More Chicken Stories

The little brassy back is still in the nursing cage, but still breathing hard, though he is perky and eating and drinking.  I need to get him out of the big henhouse and re-sanitize the cage, but just can't bear to put him down.  Maybe I won't have to, as I don't think his lungs will last much longer.  Keith has been so busy with evacuation planning that I think he has forgotten the poor little boy. 

I don't know what I did before I met Keith and married him, because I kept chickens then.  I don't remember ever having to put one down, though I had plenty killed by predators and several sicken and die on me.  I have grown to rely on him to do the one last job that sometimes must be done for the chicken's sake. 

Theresa, I will look into the QVC... the feed store we use does not have it, but I may be able to get it at Tractor Supply or from Smith Poultry Supply, where I got the Ozine. 

Speaking of feed stores, we have traded at this one long before we were married... I have used them for years.  They mix their own feeds, and I have always been satisfied, but they just went from a pelleted sheep feed to a sheep feed that resembles sweet feed.  Our llamas will not touch it, it has sat in the sun for two and a half days now.  If it ain't broke, don't screw with it, I say.  So there's a bag of feed wasted, and I'll have to find a use for it.  Then I'll have to find a pelleted sheep feed for the three llamas.  I tried alpaca "nuts" on them, and they stuck their noses up. 

Here is the little flock tonight, having a treat of cottage cheese... they love it, as you can tell!  It was a little cooler today, thank heavens. 

I love the colors of this flock, with it's mixtures.  Too many roosters, though.  I'm going to have to Craigslist them for chicken dinners, I'm afraid. The partridge Rocks and the Welsummers are right in there, having a treat with the adults. 

The big bird is one of the Rocks.

I started doing water, and then realized the "little girls" were having a treat by themselves... in one bowl I had poured the cottage cheese on top of some feed.

I have three Welsummer pullets, and three Partridge Rock pullets, and a cockerel (of course) of each.

These two did not come out for treats.  They have been "setting" for 3 weeks... but every night I get pecked to death stealing their eggs.  Biddy, the silkie on the left, is blue, but has a black head.  I have three blue silkie pullets, and (of course) a blue silky rooster.  That's a cochin/brahma cross hen next to her.

And here's Silka, my last purebred buff silky hen, thinking SHE's going to set.  I had to disabuse her of this idea. 

Here is the back of the little henhouse.  Everytime I open one of the two popholes at the back, feed falls out.  It turns to stinking muck on the ground when it rains, which is why you see boards on the ground.  I have to step on them or I sink into the muck.  There is a little stepladder under the henhouse, and I stand on that, use the mop you see in the picture, to pull the eggs toward me. Silka was in the farthest corner in the previous picture.  When we built this henhouse, it was the second year we were here, and we did not think to put popholes on the sides.  There is one at the front, and two cleanout doors at the back, but you cannot reach the eggs.  Keith is going to pour a cement pad later this summer so that I don't sink down when it's wet, and I'm cleaning this henhouse out probably this weekend, and rebedding it with wood shavings.  All of the sudden there is NO straw available here.  We are letting the two saplings grow that you see here, because they provide such good shade and they are holding the sloping ground. 

There have been no sick birds yet in this henhouse.

And lastly...

The porcelains are out of the big henhouse and in the yard of the little henhouse.  They are in the old rabbit hutch for the time being, they are the littlest of all the birds, and though I put them in with the juveniles one day, they were picked on the worst.  They are nice birds two pullets and (need I say it?) a COCKEREL.  As I have Angel already with Butch, I was glad to get the little porcelain cockerel. 

I'm scheming to make a pen for them in the little henyard where they can get down in the pen but live in the hutch at night.  I thought I had a line on another Ware chicken hutch with an attached pen on Craigslist, but it was sold before I could get to it.

I see Blogger has put the uploading tool back on, so you can see how fast your picture is loading, so that's good.

And here's my little blind Hannah waiting for me on the steps as I finished doing chores: