Yet another visit to the vet!

I'm beginning to think I should rent a cottage in the extensive grounds attached to the vet's practice that I use.   We go for years without any need for a vet at all, then it's been a succession of visits over the past few months.  At least this time there was a happier ending.

We noticed that Rebecca wasn't looking so good.  She was spending an awful lot of time wandering off to stand by herself.  She had her feathers all puffed out and was looking distinctly unhappy.   She seemed to be eating and drinking OK and her tail was up.  But this was unusual behaviour, even for a little odd-ball like her.   Then she went off to the nest box and when she emerged, we went to collect her egg.  There wasn't one, but Rebecca was standing by herself again.

When we checked her over, we noticed a white, sticky substance dribbling from her vent.  Worried that an egg had shunted itself the wrong way and ended up in her tummy area (which could lead to egg yolk peritonitis), we rushed her off to the vet.   He thought it could indeed be EYP as her tummy area was swollen.  

The prognosis for a hen with this problem is not good, but we all felt we should try and treat her. She responded well ... until a couple of days ago.  Then she looked distinctly poorly, so off we went to the vet again.

Now Rebecca doesn't cluck, she squeaks - it's a really weird sound for a chicken to make.  But as I said earlier, she is an odd-ball.  She was making a quiet little squeak all the way to the vet, but it sounded as if she was in a lot of pain.  I steeled myself for the fact that we might be coming back without her.

As we pulled into the car park she gave a yell, which was followed by a thump.   She had laid an egg!

When the vet examined her, we were delighted to learn that the swelling in her tummy had disappeared.  He thought the painful egg laying process may have been as a result of a residual inflammation somewhere along her reproductive system.   He advised an injection that will stop her laying any eggs at all for around 5 months, so she won't have any more pain and her little body can recuperate.

I can't tell you how happy I was to be bringing her back home with me.  I know the Araucanas and Polands are 4 now and they won't go on forever.  But I'm really not ready to lose any more of my little flock just yet.

Rebecca on a good day

Yesterday started off well.   We were having a cup of tea in the garden when we were treated to a parade of sheep through the field next door.  They'd all been away for a few days and had now arrived back with their new-born lambs in tow.  Wonderful sight!   We knew the youngsters were due any time now and were so pleased to be able to see their first foray into the big, wide world.

We still haven't found any young bantams to add to our depleted flock - it's a bit early yet, if I'm honest.  We really miss having Mad Irene, Maggie and Titian around.  As No. 1 Son says, they were big personalities as well as being big hens.

We suspect that Punk is laying her egg and then eating it.   We haven't actually caught her at it, but we've only been getting one Araucana egg of late, instead of the usual two.   Added to that, some of the bedding in the nest box often looks discoloured, a very similar hue to egg yolk, although there's never any shell lying around.   We also noticed that Punk had some desiccated gunk round her beak.   Call me cynical, but I did wonder if it was the remains of that morning's eggy breakfast.   The other day I put two newly laid eggs in a plant pot for safety while I sat nearby and chatted to the chickens.  Fizz spotted them and did his "there's food here" call to the girls.   Hmmmmmm.

Yesterday also finished badly for Punk.  All of a sudden she started flinging herself headfirst at the new bit of fence!  We picked her up and calmed her down, but her little heart was racing like mad.  She did this once before, last year.  Then, as now, we could see nothing obviously wrong; no insect bites or wounds.  We think she may simply have eaten something that stung her as payback.

RIP Mad Irene

When you have pets of any kind, you know that the time will come when you have to say goodbye to them.  They have a certain lifespan, just as we do.   We recently had to say our farewells to our lovely Mad Irene.   She has generously left us with some terrific memories, all of which bring us laughter and smiles.  What a legacy!

She had two passions in her life - digging and stealing.  She had a formidable talent for excavating the deepest holes, often in the most awkward places.  Last year she gouged out a series of deep chasms just inside the entrance to the main run.  She carefully placed them in two rows, leaving a narrow path in the middle for our use.  "Walking the straight and narrow" took on a whole new meaning.  Stray off the path and stumble into one of Irene's craters, and you might never be seen again!

You also took a chance if you stood behind her when she was in quarrying mode.  She had a very forceful kick.   We've seen her send earth and stones arcing across the garden, to land yards away from where it started.  And if digging was precluded for some reason, she would get what she wanted some other way.  For instance we had stacked some wooden blocks on a concrete ledge that runs along the bottom of our fence.  Irene was convinced there was corn hidden beneath them, but the ledge was too narrow for her to stand on and kick the blocks off.  So she hooked them off with her beak and then kicked them across the lawn.

Irene considers the apple Tu-Tu has is rightfully hers!

She spent a lot of time rushing around checking that the rest of the flock didn't have something that was rightfully hers.  Many a poor worm has been yanked out of another chicken's beak, only to find itself in Irene's crop.  As she considered us fully paid up members of the chicken run, we also found ourselves relieved of sandwiches, toast and cake at various times.

We shall miss Mad Irene enormously, but what joy and laughter she brought into our lives.

What a surprise!

Thanks to her big crest, Pom-Pom would have us believe that she can't see the world very well. And up until now, we've believed her.  We've seen with our own eyes how she struggles to jump down from her favourite perch on the fence behind the smoking shelter roof to grab her share of the afternoon treats.  It's all of 12" high and she leans down towards the ground, struggling to see a  landing spot on the ground below.

It's the same in the garden.  Because of her restricted vision, I've taken to placing her next to a tasty piece of something or other and picking her up when she's eaten her fill.  When I let her roam around, she quite often bumps into things.  I watch her like a hawk and she also spends quite a lot of her time on my lap.

Pom-Pom surveying the world from her favourite spot

So as you can imagine, it came as quite a surprise to discover that she can see much, much better than we realised.

No. 1 Son had volunteered to go out in the pouring rain to give the Cluckers their late afternoon wheat. We give it to them as a Winter warmer before they retire for the night.   As usual, Irene and Rebecca rushed to the run gate hoping to make a break for the garden when it was opened.   But No. 1 Son isn't daft; he thwarted them by throwing a handful of wheat behind them.  While they were busy with the wheat, he quickly slipped into the run, closing the gate behind him.

Knowing there would be further supplies, Irene and Rebecca followed him back to the cage beneath the coop where everyone was sheltering from the rain.   The wheat was duly thrown in for them and 5 beaks got busy pecking it up.

The sixth beak belonged to Pom-Pom, and she had a better idea.   She trotted outside and headed straight for the now-forgotten treasure trove of wheat which had been thrown in earlier as a distraction.  She had the lot to herself.

The thing is, it lay at least 4 feet away from where she had been standing when it was thrown.  Would she normally be able to spot something that far away?  No, she would not.   At least, that is what she has always led us to believe.  Her path to the goodies led her past the ramp up to the coop, past the food dish, out through the cage door, along the outer side of the cage and round the corner to just below the nest box.   Did she bump into anything at all on her journey?  No, she did not!   Did she get what she wanted without mishap?  Yes she did!

It appears that she has a far better field of vision than we have given her credit for.   So it seems that the scheming little madam has been taking advantage of us all this time.

What a brave bantam!

According to No. 1 Son, our little flock are the least adventurous chickens in poultry history.  I think he may be right.   As a treat (so we thought) we hung a pecking block in the cage part of their run; the weather has been miserable lately and therefore so have the Cluckers.  The pecking block would occupy them for a while and give them a bit of pleasure.  

Did it hell!   They were afraid of it and avoided it like the plague!   When they realised it was refusing to leave, they took to ignoring it and looked away when they walked past it.  That should teach it!  But it didn't, so Punk decided to take action.   I didn't actually hear her swearing at it, but knowing Punk she probably did - she swears at everyone and everything at the least provocation.  But I have seen her attacking it.   

She started off by giving it a few hard pecks and discovered that actually, it tasted rather nice.  Now she gives it a few pecks whenever she walks past.   But none of the others go near it, if they can avoid it.   

My theory is that Punk has let it be known that she's happy to keep the pecking block under control all by herself.  The others needn't worry, she'll do the job alone because she's a courageous, community-spirited girl.  The Cluckers can see for themselves that it is wasting away day by day, so plucky Punk is obviously doing a good job.

Hmmmmm.  Is that just the hint of a smirk I see playing around the edges of Punk's beak?

If you mess with Punk, expect trouble

Off with the old, on with the new

Thank goodness the big Autumn moult is finally over and done with.   The Cluckers all start and finish at different times and progress at different rates.  I think they do it just to make my life that bit more difficult.

Chickens lose their feathers in a very specific order ...  allegedly.  That order is supposed to be the head, then the neck, followed by the breast, body, wings and finally their tail.  That's what the books say.

My lot haven't bothered to read the books and, furthermore, they don't seem to care.  They just fling their feathers off in any order and to hell with the rules.

Both the Polands discarded their tail feathers first.  They slowly grew them back, then got rid of some crest and neck feathers.  After that, Fizz lost a few of his larger flight feathers, and then decided that enough was enough.   Meanwhile while Pom-Pom discarded a few crest and body feathers that were surplus to her requirements, and left it at that.

Tu-Tu was annoyed that feet feathers weren't mentioned anywhere.   So she went overboard and grew new ones that were bigger, better and more abundant than she'd ever had before.  She trips over them now and again, but that doesn't seem to bother her unduly.  She also looked a lot slimmer after shedding no end of body feathers, but managed still to keep her basic shape.

For the last couple of years Rebecca has favoured the vulture look, by losing most of her head feathers.  This year she went for "the skeleton".  She managed to retain her big flight feather shafts, but not the feathery bits attached to them.  So she wandered round for ages looking as if she had ribs showing through her down.  Punk couldn't be bothered with all this palaver, so she just settled for a trio of feathers sticking up on the crown of her head for ages and left it at that.

Maggie also thought a change would be good.  She usually discards all the feathers along her spine in a sort of reverse Mohican, but not this year.  Like Tu-Tu, she had a general all over loss, but couldn't bring herself to lose all her tail feathers.  She kept the outside circle of feathers and got rid of the inner bunch.  Consequently she walked round looking as if she had a sideways halo round her vent.

Some sad news about Maggie - we recently had to have her put to sleep.  One morning she didn't come out when we opened up.  We checked and she looked dreadful.  There had been no sign of illness, in fact the previous day she had been happily scratching round in the garden.  Our vet advised that nothing could be done for her and we should give her a comfortable end to her life, rather than let her suffer.

There's only two of our original girls left now, Mad Irene and Tu-Tu, and they are pensioners.  Luckily, they seem fit and happy.   But getting used to a flock without Titian and now without Maggie is proving very, very difficult.        

A word of warning maybe?

The Cluckers have got me really worried.  Before you gasp with anxiety, they are all fit, healthy and in excellent spirits.

They've got their moulting over and done with and they all look magnificent.  And that's what worries me.  Each and every one of them has a finer set of feathers than they have ever had before.  Ever!   I have to ask myself why.

The only thing I can think of is that they know something we don't.  My suspicion is that we are in for a very harsh Winter, my chickens are well aware of that and have, in a manner of speaking, put an extra pair of thermals on.

In my last blog I mentioned the lavish headgear the two Polands are now sporting.  Fizz, in particular, also seems to have sprouted considerably more feathers all over the show. It's a bit different with Pom-Pom.  Madam sheds feathers so discreetly it's almost impossible to see where she's lost them from, other than her tail.  For a while the pair of them wandered round without a tail between them.  It is equally hard to see where Pom-Pom has grown them back, other than lots of extras in her crest.

Both Maggie and Tu-Tu got rid of duvetfuls of feathers. However, they both had so many to start with they looked pretty much the same, but slimmer.  But their regrowth is even more abundant than it was before.

The two Araucana girls decided to approach their moults differently.  Punk decided to live up to her name and wandered round with stray feathers sticking up at all angles on her head.  That was about as far as she went.  Rebecca looked as if she was practicing for Halloween!  She ended up with all the shafts of her wing feathers showing on both sides, so that she looked like a walking skeleton.

Mad Irene got rid of her tail, as many bum feathers as she could without going bald, and lots from her neck.  The feather loss round her neck caused us some amusement.  She has a habit of stretching her neck up to its fullest extent to look at things and decide if she can be bothered going over to examine them more closely.  You really shouldn't do that when your neck is scrawny.   But her feathers have also all grown back in super-abundance.

So I'm off to the shops to get some really warm vests, a few pairs of long-johns and some nice thick socks - just in case.