Christmas 2010

Darling Nickie

Christmas 2010 was, like everything else, a mixed bag. Sure, our house flooded and we had to move furniture and rip out carpets on Christmas Eve, but we also got together as a family and made candy to give as Christmas gifts. And even the act of cleaning up after the flood done as a family put a silver lining on a dark cloud.

Nickie's pretty brown egg

Nickie began laying eggs a few days before Christmas, and now she and Esther lay almost an egg a day. It's been two weeks since they were medicated, so their eggs are now safe to eat again.

Bumble

The silkies started eating from my hand a few days ago, and now they go nuts whenever they see me, not because they love me but because they love spinach. Although, today, Bumble jumped out of the brooder and onto the table and when I picked her up to put her back in, she didn't freak out. In fact, I even got her to eat from my hand while I held her for a minute. That felt like progress.

Happy Holidays!

It's Christmas week and I'm not quite ready for it. I've been sewing and stringing my little heart out, but somehow I am not quite prepared. Christmas sneaks up on me just about every year but this year it was almost Ninja. They say that time flies whether you're having fun or not and it hasn't been that fun on the old homestead of late. We lost two of our beloved birds, Mary and Bev. Mary was such a sweetie, and so beautiful I was thinking about showing her. Her silver feathers looked like someone outlined each one with charcoal pencil, really quite lovely. Bev looked like a picture from a catalog. Classic White-crested Black Polish. She was also very sweet and she was my little pal in the yard. Being virtually blinded by her giant crest, she would get separated from the flock and then would cry like a kitten. I would call her,  "kittykitty" and she would rush over to me so I could lead her to where the rest of the girls were gathered.

Bev's loss was so sudden it really caught us by surprise. When I let the girls out Friday morning she seemed quite healthy and was patiently waiting for Esther to finish using the nest so that she could lay her egg. Saturday when I went to let them out, she was obviously quite ill. I did what I could, but she was gone by noon. I did more research and settled on the theory that the ladies had succumbed to tracheal worms. Yes, it sounds disgusting, but most animals have parasites, including humans. All of the research and planning I did convinced me that free ranging was the best and healthiest way to raise backyard chickens, but in the end it's what did them in. Now the birds that I had hoped to raise free of chemicals needed to be given poison, basically. The eggs that we had waited for now were unfit for consumption for two weeks after the treatment. Sigh. Live and learn.

We wormed the flock and now we are trying a more organic anti-worm regimen, diatomaceous earth, cayenne and garlic. At least it makes their poop smell a little better.

No Such Things As a Chicken Expert...

Our lil flock lives in a coop made from re-purposed materials, put together with barely a plan other than to make it comfortable and secure. It's set in the yard is an unobtrusive spot where it sort of blend in with the landscape. It looks nice and homey and it works for us. If I had it to do again, I would have designed it a little better. It would be impossible to get power to it where it is in the center of our large yard and solar is out of the question so the birds are only exposed to natural light. My family came over for Thanksgiving dinner, and everyone wondered about the eggs, so I explained how their laying is directly affected by the hours of daylight and since they get no artificial light, they probably wouldn't lay til Spring. I'm fine with that and my husband told me he didn't care if they ever laid eggs, as long as they make me happy. Which they do. The day after Thanksgiving I was cleaning out the coop when I noticed that the grass in the nest box was very trampled. I thought it was odd, so I peeked inside and found three eggs! Needless to say I was shocked. I had given up checking it because I was so sure they wouldn't lay til Spring, and they never gave any of the 'signs' that they would be laying soon. No shell-less eggs, no squatting, no new chicken sounds. One of the main lessons I have learned through my recent experiences is that there are no absolute truths when it comes to raising poultry. Just a lot of probably. For example, everything I've read says that chickens lay their eggs usually by 9:00 or 10:00. Not my girls. I've seen them lay in the afternoon, and in fact I went to clean their coop a few days ago and there was Bev, laying an egg. It was 4:00pm.

My 'egg-citement' was short lived however, because I noticed that Mary wasn't acting quite right. I went online to see if I could find any help. Based on the symptoms and the fact that the girls were starting to lay, I was leaning towards a diagnosis of egg binding, a condition where the egg gets stuck inside the chicken. Sounds awful and unfortunately, it can be fatal. I didn't feel an egg inside her when I rubbed her belly, and she was pretty skinny, but I tried the home remedy anyway. At least it wouldn't harm her. I gave her a nice warm bath in my old dish tub. Surprisingly, she really liked it. I rubbed her belly while she soaked and when the water cooled off, I dried her off and wrapped her it a towel and carried her around for a while. The next morning, she acted a little better, scratching and pecking with the other girls. But soon she was off by herself, displaying sick symptoms again. I felt again for an egg, but didn't find one. I went online again to see if there was any information out there. Very few vets will treat a chicken, and I don't have money to run a bunch of expensive lab tests anyway, so I had to rely on home treatments. It seemed there was no definitive diagnosis out in cyberspace. I didn't know what to do except to isolate her and try to get her to eat and drink. I fixed her some "chicken soup" which is made FOR chickens, not FROM chickens, but she didn't really want it. She passed that night. She was such a sweetie, and she was so pretty. I was sad.

The next day, I was giving the flock their scratch and I noticed Bev wasn't joining in on the feast, so I called her, "Kitty kitty!" That's how I call my birds. I think it sounds better than "Chick chick". Bev is almost always that first to come running when I call out. She is so blinded by her crest that I frequently have to lead her around the yard to the food. No Bev, and I started to worry, then I saw her huddled up in the corner of the side yard and my heart sank. She was laying down with her feathers all fluffed up, just like Mary had done. Oh no. I picked her up to comfort her and to my astonishment, uncovered a clutch of five eggs. Bev was setting on a nest of eggs. Whew!! What a relief.

I realize now that there is no such thing as a chicken expert. Chickens are all different and do pretty much what they want. My Easter-egger, Esther, is not sweet and lovable like the 'experts' said she would be. She is a nice bird, but does not want to sit in my lap and be petted. My Polish pullet, Bev, is a prolific layer, even though the experts say Polish are only so-so. And the Dominique hasn't laid yet. Of course, with these short days, I wasn't even expecting any eggs, so they are all welcome surprises.

 

R.I.P. Mary

Ups and Downs Part II

They quail were happily living in their new home and I just love to listen to their sweet songs.  Time to roll out Phase 2 of my plan.  Trust me, I have a plan. See, the whole thing with the ducks was that we wanted eggs, but we also wanted meat. I much prefer chicken, but my little flock is part of the family, and there will be no baby chicks because there is no rooster. That's why we went with ducks. Male ducks are no more noisy than female ducks, which, as it turns out, are kind of noisy. Although I would have loved and cared for my ducks, once they were gone I didn't want to replace them with more ducks. It was a failed endeavor, so I scrapped that plan and came up with another. Quail will lay eggs with no males present, but they will also breed readily, or so I have read. We are still waiting. My quail flock was about a mix of male and female so the plan was to split them into breeding groups of one male to two females and, gosh I hate to say this but we'll probably eat the extra males. Sounds harsh, I know, but I eat meat every day and I think it would be hypocritical of me to balk at killing and eating animals I raised. The fly in this ointment is that domesticated quail rarely set on their own eggs. The eggs must be incubated, or set under a foster mother.

Phase 2: Silkies. Doing research online I found that overall, Silkies were thought to be the best foster parents for hatching the eggs of other birds. There were a few other choices such as Cochins, but since quail eggs are so small, I thought Silkie Bantams would make more sense, plus they are super cool looking and have a reputation of being very sweet birds. Time to get some Silkies! Of course, mid-Fall is not the best time to order day old chicks. And there is only on place that offers sexed day-old Silkies, My Pet Chicken. No problem, really, because that's where my lil chicken flock came from and besides having an amazing selection of chicks, they are super nice and give great customer service. As Fate would have it, just about the only chicks available in November were Blue Silkies. After my experience with not being able to tell the ducks apart, I would have preferred to order a variety of chick colors, but since that was not possible I felt the next best solution was to order the Blue. Having ordered three Blue Polish chicks for my lil chicken flock, I knew that they can turn out looking quite different from one another, and with the Silkies, it would be even more so. There were color variations, as well as possibilities for different crests and beards.

Two weeks later I was picking up a peeping box at my local Post Office. So exciting! The chicks were incredibly adorable. They were so tiny and fuzzy. I got them all set up in their nice warm brooder and just stared at them most of the afternoon. The first day they sleep a lot, but it's still hilarious to me. They will just fall asleep, mid action. So cute. That night, I noticed something was a little off. One of the chicks seemed to have a hurt leg. It wasn't as active as the other babies and was having a hard time getting around to the food and water. I knew that chicks can live for a few day without food, it's what makes them perfect for mail order, but soon this baby was going to need to be able to feed itself. The next morning I called MPC to ask them what I should do and they were super helpful providing me with information sources, but basically my only option was to try some home remedies and let Nature take it's course. I tried stretching the leg to get the tendon back into place, to no avail. I tried to splint it but the chick freaked out. I tried to isolate the chick but it wasn't having any of that either. It seemed like my attempts to aid the chick were only causing it pain and stress so I just decided to back off and hope that it would get right on its own. I was beside myself with worry over this chick, meanwhile I was eating chicken for dinner. It made me feel even worse.

The chicks were two weeks old Monday and the injured bird is still hanging on. It is terrified of me. I really wanted these chickens to trust me and be very comfortable around me, after all I need them to adopt my quail eggs and hatch them as their own. I chose them for their loving personalities, but they are scared whenever I put my hand into their cage. I'm hoping this fear will fade once they realize the food they eat comes from me. It's a great way to win over just about any creature.