sitting on everyone else's eggs for the last two months may finally become a mum in her own right ... well, sort of. A good friend of mine who was touched by her plight brought six fertile turkey eggs for her to sit on and they're due to hatch next week. I forget what breed they are but it is quite clear she will not budge until she has hatched some chicks.
 The only other way of getting a turkey or hen out of its broody mood is by plunging the creature in a bucket of cold water and, as inconvenient as broody poultry can be at times, there's no way I'm going to do that.

MADGE: Playing the waiting game

 On the hen front, another of my Scots Dumpys has turned broody and she's sitting on seven eggs though I confess I slipped in a quail's egg to see if it will hatch. I've moved Madge - one of the Isle of Wight hens - into her own box where she won't be bothered by the others although I do try and make her exercise and walk around for atleast 10 minutes a day.

SAD DAY AT THE DOVECOT: Three fantails

remain

 Scots Dumpy eggs are notoriously difficult to hatch because of a lethal gene which means a high number will fail to develop after a few days. But I'm hopeful we'll see some of Madge's offspring later this month.
 In the meantime I've some upsetting news from the Dovecot where my four fantails have been residing. One was found dead this morning inside with no apparent injuries or signs of distress. Another death, another mystery but the other three seem fit and well. The nets are off now and they seem happy with their new home.
 And there's more grief on the turkey front - Ant & Dec, previously joined at the hip are no longer BFF. War has broken out and the pair are inconsolable; they've had their squabbles before and I've been known to wade in and separate the two but this time the rivalry has overtaken their friendship.
 No longer can their turkey gobbles be heard in unison - instead I've had to put them in different pens after the last fight drew blood on both sides. As you can see from the video to the left a truce is unlikely which, because of practicalities, leaves us with no other choice than to to make a choice between the two.
 He-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is can sort out that problem for me and may be my mum will get a halal turkey on her next visit.

I hope that doesn't sound callous but it's been nearly two years now since I moved to the Scottish Borders and in that time making unpleasant decisions has become just one of the harsh realities of countryside life. As usual any advice is most welcome.

CHICKS FIRST OUTING

Or Josephine's brood go for a stroll

 Had I decided to incubate Josephine's eggs the Scots Dumpy chicks produced would still be under a heat lamp and that is how their life would be for the next few weeks.
 However she hatched them herself five days ago and each day since then has been one of survival instruction of how to eat food and drink water and how to scratch around the floor of the chicken coop and forage for food.
 Today she surprised us all by taking her chicks out to see how they could cope in the big wide world and, at one stage, she even took her half dozen out of the hen pen for a stroll.
 You can see what happens in this two small clips - Madge, one of the more curious of the cuckoo-coloured Scots Dumpys got a little too close and Josephine reacted as any protective mother would.
 Enjoy:

SIX OF THE BEST

..Plus three of a kind

WHAT an amazing day it's been in the hen pen with nine new arrivals ... and counting.
 A friend of mine with an incubator handed over six cuddly Scots Dumpy young'uns that hatched from an assortment of eggs I gave her nearly three months ago.

SIX OF THE BEST: New arrivals

 In my confusion they were mixed up so I've no idea who the parents are but I think we'll have some fun guessing as they develop their own traits and characteristics.
 But during all the excitement I managed to overlook the arrival of three more chicks from eggs hatched by Josephine, my black hen who went all broody several weeks ago.

MOTHER HEN: Ruffled Josephine

 She's been sitting tight on her eggs, refusing to budge which has forced me to do battle with her every morning by lifting her off the eggs and carrying her to the nearest food station.
 As I've mentioned before it is important to make sure broody hens do get some exercise, food and water at least once a day otherwise they could develop all sorts of problems with potentially fatal consequences.
 Today was no exception although she seemed far more aggressive and resistant to being moved. In the end I gave a final yank and noticed two fluff balls drop from her underbelly. At first I thought they were clumps of matted feathers until both began to wobble and squeak prompting Josephine to emit an unearthly squawk followed by a series of really savage pecks which forced me to drop her as well!

THREE OF A KIND: The day old Dumpys

 All three were returned to the nesting box in due haste and left until later today seemingly non the worse for their experience.
 When I returned early this evening I went in fully prepared - gardening gloves on - I gently but firmly removed her from the nest so she could at least stretch her legs and pass whatever waste had accumulated from the previous day. The mission was accomplished and within two minutes she was back with her brood but not before I managed to 'pap' the three new ones. As you can see from the photograph there's still some eggs to hatch.
 This is a fast-moving story and I will update you tomorrow on any new developments.

NO YOLK IS NO JOKE

SHELL-SHOCKED: Can you spot the odd three out!

 .. Or who is failing to deliver in the hen pen? 

 ONE of the joys of keeping chickens is collecting their eggs towards the end of the day and now I'm picking up around nine from my dozen hens which I reckons is quite a good payback.

 At this rate I'll be setting up a roadside "eggs for sale" sign and operating an honesty box. Some of our visitors to the Borders are still talking about the concept with incredulity and commenting on how such a system could never work in the South ... a sad indictment on the age we live in, perhaps.

 But something decidedly odd has been happening in recent days - one of the Scots Dumpys is laying miniature eggs containing no yolk only egg white. I told hubby that we should market them as Californian Crackers for folk who don't want a yolk in their omlette but, of course, we can't guarantee the culprit will continue laying yolkless eggs for the rest of her laying life.

 I'm not sure who is the culprit - it can't be Josephine as she is sitting on a clutch of eggs having gone all broody - but the phenomenon sent me diving into the books and making phone calls to find out what is going on.

 Mis-shapen eggs are not that unusual - it's just supermarkets never put them out on the shelves and egg producers usually discard them.

 So far I've gleaned  that it can be a common occurrence in new layers who are still trying to sync their reproductive system, or it could be a lack of grit and oyster shell or it could be a sudden shock just as the egg is travelling down through the hen's system.

 Well my Dumpys by now should have no problems with their reproductive system and so I will put some extra oyster shell into the hen pen to avoid any more yolkless eggs which are known in the trade as fart eggs. I kid you not, that's what they're called - don't shoot the message folks, I'm merely passing on some inside knowledge.

COCKERELS PUT IN THE SIN BIN

RELUCTANT RUBY: Housebound

and egg bound 

.. Hens give troublesome trio the red card

 I'M STILL dithering about launching into a full breeding programme with the Scots Dumpys which will mean segregating the cockerels from the hens and then pairing up selected couples and building different pens.
 Once I do that when I incubate eggs I will have a rough idea of what is going to hatch whereas at the moment it's a bit of a pot-pourri. Serious breeders must be reading this with equal measures of disgust and horror, I've no doubt.
 So in the hen pen it's a bit of a free for all which causes its own problems as the hens just want to focus on laying eggs and chillin' and the cockerels want to do what they do.
 The result has been chaos so I've put Napoleon, Horatio and Jumpin' Jack in the poultry equivalent of the sin bin these last few days to give the girls a break and a chance to restore their ruffled feathers and dignity. Poor Ruby was egg bound last week, she was so stressed out she wouldn't leave her little blue home pictured above and to the right . I gave her a warm bath, 20 minute massage, copious amounts of top dollar virgin olive oil at both ends, and then steamed her bottom. After a quiet overnight stay in the kitchen she resumed normal service which was a relief - I really did not want to get out the rubber gloves! An egg block is potentially fatal.

WRONG SIDE OF THE WIRE: Jack, Horatio & Napoleon

 But it was one of those straw-breaking moments and so I decided my three cockerels would have to spend their days on the outside looking in. In the first instance it did create a sort of unity and adversity so old spats and rivalries were set aside while they stood staring and glaring at the indignity of being on the wrong side of the wire.
 Many poultry breeders are surprised that three of my 15 Scots Dumpys are cockerels and that they all live together in the same pen quite happily. Of course they do have their moments but in the pecking order of things Napoleon is the boss and he runs a disciplined outfit.
 Dumpys really are a lovely breed and they are very friendly, each one is a character. Quite why they've become an endangered species is beyond me.

SILO SNIPPET

..OR breaking news

 I am so EGGstatic, EGGcited and EGGlated - OK so that last one was stretching the point a bit, but I've just received news that 10 of my Scots Dumpys eggs have hatched in an incubator not far from my home in the Borders.
 Can't wait to go over and see the little 'uns and try and work out which hens are the mums and which cockerels are the dads! I will, of course, be more organised in future ... I took the term 'free range' too literally but at least they're all the same breed.
 Tonight the Scots Dumpys endangered species can rest a little more easy.
 Watch this space ..

NATURE OR NURTURE

.. Or should we give a helping hand?

OUTDOOR SUPER SCOUT: Davy
Crockett portrayed by Fess Parker

  HOT on the heels of his success of  finding a dead fox while out for a stroll, my city-based husband now thinks he's a cross between American frontier legend Davy Crockett and British super sleuth Sherlock Holmes. So when I threw him the latest countryside conundrum he went off into the great outdoors with an air of confidence bordering on smug.
 For more than a week now one of the turkeys goes AWOL within minutes of being let out in the morning. She feeds with the others and then wanders off, usually when I'm not looking, only to reappear several hours later after I've already convinced myself some harm has befallen her. My routine on a morning is to first open up the turkey house and place their feed a few yards away on the ground outside. By the time I go to the hen pen and release the Scots Dumpys the turkeys begin to wander into the yard towards their feed and usually peer disdainfully through the wire mesh as the hens scramble for their food. And it is in these few minutes that one of the Three Degrees seizes the moment and goes off on her mystery mission, it's as though she completely vanishes into thin air leaving behind staggs Ant & Dec, Little Boots and her two sisters.

VANISHING ACT: Five 
turkeys but where's the sixth?

 Twice now I've tried to follow her but as soon as she turns round the corner of the building and down a series of steps in the 12 seconds it takes to follow her she's gone. Her colouring as a Bourbon Red is very striking but once in woodland her feathers seem to blend perfectly into the background. I recounted all of this in detail to hubby and he vowed he'd find her, after all he found the fox didn't he? Two mornings running he failed to come up with anything but with each day he became more determined and then the Eureka! moment happened. And just as he stumbled across the dead fox this great find also happened by accident. He was working in a wooded area below the hen pen when he heard something stirring in a pile of branches, twigs and sticks he'd bundled some weeks earlier against a gable wall. Expecting to see a rat or squirrel, or something equally furry he watched and waited and to his amazement a furtive-looking turkey hen crawled through the bracken, almost limbo dancing between the branches, to emerge from her secret den. After she left, he poked around the pile of branches that you can see in the picture, below left. they're in the foreground wedged between to gable end-style supporting walls. His search was duly rewarded as he discovered no less than half a dozen eggs.

HIDE & SEEK: Can you spot the nest?

 Experiencing a mixture of excitement and irritation as he relayed the news to me I grabbed a bowl and we went off to the site to check out his story. Over the next 20 minutes we were at loggerheads over what to do. My instincts told me to collect the large speckled eggs and wait for the arrival of my incubator but he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is insisted that I let Nature take its course.
 On the one hand the turkey has shown a protective instinct, found a superb location to lay eggs and it is well sheltered if and when she is ready to sit on them. On the other hand, she's not a year old, this is her first batch of eggs and she has no experience of life as a mother; add to that she is used to sleeping inside a warm stable on an evening how will she cope with at least 25 nights under the stars? May be it's just luck that no predators have spotted her secret nest so far, but when she spends 24/7 for 25 days sitting on the nest she might not be as lucky.
 Hubby has gone back to London now,  and today I thought I would make a quick check of the nest. Here are a couple of pictures which will give you an idea of how well camouflaged she is to the human eye, but what about a fox?

SPOT THE BIRD: Can you see her?

GOTCHA: A clearer closer 
shot of the mum-to-be 

 As you can see from the picture left, she is very well hidden. I didn't see her but I stuck my camera phone into the bracken and clicked away not quite knowing what I was snapping and truth be told, I didn't realise she was in there at all because she remained completely silent throughout. I was merely trying to establish how many eggs she had laid and if they were still there so it took a while to spot her in this photograph, a bit like those babyscan pictures they show in hospitals to expectant mums, most of us sit there nodding enthusiastically too embarrassed to say we can't spot the baby. If you still can't see her check out the smaller picture above, on the right, which was taken from a slightly closer overhead angle. So what do you advise? Should I trust Nature or should I intervene, grab the eggs and incubate them in a controlled environment? Nature v Nurture - who wins?

SHORT LEGS MEAN LONG ODDS

.. Or why it's difficult to breed Scots Dumpys

 I CAN proudly announce that the first generation of Ridley-bred Scots Dumpys has hatched, but it has been a very long process punctuated with sadness and great difficulty.
Just a few days ago there was much excitement when my friend Morag called to say two of my Dumpys' eggs had reached the hatching stage and the occupants inside were busy chipping their way out ... she owns an incubator just in case some of you city slickers think country folk sit on eggs in their spare time!

ONE DAY OLD: But sadly only one 

is destined to survive

 Sadly one of the chicks, see the pair of fluffy bundles to the right, survived less than 24 hours after its mammoth struggle to get out of its shell; despite being under a heat lamp it wandered out of the warm zone with another chick and perished in the cold. Why these things happen is anyone's guess. May be it was Nature's way of saying this little one was never going to be strong enough to survive.

 Either way the news came as a blow and yet another reminder of how life and death are regular visitors on my farm.
 The reason why Scots Dumpys are incredibly difficult to breed and why the odds are pretty much stacked against them in the game of life, is that some carry a lethal gene.

 When I first encountered the Scots Dumpy, an endangered species 

of hen with a history dating beyond Roman times, and decided to rear them I had to have a quick lesson in genetics.

 The best of breed possess certain qualities including short legs and a boat like shape which makes them waddle as they walk and the most common colours are black and cuckoo but there are some white out there and I'm told a new reddish brown bird is about to make its appearance soon once it has been officially recognised by The Scots Dumpy Club (http://www.scotsdumpyclub.org.uk/breed/) of which I am a member.

 The very genes associated with desirable traits in the breed, such as the short legs, are actually caused by mutations of normal genes. In the wild many of these birds would have perished as they are often easier targets for predators.

NAPOLEON: Is he the father of the new chick - only

time will tell when its feathers come through

 Anyway, here's the science bit. The genes occur in pairs - one received from the bird's mother and one from its father - and if the dominant genes are associated with short legs, for instance, then the chick will have short legs.  However, these dominant mutant genes that give short legs in Scots Dumpy are also associated with problems during incubation and as such chicks with two copies of these genes might never hatch.

 The presence of the Scots Dumpys' lethal genes means your hatch rate is automatically reduced by 25% before you even start to breed. It seems the odds were even higher against mine ... for instance, I gave Morag 15 eggs and only two reached the hatching stage and then, sadly, only one survived more than 24 hours. I've now given her another batch of eggs and we're hoping for a better success rate. I am hoping to acquire an incubator soon so I will be able to incubate the eggs myself and I will write on the subject of incubation in more detail in the coming weeks.
 In the meantime I will give regular progress reports and updated snippets on the first 'Ridley' Scots Dumpy. With a bit of luck I should take possession of him or her in three months time. At the moment it's far too soon to know the hen's sex let alone its colouring or the length of its legs.

A DAY AT THE SPA

.. Wash 'n' Go

 My hens are normally a happy little bunch of chooks but the weather in the Borders has sorely tested their resolve these last few days. We have endured hailstones, snow, wind, rain and blizzards ... all of it and more in just one day and the sun just hasn't popped out at all. Naturally it's enough to drag anyone down in the dumps and more than a few ruffled feathers - literally - have been on display in the hen pen.
 Beryl and Ruby have looked particularly brassed off suffering what could be the poultry equivalent of SAD known as Seasonal Affective Disorder or the Winter Blues and so I decided to bring the girls inside for a pick-me-up. Although I lack the communication skills of Dr Doolittle,  it's very easy to see when a hen is out of sorts and Beryl and Ruby displayed classic symptoms of stooped heads, hunched shoulders and dirty bottoms.
 Out of all my Dumpys, these two take special pride in their appearance and spend hours grooming themsleves away from the rest of the flock. They usually sleep together on a high perch in the smallest hen house and rarely mix with the rest of the crew maintaining a rather aloof manner when wandering around the hen pen. The rest of the hens, with the exception of the cockerels, have a negative reaction to the pair ranging from mild disinterest to resentment to out and out hostility and it's been like that since Day One when they first arrived last Autumn from a farm in Halifax.
 Ruby was named after the colour of her stunning red comb which has become very pale over the winter months and Beryl was named after my Dandy comic hero Beryl the Peril after she knocked the stuffing out of poor Horatio on her first day in the pen.
 But back to the Spa Day - I have kept a video diary so you can see the special effects of what a nice shampoo and blow dry will do.

                                                    Stage 1 - Damsels in Distress .. 
As you can see the girls are showing signs of being SAD

Stage 2 - The bath time blues ..

The bath time blues leave this Beryl wondering if the spa day was such a good idea 

                                                   Stage 3 - WET, WET, WET ..

As mad as a wet hen. A good tonic? Ruby looks as though she's had a few gin 'n' tonics instead

                                                Stage 4 - Bring on the blow dryer ..

Still no sunshine but that hot air is most welcome; things are beginning to improve

                  

                                                Stage 5 - Alls well that ends well

Two happy hens emerge rested and relaxed from their spa day with shiny feathers and fluffy bottoms - anyone for a manicure or massage?

* A word of caution - I couldn't find any poultry shampoo so I used a very mild baby shampoo in warm water and stayed clear of the ears and head area. It took nearly three hours to blow dry them on a warm setting and don't get too close otherwise you could end up roasting your chicken! Don't try and get them bone dry, either and once you've finished let them dry thoroughly in a warm place for an hour or so before putting them outside otherwise they could catch cold or worse.