Christmas and Miracles to be thankful for,

below are some stories of survival in my chicken flock. Chickens are really fragile animals and by the time one doesn't look right, it's really a medical emergency usually and if not treated promptly they will not make it. Treatment can be tricky because they generally do not cooperate.
Unfortunately we had one recent loss of one of my Buckeye hens. Everything was fine during my routine checks during the day, I had to go to work later in the afternoon and when I came home in the dark I noticed her missing. I searched everywhere, and when I was almost ready to give up, I thought about looking behind the crate in the goat shed, and there she was, she must have tried to jump into the corner not realizing the space was too tight, she was dead when I found her, it was so sad and I know her sister misses her. They were always together and I saw her sister go to that spot and look around, she must have been there when it happened. What's even more sad is that I thought about moving that crate several days earlier when I found Whitney sitting in it in the dark after laying her egg there. If I hadn't looked for her the goats may have sat on her. So I started going out there after it got dark every day to make sure no chicken was in there. I planned on moving that crate out sometimes soon. I really wish I had moved it the first time I thought about it.

Souzie looking intentently to figure out if I have some treats for her, she is one of my new Maran pullets. They hatched just a week prior to me getting my Welsummers, Wyandottes and the Hamburg,

This is Mindy, she is a new Ameraucana hen that I couldn't resist taking home when I got the Marans. She is smallish, I love her color, she is a smart little cookie and lays a pretty large bluish green egg, the bluest of all my Ameraucanas. She is over a year old and went through molt when I brought her home, but has nicely feathered out now and has gained weight. She is such a beautiful girl.

This is Souzie in all her glory, the Maran eggs were bought and hatched by a lady in Vegas, seems like the eggs she got came from somebody who mixed the different colors of Marans together. I think they are very pretty pullets and I like their calm dispositions, but they aren't the standard colors of Marans as far as I can tell.

Souzie again

This is Sophie flapping her wings,

cute little Mindy

Mindy on the go,

Sophie is very pretty, she hasn't been doing too well ever since I got her, wasn't eating, pale and didn't respond well to treatment for common chicken ailments like parasites and coccidiosis, then she got sour crop, took her to the vet last weekend and got some medication for her sour crop, she seems to be getting better now, today she has been outside eating fresh greens and she ate some bread, not sure how much regular chicken food she ate, I am still medicating her 4 times a day and give her some supplemental tube feeding, but she is doing a lot better than she did 2 weeks ago. So I am hopeful to be able to pull her through. Part of the problem that she wasn't getting better faster with the sour crop was that the medication is generally ordered every 12 hours in birds. So I looked up how this medication is given in humans with thrush, and sure enough, it's 4 times a day, so after switching her to 4 times a day she has made a turn for the better.

one of my Buff Orpingtons

Welsummer egg comparisons, last week all 4 of my Welsummer pullets laid an egg two days in a row, so I tried to line up the ones from each hen based on color and shape of the egg. Whitney's eggs are the second from the left, so are on the larger side and have the darkest shell with very even coloring. I do like the shiny ones a lot also.

egg sizes, the small cream color one on the bottom left is from my little Spangled Hamburgh, the one to the right of it is from my Welsummer pullet Whitney, top row from left to right, green egg from my mixed breed hen, green egg from one of my Ameraucanas, brown egg from Barred Rock

green and blueish egg, the one on the bottom right is from Mindy, my new Ameraucana hen

different shades of brown eggs

this egg is really a miracle, it is from my almost 4 year old Delaware hen Pearl. She had stopped laying eggs when she was a bit over one year old, then she got really sick last year in fall and after weeks of me treating her she miraculously recovered and looked better than ever - and she started laying eggs again. Then this year (2010), she got sick again exactly at the same time when she started molting heavily, again she was sick with a mushy/sour crop for several weeks, again she recovered despite my fears of losing her, and she started laying eggs again, and this time her eggs are just perfect. this is her egg above, nice shape, glossy shell, she hand't laid eggs like that since she was a young pullet. This is truly amazing.

This is Pearl on Christmas Day of 2010, she looks great and has beautiful new feathers. She has a special place in my heart after taking care of her when she was sick twice. It seems to me that when they go through a fast molt they are more prone to getting sick. The ones that go slower seem to deal better with it.

Pearl's neck feathers, I have noticed that with each molt she gets more black in her feathers.

This is Whitney, another miracle, I wrote about her in previous posts, I had to hand/tube feed her from when she was 3 weeks old until she was almost over 4 months old because she was having such difficulty eating on her own. It's a miracle I noticed it in time she had a problem and miracle she survived to the point of being able to eat on her own. She still has some issues with eating, but we are able to manage. She spends the days outside with the flock, she does eat and drink while she is outside, then in the evenings I bring her inside so she can catch up on eating and drinking in case she didn't get enough during the day, she stays inside a few hours in the mornings so she can eat and drink before going outside for the day. This has worked very well for her and I am so happy that she can lead such a normal chickie life now. She is accepted by the rest of the flock and she enjoys her outside time.

Here I caught her when she jumped up on the chair and from there on the table, she had never done that before.

She was very interested in the artificial plant.

she pecked at it for a while before she figured there was nothing to eat for her

then she hopped on the other chair with my jacket on it. At that point I moved her because I didn't want her to poop on my jacket

Here she is moving along

here she is right in the middle of everybody taking a dust bath

Tippi is another miracle, the pics above and below are taken on Christmas Day, look at the comb and wattles, being nice and red.

this picture above was taken about 4 weeks ago, comb was paler and smaller

the picture above was her 6 months ago, pale and all shriveled up, she is almost 4 years old, she was pale like this and even worse for a long time, despite all my efforts of treating for cocciciosis and parasites and extra nutrition, she hasn't laid any eggs for a long time. I have discovered a new treatment for coccidiosis and I believe her dramatic improvement is due to this new treatment. She has actually started laying eggs again this week, but unfortunately the shell is very thin and soft. I am keeping up hope that this may improve as her health improves. I am so happy this girl is doing so much better.

And here is my Wyandotte who caught a mouse. She killed the mouse with me being right next to her as I was fixing my drip lines a few weeks ago, then she ran around the yard with the dead mouse for about 10 minutes until she finally found a place where nobody followed her.

she was shaking it and shaking it, my guess is to prepare it for swallowing. She then tried to swallow it but she only got it halfway down, that mouse was too big. So I caught the hen with the mouse stuck in her throat and pulled the mouse back out (by the tail), she held on to that mouse for dear life, but I did get it away from her and threw it into the garbage so nobody else would try eating it. I have heard not too long ago from somebody who lost a hen to suffocation trying to swallow a mouse, I am not going to watch one of mine doing that anymore, I used to let them eat the mice, but now I rather they not try that anymore.

Calli is another miracle. A few weeks ago on a Saturday evening I was going around picking up dog poop, as I walked by the goat pen, I wondered about the chicken feathers lying outside the fenced chicken area. Then I noticed Sam, one of my Anatolians appearing like she was guarding something, she aggressively kept her brother away from where she was. My heart sank, as I started looking for what she was guarding, I found one of my white hens in the grass, I was sure she was dead. I picked her up and to my surprise she was alive, but so weak she could not even hold up her head, she was breathing heavily. I brought her into the house and looked her over carefully, no blood anywhere, but she was so weak I was afraid she would die from exhaustion.

I let her sit in the safety of the house for 30 minutes but she did not get any better, just laying there breathing heavily and too weak to get up. It didn't look good, I figured she had to be dehydrated from obviously being chased around to exhaustion, so I made up a syringe with glucose and vitamin/mineral solution, I added a dose of a steroid as an emergency treatment and I tube fed her this mixture and hoped it would help. About 5 hours after I found her she started to get up and to start drinking and eating a small amount. the next morning she was still very weak and lethargic, I tube fed her again with a nutrition mix, but no more steroids. By the end of the day she was less lethargic and was eating and drinking. She continued to improve the next day and I put her outside, she sat in the semi dark barn most of the day, I put water and food in front of her which she ate and drank, the next day she again started out sitting in the barn, but by afternoon she started to come out and to walk around a bit. The next day she acted close to normal and the next day she started being more her old self and started laying eggs again. She has made a full recovery and is back to her normal self. My guess is that my other California White, Nicki had also escaped and was chased around, but she made it back inside the chicken yard herself, because I did find her later that evening and she wasn't acting right and looked slightly slimed by a dog. She was a bit lethargic the next day as well, I kept talking to both of these girls and assured them that their sister was alive and well as they were separated while I had Calli in the house. I don't know if it helped, but it seems like it did.

When I checked the fence the day after Calli and Nicki had escaped, I found a gate pushed in. So I figured they had not flown over the fence, but instead there was an opening and they got out that way, so I fixed the gate. For some reason I checked the fence again the next day and I found another area where the fence had been damaged and it created an opening that a chicken could get through. My guess is that the dogs did it when they were trying to get to some chicken poop. I have no idea how long the fence had been unsafe like that, but I am very happy that no chicken had to die because of it. Calli was close, if I hadn't picked up poop that night, I would not have found her, and if the dogs wouldn't have killed her, she sure wouldn't have survived without medical attention.

Pullets are growing up,





Watch out, this is Henzilla, the attack hen, seriously this hen acts almost like a rooster and attacks me on occasion, she is just not quite as dangerous in her attacks, but nonetheless, this is annoying. This is one of my Golden Laced Wyandottes that I got on May 12 of this year, so they are almost 6 months old.

A rainbow of eggs, from left to right these eggs are from Jersey Giant, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, mixed breed, California White and the two dark brown ones are from Whitney my Welsummer chick. the other Wellies aren't laying yet, so will see about their egg colors.

Hen in molt, they sure look pitiful

same hen from the front

2 Black Jersey Giants, the left one is in molt, the brownish colored feathers are old, the black green shiny ones are new

this one is starting to look more like a normal chicken again, but some of the feathers still have to grow completely out

Buffy hasn't really started much with molting yet

Chica's sister

Chica is my smaller Buff Orpington hen, I think her eyesight is getting worse, it seems like she can still see distant things okay, but has trouble with seeing things nearby like when she tries to eat. She has always had some problems with coordinating her beak and eating small items, but it seems to be getting worse. When I give her something to eat, she will act like eating about 2 inches away from the food then slowly lower her beak continuing that motion until she actually touches the food, once she knows how far away it is than she seems to have less trouble. When she was a tiny chick she already had trouble when I gave them some cooked spaghetti, she was the only one who kept missing the noodles when she pecked at it. Back then I figured she was just clumsy, but now I know this started very early. For now I bring her in overnight so she can eat in peace after running around all day and then in the morning before she goes outside.

This is Miss Daisy the mystery pullet from last fall. She is a rather flighty but smart bird, she lays a beautiful smooth green egg almost every single day, even while going through molt.

one of my Golden Laced Wyandottes, they are very pretty birds

size comparison, on the left is the Silver Spangled Hamburg pullet and to the right the same age a Wyandotte pullet

I have put up more shade cloth to protect the hens from our cold winter winds, unfortunately our winds do not always come from the same direction, sometimes it blows hard from the North, sometimes from the South, and sometimes it starts out from the South, then stops and 30 minutes later the wind blows from the North. I have gone to bed with wind blowing from the North and I closed and opened windows for the animals accordingly, then in the middle of the night I wake up and now the wind blows from the opposite site, so I have to go out, close the windows and open those that are on the other end.

my pretty little Silver Spangled Hamburg pullet, I haven't really given her a name, but she is definetely unique.

here is Sam, one of my Anatolian Shepherd Dogs, she loves the chickens and here she enjoyes laying in the soft straw near the chickens

the Hamburg pullet and a Welsummer pullet checking out the crate, they haven't started laying yet since the days are getting so short they may not start until the spring

here she is again

and again from the other side

Whitney or "Whitty" as I usually call her, is my 6 month old pullet that I had to hand raise because she had such trouble eating on her own. She has grown up around the dogs, so she likes to hang out near them. Since she has no buddies with the hens and sometimes they peck on her, she seems to have figured out if she sticks near the dogs, the other hens won't bother her, now that is smart.

here she is right next to Sam

sticking close to Sam, who doesn't mind, she is quite intrigued with Whitney

this is another one of the Welsummer pullets, she has a weird looking comb, so I have not trouble knowing which one she is. Their feathers are actually quite pretty, I didn't realize they are such pretty birds when I got them, I really was mostly interested in their dark eggs

one of the Welsummer pullets checking out the crushed egg shells

one of my Buckeye pullets

my two Buckeyes, they like to hang out together, they seem to be a much more sedate bird than most of my others

the two Buckeyes again

A Golden Laced Wyandotte

another picture of her

the new water station for the winter, in the summer it's imperative to keep water cool, so I have water bowls that keep water cool, now with the winter coming the concern is to keep the water from freezing overnight, so I brought out the cooler who insulates the water pretty good and I also have a heated bucket for them that also keeps the water from freezing. I plan on leaving the heated bucket out overnight so the hens can get a drink when they get up before I come out, then I will bring this blue cooler with me with some lukewarm water from the house. I do have another cooler that will replace the last of the big black bowls that I use in the summer.

feeding station protected form wind coming from the Southwest, I also covered many of my structures with plastic sheeting to make sure they provide protection from the rain

feeding station protected from Northerly winds, also covered with plastic

One of my California Whites, I am still waiting for them to get some black spots

This was really funny, I have pretty bad eye sight, so I saw this bug and think I can get a good shot of a chicken catching a bug, I was really disappointed that the chicken didn't seem to see the bug until I noticed why she wasn't interested, the bug has been dead and the smart chickie wasn't going to eat that dead old bug

Whitney out and about, she has integrated herself pretty well into the rest of the flock, she still sleeps inside our house in the foyer, I want to make sure she has an opportunity to eat as much as she wants in the mornings and evenings, she is the only one of my Welsummers who is laying at this time and she lays an egg now almost every day. It's amazing how much more she eats now that she lays eggs. And she knew when she needed extra calcium, never touched the crushed egg shells until after she laid her first egg.

here she is again, all 4 of my Welsummers look so much alike, I am learning to keep them apart by the way their comb is shaped. I paint some of Whitney's feathers with nail polish so she is easier to spot