I'm so excited....brought the first proper bowl of raspberries in this evening. I can't wait but I'm going to force myself - fresh raspberries on my muesli for breakfast will make it all worthwhile!
And another first today - a full house in the egg collecting basket...6 eggs today so one from each (even my poor poorly Delia) which means Bluey is now laying, but unfortunately not the much awaited greeny-blue egg, instead a very pale cream, not as pure white as Delia but more a sort of tasteful ivory. But now production is picking up:
As mentioned above, my lovely flighty Delia is poorly sick, as the children say. I will try to photograph her tomorrow for opinions, but despite my initial thoughts that she was being bullied and pecked, it now looks more likely that its avian pox. This as first terrified me and I panicked wondering how I could quarantine her from the others... However upon further research the consensus seems to be that dry avian pox, tho uncomfortable for 3-5weeks is unlikely to kill, and she should emerge afterwards immune to further attacks and her laying rate should pick back up again. Meanwhile, the rest of the flock will already have been exposed to her and so it will probably work it's way slowly around each of them. As they free range, and its impossible to prevent them being bitten by mosquitoes which are the most likely introducer of the initial virus, there doesn't seem much else I can do. So I am putting daily apple cider vinegar in the plastic waterer, to hopefully boost her up a bit, and she is eating and drinking happily enough. It's just her legs seem to irritate her and she seems to snuggle up and snooze a little more than the others. Perhaps I should acquire some of the purple healing spray stuff from the farmers shop, to help stop the scabs getting a bacterial infection...? Hopefully a more experienced chicken owner amongst you might kindly share your thoughts for me tomorrow, once I've got some photos up of her for you to see xxx
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