wrote in message And it looks like I spoke
too soon about the mites, found a few the past day
or two. Although nothing like they were, and the little chickens are
looking a bit healthier (not so anaemic), and one has started to lay quite
surprisingly large eggs! (And one looks very white, so we think she
probably went through a moult)

If she looks very white she is anaemic and the probably cause of that is red
mite. They do not IME go white when they moult although the combs shrink as
they stop laying but their faces should always be pink when they are out of
lay and bright red when they are.

Tina




Your old hens, if you get fed up with them not laying as much as you
want,
can be used to make nice stock for soup.

Aww. What a waste of a friendly little bok-bok. :-(

Myself, I just let them "geriatric around" when they get old, giving me
the
occasional egg, but I have room for that without it making a difference
about getting some young ones.

I think the 6 we currently have is our capacity, when we had 7 it had a
bit
of a cramped feel. As it is, I did open up the roost box one night to
check
they were all ok and found speckledy sat on the back of the nera! (who
didn't seem at all perturbed, amusingly)