October 29, 2017: I lost the leader of the Flock

I had to put Curious into eternal sleep on Tuesday 10-24.

Everyone is molting. It was always nice to see Curious's dirty butt feathers get replaced with new ones.  Sunday October 22, I went down to the coop and washed her butt off. It was looking more poopy than normal so I thought cleaning it would be a good idea.

Monday she seemed pretty fine but at dinner time, 5 pm, she was already on the perch inside the coop.  I thought that was strange but chalked it up to molting behavior. So, I brought her down and out to eat some treats. She kinda of ate, but then just stood around.
Had I known what was to happen, I would have looked at her butt.

I've been fermenting chicken crumble/powder and feeding them some at night. Mostly in the hopes that it would help Curious eliminate her always dirty butt.

Tuesday morning I go to the coop to give them their morning "salad"
and open the gate to the pastures.

Curious is sitting inside the coop, on the floor. I pick her up.
Oh My God. She's bleeding pretty heavily around the anus and there are lots of [what I thought] worms crawling around and maybe in and out of the anus.

Oh God Oh God. What to do?!  I grabbed a rag to hold over the bleeding because I couldn't tell exactly where it was.  Walked fast up to the house and took another look. Bad. And I know she didn't feel good because she didn't fight me.

Called the vet with the avian doc and drove the 25 minutes in to town.
A long wait at the vet, fitting me in between other patients.
And for some dang reason it was 'dog' day at the vets, the waiting room was full of seniors and their dogs.

I thought she might die before we got to see the vet.

Dr. Lankes took one look at the butt and then looked up at me.
I kinda knew this wasn't good news.

Those weren't worms - they were MAGGOTS !!! !!! !!!
So probably what happened is somehow there was dead or dying tissue that flies laid eggs on. The maggots were about 18 hours old. Did I made a raw spot on Sunday? I feel awful if it was my fault.

And, because they were getting inside her, she probably had some other secondary infection. Basically a septic chicken.

I could take her to the vet hospital at U.C. Davis for expensive treatment, but no guarantees for a complete cure.

.....Or, I could say good-bye and put her out of her misery.

I asked the vet if I could just take her home for the last remaining time and she kindly looked at me and said that would be a cruel way to let her die.

So, I said my good-byes to my Leader, the grand-dame of the coop and one of my best egg layers.

I was able to bring her home and bury her in the chicken cemetery next to Dolly, Evie, Blondie and Amelia.

Here she is on the right with her two original sisters, Gabby and Fearless.

I think Fearless might take over the Flock leader spot, but Jasmine is a good second choice.  After the molt, it will be interesting to see how the power structure shifts and who wins out.

We just go through all the Santa Rosa fires, with our mountain being spared! And, then this.....

Bye Curious. I sure will miss you!

June 2017 and Almost Summer

 Our Chicken Hilton looked like shantytown over the winter with plastic and tarps along the front edge to keep out the rain. Unlike ducks, chickens aren't fans of wet feathers and are not out scratching around if it's raining.  The tarps keeps the whole area dry with a couple little peek-out areas. On sunny days, I roll up the tarps and let in the air and sunshine.

Meanwhile, when it warms up I re-seed the outdoor pastures and the girls get to take advantage of breakfast salad. Something funny - when they eat too many greens, there is a greenish cast to the poo.
Hahaha - roughage! So then I end up portioning off the pasture and not letting them free-feed.

Plus, the flock can scratch, eat and go thru the whole 8 x 12 area in a couple of days. At least by giving them a little at a time, it makes it last longer. Rotationally, the other side is growing, too.

It's funny to see them trying to get inside the fencing: I guess they can see or smell that fresh green foliage. Sometimes, Jasmine and Kiwi figure out how to duck under the fence and get inside, stomp around and munch. When I come down at the end of the day to close them inside the big pen, they are waiting to get out only because they perceive that I have something better to eat than salad!

For the pastures, I use a mix of seeds: barley, various kale and lettuce, wheat, alfalfa, and various clovers depending on the time of year. And I learned early on that I have to cover the whole area with a plastic tarp during germination or else the roving band of juncos will get in and eat all the seeds. Oh yeah, a sparsely germinated field means those little birdies got a free lunch....
 

      

You'll notice that my 'pastures' are top-covered with a green plastic "fencing", in rolls at Home Depot.

It's the best flying predator control I've found and I zip-tie the overlapped edges so nothing can crawl in.

So far, knock on wood, it's worked great.  Now about 6 years later it is kind of staring to get brittle and probably will have to replace soon.  But, for the investment, it's a great solution.

[See earlier blog on loosing Blondie to a hawk when we let the girls free range].

Flock Dynamics and the New Year

It was a busy 2016 with our landscape company getting busier and keeping up with chores around our property.

Except for Jasmine, all the girls have been molting and not laying eggs. Physiologically, they generally don't lay eggs and grow feathers: both taking similar proteins to do that. So, I'm down to 1 egg a day.

Molting is not a beautiful thing. Here's Curious growing new butt 
feathers. The good thing is it gets rid of her always-poopy butt for a while.

When winter sets in with  shorter daylight, the egg production drops. Chickens lay the best when they have 12 to 14 hours of daylight. In December with short days and without supplemental lighting in the coop, production stops or slows way down....well, except for Jasmine aka
"Egg Laying Machine". 



Commercial egg farms use artificial light to stimulate continuous egg production and the chickens 'burn out' sooner. I turn on a low voltage an automatic light around 7 a.m. so they can see to get down off the roosts. [chickens have poor night vision].

My flock is composed of the Old Girls [ Curious, Fearless and Gabby] and the New Flock [Hosta, Jasmine, Ivy, Kiwi and Lilly]. The leaders are Curious and Jasmine. The lowest are Gabby and Hosta. 

In 2015 during the molt, Fearless mounted a coup agains Gabby and moved up to 2nd place. Gabby, always being more gentle natured, just accepted the move and she has higher ranking than the New Girls. She won't hesitate to peck someone if they are getting her food treat, however. 

Hosta gets pecked on by everyone. And, she is such a sweet girl, too.
She has learned how to dance around the others to get a tasty bite of scratch or other offered goodie.  Lilly seems to be particularly harsh to Hosta, partially to make sure that she maintains her ranking higher than Hosta.

Ivy is mean to both Hosta and to Lilly - not wanting either one to get something to eat that she wants. A peck or a chase away just adds to the dance that the 2 lower girls have to do so that they can also get a goodie.

Curious growls at everyone. And, you know its a growl, not a chirp or a coo or a cackle. She just barely has to look at another chicken and they move away. A growl clearly means "stay away from my food or else..." Even Fearless gets the growl if the food stakes are high.

In the 2 flocks that I've had, there is always one girl I call the Coop Mistress. She seems to be the one that reads me the riot act if I'm inside the coop cleaning the floor or nest boxes. Gabby and Lilly have that title. Whenever I go inside the coop, its not long until they come in and chortle at me. It's like they have to keep tabs on what the human is doing inside: it does really agitate them if I spend too much time there! And, no one likes it if I'm cleaning up while they are on the nest box doing business!! 

Lilly is also the lookout: she makes the first alert call when she hears me coming thru the big gate that surrounds our olive trees, chicken coop, barn, compost pile and pepper garden. Then, everyone crowds the door knowing I bring snacks.

Kiwi ranks 2nd to Jasmine, and I think she'd be first, but she is smaller than Jasmine. They have to know what the other is doing: neither one is getting one-up on the other. I've watched the subtle interplay when one is eating or exploring and might have something interesting - the other one will rush over saying "You aren't going to out do me! Give me that!" Sometimes a steal occurs, or a deflection with a tap dance to move away.