March 25, 2015: A Hatching Birthday to You

 I adopted 5 baby chicks on Saturday, March 28! The flock needs an influx of youngsters. Chickens do slow down in the egg-laying department as they age and since 3 of mine are 4 years old and Amelia is 3, this is definitely happening.

...Oh, by the way, Amelia recovered from the grass episode, but now she has a droopy left wing. I suspect one of the Mean Girls grabbed her at the shoulder blade and might have broken or tweaked something. She can't turk it up and under like normal, but doesn't seem to be in pain or limited mobility, so I am just watching! I could wrap her wing, but that's an invitation for pecking abuse by the others and she really hates moving to a hospital cage for recovery. So, it's live as you can...

Steve built a chick nursery. It's expandable as the chicks grow and need more space! We edged it with cardboard and it has wheels so I can wheel them out for some supervised fresh air.

Portable Chick Nursery

Back to chicks...Well, a local supplier was getting 600 newbies in on Friday so I thought I was sooooo clever and raced down to Napa on Saturday morning at 8:30 only to find that they only had 4 ... YES 4! ... left.  I was about to cry, when she said 2 Buttercups and 2 Silkies....Oh, Someone was watching out for me, because I wanted 2 more Buttercups for Amelia to have breed-friends! YAY, scooped them up, and raced home with the car heater on to 84 to keep them warm. Into the brooder box and then off to Santa Rosa. [this means up the mountain from Napa, stop at the barn and down the mountain to the other side into Santa Rosa]. 

At Western Farm, I was lucky to get 2 of the other breeds I wanted: Ameracauna [lays blue or green eggs] and a Welsummer. I wanted a Black Sex Link, but they had Gold Sex Link instead so I took her. [Sex links mean they are easily 'sexed' at birth by coloration to know males from females which is not so in most of the other breeds.] ...Raced home with them and all 5 happily chirping away under the heat light in the nursery in the barn.

Newbies under the heat lamp, staying warm

My goal is to work my way through the alphabet with naming chickens.
                        This group is H-I-J-K-L.... so we have
                     Hosta .... Ivy.... Jasmine ..... Kiwi ..... Lilly
Notice a trend? Last group was mostly 'attributes' hence Curious, Fearless and Gabby...this group is plants. [Amelia was named for Amelia Earhart, since she is a flyer! But the "A" kept my trend going].


 Here's Hosta, the Ameracauna.....she's not yellow, it's the camera. Right now she is carmel colored and will have a 'ruff' at her cheeks

Jasmine is a Gold Sex Link and a beautiful blonde!

These are the 2 Sicilian buttercups, Ivy and Kiwi. You can see a little difference in the black eyeliner. 



Kiwi is very curious and is showing leadership in the pecking order already! There a battle between her and Hosta, as she is also a strong personality.

And, here is baby Lilly. She is a Welsummer and right now, a runt! Smaller that the other 4, quiet and naps more. She seems to get easily over-run at the feeding trough. I am worried about her size and behaviour, but she is perky, not acting sick...so maybe she will catch up.




Thanks to my sweet friend, Brenna, for holding each one while they had their photo taken! Her favorite? Little Lilly! 

February 29, 2015: There's Always Something

...yes there is...and this time it was chicken Auntie's fault.

A normally perky Amelia

In my exuberance to feed feed feed my 4 girls, I went into the field and collected sprigs of clover and short pieces of grass. Thinking greens were good and the new seeded pasture wasn't ready yet, I tossed all this greenage into the coop Sunday night.

Monday, Amelia was a little off and by Tuesday she was less perky than normal and not really wanting to eat much. The term "picking at her food" pretty much described her actions. I also noticed that the side of her neck was swollen...uh oh. So I googled that and found a lot of information about impacted crop, especially if they eat a lot of grass. And, where did she get grass? Yep...me, the over-feeder. 

The upshot being I had to work on getting the impaction cleared before more deadly side affects set in. I found a great resource, if you are interested...
[Dealing with an impacted crop]

Brought her up to the house and caged her in the garage. Started her on an epsom salt flush - luck to have that in the house - several times that evening.
No food. Forcing water down a chicken's throat without choking her is tricky, but I managed with what I had, an eyedropper. Also, fed her olive oil as a lubricant and massaged the neck up and down, but any attempts to get her to vomit didn't work for me.

Eating breakfast Saturday in the  "hospital"

Wednesday morning, a couple of nasty smelling green, runny poops.
Mixed scrambled egg with Ducolax liquid per the on-line instructions to keep flushing the crop and break up the mass.

Chickens don't have teeth so they don't chew. Everything goes down the throat into the crop where food is stored until digested. It is pushed into the stomach and into the gizzard before being eliminated.

My theory is the long blades of grass got stuck on the way down and formed a nasty mat in the esophagus.

By Thursday, she was slightly better and the neck bulge had gotten better.
I kept up the same routine. She is not happy being caged, so she enjoyed a little playground time standing on the garage floor or sitting on the back of the chair. But, still not the lively Amelia I'm used to.

Friday, she laid an egg! And out came more smelly, green fibers in the poo....Even a distinguishable blade of grass! Bad Auntie. Friday evening, the neck is better: some normal poos which is good. My theory being that we are successfully flushing out the grass lawn!

Today, Saturday 2-28, her neck is almost normal; the hard lumpy mass is quite smaller and her appetite returned. This morning's breakfast was some yogurt [with the Ducolax] to get some good bacteria back into her, a small amount of softened chicken food, all of which she gobbled up. I am still flushing with epsom salt water to keep moving the greens out and I am hoping that tonight I can return her to the coop with her sisters.

Yes, I have learned my lesson: no more grass blades. It is better that they clip off small amounts of grass blades with their beaks; those they can digest easier than a 2" long piece!

stay tuned!....keeping my fingers crossed that we have 100% recovery!

C. I .C.

The C.I.C.....every flock of chickens has one. Come to think of it, I'll bet every group of teenage girls does too!

It is ... the ... Chick In Charge.

From 3 days old, one of my Plymouth Barred Rocks assumed that position by being first to come to my hand and the most interested in what was going on...naturally, when it came to naming, I named her Curious. And, she has been Top Chick ever since.

At this age of 3-1/2, she barely has to look at the others and they scoot out of her way. She is a glutton for any special treat and will growl at the other to warn them away. She will rush to a pile of fresh worm-compast with the yum-yum eating 'purr', the others will try to grab what they can from another part of the pile or other area. But, if she thinks they are getting something she wants, then Curious will rush over and dominate  that area.

Curious will be first to get the treat!

I actually feed Amelia her treats on top of the metal trash can because she is the only one who can get up there; the other tubby ones can rarely hoist themselves up there. It make them mad, haha...especially Fearless who works really hard to stay in 3rd. place, above Amelia and below Gabby (in the #2 spot).

Occasionally, Fearless will try to spar off against Gabby. They puff up and raise their necks and try to peck each other. For the most part, Gabby out does Fearless and she will back down.

No one spars with Curious; in fact, she rarely pecks anyone she is that confident. Fearless will peck Amelia, who always walks away with this attitude of "hey, I'm cool". Then Amelia will circle around behind the others and look for food left behind. She knows she is bottom chick, but it's like she doesn't care.

Even when it comes to resting or dust baths, if Curious wants your spot, you'd better get up and move.....and, she always wants your spot....at least for a while. If you make another dust bath, she might just come to that one, too.

The treat dance is firstly a free-for-all scramble for worms which turns into an orchestrated choreography of movement. Curious dominates, Gabby moves off to another pile, gets a nibble then Curious rushes over to make sure Gabby isn't getting something better. Then Curious moves off to sample something, so Gabby and Fearless move behind her to the vacated position.
Gabby gets testy at Fearless and she moves over to peck Amelia. (Fearless always takes it out on Amelia). Amelia moves in behind Curious for a leftover. Curious growls, Amelia moves off casually keeping to herself, Fearless sees that and makes her move toward Amelia and she agains moves out of the way or on top of the trash can. Amelia is always working to stay away from Fearless. Fearless and Gabby love-hate each other and usually keep a neutrality going. 

Curious is impervious to the dances behind her. She is on top, Number One and always the Chick in Charge!

A Sad Sunday, July 20, 2014

April 7th, I had total knee replacement surgery. It's a bummer recovery and I wasn't able to visit the girls for about 5 weeks until I was sure the stitches had closed up - not wanting any yucky microbes entering my body.

Steve did a great job with Chicken Duty; in fact, they lost weight because they weren't getting the treats from Auntie Karla!

So, Sunday afternoon he went down to close them inside the coop-pen. Four of the Girls were waiting by the main door, but no Evie.

A pretty Evie, Buff Lace Wyandotte

He looked around the back of the coop and found her...dead.
No apparent trauma, just crumpled on the ground.
She was great in the morning when I went down to let them into the pastures, but a little pale on the comb and wattles.
No signs of impacted egg, a killer of chickens; but she hadn't laid an egg for a week. Some feather loss around her rear and very hard to notice because she was so fluffy: could have been mites but they generally aren't killers. Maybe heart issues or massive worms, but I hadn't noticed worms in poo. Maybe just 'her time'.

Such a pretty girl, sweet and shy. She was just above the bottom girl Amelia on the pecking order and seemed to just "take it" from Fearless whenever mean Fearless wanted to get her away from food. She did love pecking greens and corn out of the suet boxes when I would fill them and never shied away from a secret offering of worms, but not really comfortable eating out of my hand.

Chicken Mentor Barb gave me Evie as the replacement to Blondie, who was a meal for the local hawk. I have appreciated having her for these 19 months.

She was a Buff Lace Wyandotte; I would definitely get another one for their beauty and sweet temperment...

Waiting on more new chickens until the knee is functioning better and we get a handle on the sciatica-related issue.

Back to blogging more....stay tuned!