A week ago I noticed one of our Littles, CJ, a summer 2013 hatchling, had a bad gash under her wing. Of course it was from one of the stupid boys. I brought her to the porch and gave her a nice treat while I rinsed out the wound with saline solution and then applied Vetericyn spray. She seemed fine until today when I saw that the ouchie seemed deeper and as I poked around a little it started oozing.
That was it - no oozing in the coop. And, and I knew this couldn't be good - she was limping. I brought that sweet baby immediately into the CCCU, (Chicken Critical Care Unit) - aka, our bathroom. I have a fully stocked chicken first-aide kit that includes all the regular essentials and just this morning my new shipment of Young Living Essential Oils came in. I knew it was time to break out my brand new bottle of oregano oil.
Sweet little CJ was such a good patient! She sat on a towel on our bathroom counter and let me dig and trim and clean. There was quite a lot of ickyness that needed to be debrided. She was calm and still the whole time - until I rinsed the gaping hole with sterile saline solution. This wound was bloodier than any of the others I have dealt with. Once I was able to see better I realized why my little hen was limping - her bone was exposed! I don't know yet if the infection has progressed to the bone or if it is just really uncomfortable.
I mixed a butt-load of non-pain relief (that's VERY important!) triple antibiotic ointment with one drop of oregano oil. I applied the TAO into the gaping hole. With this much damage to the flesh I knew I wanted to cover it for a couple of days to help regain it's suppleness. On a plain square piece of gauze I loaded coconut oil and one more drop of oregano oil and covered the wound. Finally I wrapped sweet little CJ with an odd shade of pink vet wrap.
She's now resting quietly in the shower on a nice fluffy towel. She'll eat but isn't interested in drinking too much. Even though she has trouble getting around, and being held seems uncomfortable - I think she's going to be just fine. She's alert and bright. Happy healing CJ!
What a morning!
One of our favorite girls, Penelope, a Partridge Rock from our original flock, was not in the coop last night. We looked everywhere we could in the dark. It got dark and cold pretty quickly last night. What happened? We had not heard anything out of the ordinary. Though life with chickens is seldom ordinary, one does become accustomed to their day to day racket.
We do free-range our chickens. Our back yard has a massive amount of tall grasses and weeds. So much so that I guess we really can't call it a yard - truly more like the back forty. Ok, so the back six! Anything could come through the tall brush or along the creek, snatch a chicken and be gone. But, that just didn't seem likely. We have been lucky. Luckier than I would have thought. We haven't lost any flock members to predators since our first month of novice chicken-keeping last year. (knocking wood!)
I was in a fowl mood last night. I was mad and sad that one of our good girls was gone. As grumpy as I was I still had hope. I asked the chicken deities for mercy on my sweet girl. When I did sleep, my dreams were pretty wacky. I don't like loss. Not that anyone does actually like loss, but I take even the smallest loss sometimes too much to heart. Well, maybe except that time I sent a poor songbird to her death... of course I feel bad about it, but mostly I laugh about the incident. For now I'll just say that it involved my "saving" this poor little bird. And my cat. Yeah, the cat was there too.
Anyways, ever-hopeful, I checked each window at first light. I kept checking windows. While the coffee was brewing I decided to take a quick check outside. Still in my bathrobe, with no socks and leaky hiking shoes, I did a inner perimeter search. Nothing. I was chilled and shivering and cranky. I came back in and continued with my morning routine.. for about 12 minutes. I got dressed and took a last swig of coffee. Hubby could feel my urgency and followed suite. We got bundled up and fitted ourselves with our re-con gear. Me, a long stick. Him, his 410. We were ready for whatever we found. We searched and searched. We searched for well over an hour. So, after searching high and low, up and down the stream bed, in and out of the briars, under the cars and buildings, we decided to come back to home base.
We let the chickens out of the chicken coop. We were hoping against hope that somehow, maybe, we had missed her during head-count last night. No such luck.
We stayed out with our feather-babies for quite some time - admiring their antics and lamenting the loss of our beautiful hen, all the while planning our course for revenge. Yeah, yeah... critters gotta eat, too. But, we're not getting into that discussion now.
Soaked and chilled we decided to come back inside to finish our now cold coffee. Thankfully, before I had gotten too far into the warming up process I remembered that the chickens needed more water. So, I filled the gallon water jug and back out I went.
Like nothing had happened, like no sleep had been lost and like no hour long search had been mounted, like we hadn't been calling Penelope's name all morning long - there, happily scratching away in front of the porch steps, was Penelope. What the hell?!
I guess if a chicken doesn't want to be found, a chicken won't be found!
This has been a day filled with death - some intentional, some not.
First thing this morning we dispatched two male Cayuga ducks. They were originally intended for meat anyways, but we finally got up the nerve to do the deed. I helped hubby. Thankfully he doesn't need my help when he butchers the chickens, but he needed me for this task. These boys were the roughest on the girls, so we made the decision that they would go first. Now we watch the flock and decide on the next two. It's amazing how quickly the new pecking order is arranged. But, I can say that the duck yard is much quieter today - much more relaxed.
So that was the intentional death.
Because we are very caring and empathetic people we did not want the other critters outside when the task was being rendered. And so, we left the chickens in the coop a little longer than usual. I wanted to go out in the middle of the night to check on the pipped egg, but I didn't. This morning I knew that I couldn't get into the coop without letting everyone, or at least a majority, out - so I didn't check on the pipped egg. I figured that a mama that was so committed to sitting on her nest for nearly a month was going to be a good mom. I found out I was wrong. There should have been 4 eggs under her - there were only three. One of those remaining three eggs was actively hatching. When the broody hen saw me looking at it she pecked it very hard - several times. She pecked it hard enough to startle me. I grabbed it and ran to the house. Luckily we still had the heat lamp up from a couple of other chicks that hatched just over a week ago. I put the hatchling safe in the old refrigerator crisper on the wine rack. Yeah, that's how we roll around here...
Throughout the day, even interrupting our garlic harvest, I went to the coop to check the status of the other eggs. Another one had pipped. I should have grabbed it right then and there - but I didn't. Oh that hindsight - twenty twenty I'll tell ya!
After relaxing a bit on the porch, actively resisting the urge to go out to the coop every 5 minutes, I did finally do another chick check. Too late. Ten minutes too late? Five minutes too late? There it was - a tiny and wet little black chick. Dead. The poor thing was pecked to death by the broody hen.
I have so many emotions whirling throughout me right now, but I may be able to sum it up by admitting that I did call that beautiful yellow hen Broody Mama. Now, I'm angry, I'm hurt, I'm sad. Mostly, I'm disappointed. Now I just call her broody hen. I feel betrayed.
Believe me, I keep my rose-colored glasses safely locked away. I'm sorrowfully realistic. But this hurts me.
I guess all I can do now is rejoice in the little wonder that is drying off and fluffing up in my living room.
Here I am on our porch drinking my coffee. I got a late start this morning, but I figure that's okay every now and then. I love our porch. We get such a nice breeze, and it's usually at least a few degrees cooler than in the yard. This is my little sanctuary. The rest of the house is a mess, but my porch table is tidy and flower-filled.
The duck babies (now 8 weeks old) are enjoying some front yard time to themselves before the big ducks are let out. The chickens are still in the coop for another hour or so. I'm hoping my girls will give me a few more eggs today. I spoil them, but they have been stingy with their eggies. Maybe they're irritated at having all the new babies around. I don't know if they've been producing wild hen-fruit, or if production has just been low. Keeping them in the coop may reinforce the proper laying habits.
Lately, I much prefer the company of my feather-babies. The kid has been quite difficult this summer. So far, honestly and sadly, it has not been a great summer vacation. Don't get me wrong, it's not all miserable... I think Emma-Kid, now 8 years old, is learning how to navigate her own emotions. She needs more "play-dates," but they're hard to come by where we're at. We chose to not put her in the Summer Enrichment program through school because it makes for such a long day. She needs to be able to chill out and not be so scheduled. We're not full schedule people. I miss my baby. She seems so angst-ridden, but she's only eight?! I want my happy little turd back! One of the most frustrating sides to this is that she doesn't even realized how snotty she's being. I may go on a few day strike of whatevers and sures, distance myself a bit. Maybe. I'm really not sure what direction to go in, but I know that I need to do something to help us get over this funk!
...snuggled in bed next to my kid in my old bedroom with a laptop, a chicken magazine, a red wine spritzer and pomegranate dark chocolate... what a nice way to end the day!
November 26, 2012
So I had the chance to try
out our new Chicken First Aid Kit yesterday! And now my left hand
and part of my forearm is a really pretty blueish-purpley color –
thanks to Dr. Naylor's Blu-Kote. I had looked out the bathroom
window and saw that one of our Buff Orpington girls was all bloody.
First I made sure I was wearing a suitable chicken-tending shirt and
went out to give the girls a snack. Of course it was super easy to
snag Little Miss Buff with a bag of Happy Hens dried meal worms in my
hand. I'm glad I wore a crappy old t-shirt because as soon as I
picked her up she shook her head to clear her nostrils of the blood
and boy did it fly! Her whole head and face were covered in
partially coagulated and frosted blood. It's hard to really see
what's going on until they're all cleaned up, but I could tell it
wasn't going to be that bad. I got out the ugly old curtain I use as
a drop cloth / work area and sat down with our girl. Darling Hubby
brought me a bowl of nice warm water and a wad of paper towels.
First step – clean up and assess the damage. Getting the dried and
crusted blood out of her nostrils was the most time consuming part.
She was such a good and patient patient. And it didn't hurt that she
knew that I had the bag of Happy Hen treats sitting right next to me.
Even as I was cleaning her up she kept bleeding. As
I had figured, though, the situation was not that serious. Her comb
was the only affected area. Man, they can bleed! I had corn starch
on my list to add to my chicken first aid kit, but as of yesterday
afternoon I had not yet added it. I asked Darling Hubby to bring me
some – he brought me the whole container, which now is part of the
chicken first aid kit. Because I had already been handling the
chicken I did not want to cross contaminate so now I'll just need to
restock our pantry with corn starch.
I
had not had the opportunity to apply corn starch to a chicken's comb
(or any other part for that matter) before. I wasn't really sure
what to do, so I popped open the Chug bottle that we keep it in and
dumped out a little pile on the ugly curtain. I pinched a bit and
patted it on the hen's comb. I'm amazed at how quickly it stopped
the bleeding! But, because it was still an open wound I wanted to
apply the Blu-Kote to keep the other girls from pecking. Applying
Blu-Kote by yourself to a squirming chicken's head is no easy feat.
After several unsuccessful attempts to cover Heddy's eyes with the
paper towel I said forget it and just used my hand to guard her
against the spray. Yup, it is blue!
A post from November 16, 2010 that never got posted...
Saturday evening. I don't feel like I've gotten much done at all
today. And you know what - I'm okay with that! I did scrub our
bathroom. I just have to finish the toilet and the shower walls. Emma
even helped me scour the shower floor. I love a kid that wants to
help.
A couple of years ago (that sounds weird to say in the context of
Emma) the kid wanted to help me vacuum the bedroom. No problem, here
you go! It happened to be a brisk, but sunny beautiful day. So, I sat
myself down in our bedroom window seat and soaked up the rays like a
kitty cat. Oh, yeah - and I had a glass of wine in my hand. Scott
walks in as Emma is on her hands and knees with the vacuum hose and
I'm basking in the sunny warmth sipping on some Cabernet. Yeah, life
is good.
We live in the country and we have mice. It doesn't make us bad
people, it just makes us people with mice. Those little bastards got
into our bathroom vanity drawers and demolished the toilet paper. I
have an unusual attachment to toilet paper. I must always have plenty
on hand, or, as my Mom would snicker - a back-up supply. Get it, back
up...
For me to open that drawer and see shreds and shreds of paper in
little piles mixed with tiny little oblong poops - well, not a nice
way to start the day! That, I vowed would be my first order of
business for the day - that is, after my first order of business was
finished...
I cleaned out and then cleaned both drawers - not the bottom, for
some reason the little bastards don't seem to bother that one. I
re-organized and really cleaned the contents of each drawer and then
moved onto the sink and counter.
Last week (a terrific way to start a Monday) I lost an earring
down the sink drain. It was a pretty blue baked glass post earring.
Scott had gotten them for me as an anniversary gift at one of our
last Grass Roots festivals. For those of you that don't know, Grass
Roots Festival of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, NY is where we met
and fell instantly in love. So, yeah, I was pretty irritated first
thing Monday morning. Being in the plumbing business I decided that I
had enough experience to take apart part of the drain to retrieve the
earring. Scott stopped me from doing that. We did take apart the
pop-up assembly and pulled the pop-up out of the sink. I heard the
earring go "plop" into the bottom of the S-trap as I lifted
the drain. The earring was gone, but we were introduced to this
horrible, icky globby thing hanging off the end. Yuck!! I instantly
threw that in the garbage, but did not want to take on the challenge
of re-assembling the drain first thing Monday morning.
Once the sink and counter were decluttered and cleaned thoroughly
with Clorox Green Works spray I decided it was time for a break.
Luckily...
the next day...
Luckily is where I stopped writing at 9:30 last night. Now, with
all the chaos in the house and the overly distracting smell of bacon
cooking, I have no idea what came next. I cannot even seem to
remember what I did after the thorough bathroom cleaning.
My goals are pretty simple for the day. I totally plan on being an
underachiever today. If I can get the toilets cleaned and my laundry
put away, I'll be a happy camper. I miss camping.
The child's mouth has NOT stopped flapping since she woke up at
7:30 this morning. I'm not exaggerating - it has not stopped! She's
in her little tent right now and has said "Mommy" for one
reason or another about 47 times! Believe me, I usually love it when
I hear that most beautiful little voice utter "Mommy." But,
today it's more about "Mommy, you ruined it! Mommy, you wrecked
it all! Mommy, you didn't do it the right way! Mommy, there's a fly
on my doll! Mommy, will you cover me up? Mommy, there's something
really wrong with Daddy's camping bag - Mommy, I think you should see
this! Mommy, I told you not to put my hair up!"
Even while I was typing all this, along came another barrage of
"Mommy's"
I don't think I'll be drinking orange juice with my
breakfasty-lunch.
