My Chickens: Jeannie's Head, Continued.

Jeannie is alright.
She is still separated from the others, though, as her head hasn't healed yet.
She is peeping again, and even jumped when I tapped the wall and clapped.
I think she was only momentarily deaf.
Which I'm glad for.  
She gets so excited to see me in the morning, it's so sweet.
Her bald head reminds me of the guineas.

My Chickens: The Flock Dwindles.

My flock was in danger, now that I knew it was END. Pecky-pully died. Sweetiepie died. Wessy died. Gorgeous died. The list goes on and on. Almost every day I was burying some one. Then I notice, Deanie, my favorite little rooster, was drooping. Not Deanie! I thought. I loved him more than any of them; he was the sweetest. He was so good, he would even sleep on my lap.                      
I played with him every spare second I could.
And let him sleep on my lap for hours without disturbing him.
And he died.
And I buried him.
And life went on for me...
while death went on in the coop.
The next day, Arugana died. The day after that, Deadbirdie became a dead birdie. Even Chester died. I will admit that I cried a little when my girlie Peanut passed.
It was a horrible thing, but it did solve the problem of the over stuffed hen house. God takes care of things in His own ways.No matter how terrible it,
seemed, the END unstuffed the hen house that wasn't supposed to hold that amount of chickens.
Or guineas, either, for the Mother and the Father both caught it, too, and died.
What did that leave me with?
Eleven chicken survived and recuperated: Zesty, Cranky, Spider, Half'n'half, Little Lady, Bluey, Chestnut, Puffy Lady, Baby Juicey, Dusty-dirty, and Nubbs.  All Hens. (Wow, He ridded me of unwanted roosters, too.)

Soon I will write about I Start Over. To start over with your own flock, click here.



Deadbirdie was loved by all.

My Chickens: Edna gets ENDed.

As I said, I was right: Edna wouldn't last long...................One morning.... I was back out there, feeding Chester the menacing rooster, then I headed to the hen house. I opened the door and the chicks, guineas, and new(old)hens all tumbled out...all but Edna. I didn't notice at first, because I was too busy feeding the others, but when I put them back in, I certainly noticed the smell! It wasn't pleasant at all. It was dead chicken.   I had to get her out, of course, so I locked the others out and looked around.  Finally, I spotted her gruesome body behind the nesting boxes. I must say, I was a little disgusted. Well, maybe I was a lot disgusted as well as grossed out.(Because, although I look at roadkill and don't care a bit about the sight, this smelled. )   I pinched my nose and looked closer. All signs said she had died in her sleep: her closed eyes, curled toes, and puffed feathers.  It was possible she had fallen off the perch and rolled back there. I put plastic bags over my hands and buried her in the woods. I had a feeling this was only the beginning. If she had died of old age, then it was fine. But if she had END,(exotic Newkastleton[?] disease) I was in trouble. Big trouble. END is caused when too many birds(any bird)are together and not properly cleaned up after.(Hey, I did my best.) It wipes out the whole flock, one at a time, even vaccinated birds can get it. The signs are drooping wings and other things like swollen combs and eyes. I let the guineas and chickens back in, watching them closely. Oh, no!  The chick named Wessy had drooping wings!!! Come to think of it, so did Hawkins! And Gorgeous! (One of the new(old)hens.)   I should of cleaned more! But who can keep up with almost forty chickens(not to mention two guineas)all in one small hen house? I'd have to clean it out every day! That's impossible!  I scooped up Wessy. Whoa!  He was thin, and light as a feather! (One of the signs is also loosing weigh. Sorry; forgot to tell you.)  I fed them a little more before going in. And, yes, it was only the very beginning of something big. And dreadful.              
Soon I will write about The Flock Dwindles. And if your chickens are ill, this website may help. Click here for help.

My Chickens: The Gift Hens and the Horrid Rooster.

I was sure the excitement was over, until...."Here's the chickens," my grandparents said, placing the totes inside the hen house.  "Are you sure they're okay in there?" I asked.  "Oh, yeah, they're fine," they replied.---Their neighbors were moving and had asked if I wanted their 8 chickens. Of course I had! So here they were.--- I opened the first tote.  Two elderly Rhode island reds and a pretty Easter Egger were inside, panting fit to burst. "Aw! So cute! She looks like Deadbirdie!" I said, talking about the Easter Egger. "I'll name her Arugana!"  One of the Rhode reds I named Nemo(because of her tiny deformed wing) turned out to already have a name. "Her name's Special Edna." my grandmother said. I opened the next tote.  This one contained an elderly brown hen, two shiny black hens, a Plymouth rock hen, and--oh, the horror--an enormous Rhode island red rooster. He was huge!    "Um, you didn't tell me there was a rooster," I said, nervously.   "I thought you knew," they replied. I returned their totes and they left[me with the gruesome rooster].              I knew immediately he was not going to be nice. I was right. He attacked the guineas mercilessly, nearly killing the Father. I  kept him outside until the Father recovered, but now I wasn't going to put him back in there. No way. What to do? Heavy as the beast was, I grabbed him and shoved him in a large rabbit hutch I had.  That wouldn't work; it was too close to the house and his crowing would wake me up(but wasn't that a rooster's job?). I then had to lug him all the way to hutch #2, which was closer to the woods.  That worked fine, and he wasn't crammed at all, as it was a large hutch.  Yes! Problem solved! (Even though the hen house was kind of over filled.)  I was glad to get more eggs from the elderly hens. Edna was so old I was sure she wouldn't last many more years......................I was right. 
Soon I will write about Edna gets ENDed. Click here for some fun!
                                                                                        

My Chickens:The Lost-and-Found Chick.

......As I was saying, it took a long time to find those chicks.............Okay, Pecky-Pully and half of them fairly flew into the hen house, but others weren't so easy. Their instinct had driven them into the most remote hiding spots. A hen in the trash-can, a rooster in the pool(don't worry;it was empty), two crouching in the brier patch, and so on. I counted off the ones I found: Peck-Pully:check, Peanut:check, Deadbirdie....AAAAAGH!!!! Where was Deadbirdie!!?? Whew! There he was, behind the pool. Okay, Bluey:check, Zesty:check,Nubbs:check,Sweetie-pie:check(he was one of the two in the brier patch),Chestnut....YEEEEEK!!!! Were was Chestnut!!?? She didn't appear as quickly as Deadbirdie had. I looked every where. She was the second-to-last chick to be found. The other one, still missing, was Little-Guy(who was actually a girl),the Rhode Island Red. I finally found her, creeping back in the direction of the hen house, a quarter of a mile in the woods.  I let her in before starting to look for Chestnut again. First I called her,"Chick-chick-chickie!!" She didn't come.  The other chicks squawked for their lunch, so I fed them and continued my search. I couldn't find her. Then a horrible thought hit me, what if the fox had killed her in the first place, and taken her.   It was too terrible to think of.  Finally, I had to give up; she wasn't anywhere, or I would of found her by now.  Slowly, I headed toward the back door. I was shocked to a stand-still: there was Chestnut, sitting on the window sill!!!  I rejoiced and brought her to the hen house.         I hadn't suffered any losses to the fox!!! What could be better than that!!?? 
" Take THAT, fox!!!!" I shouted at the woods.                                                                                                                        

 Weeks later, my fox was sighted, dead, on the road side. At least that was taken care of. Now it couldn't feast on any other neighboring flocks. How's that for a problem solved?  Has a fox or raccoon or other vermin ever gotten into your yard and massacred your flock?                                                                                                                                                                                               


Soon I will write about The Gift Hens and the Horrid Rooster, Chester.  Here's another chicken blog!                                               

My Chickens:The Eggs and the Fox.

 THE EGGS......The guineas had been free-ranging for a long time and I never really worried about them. They would go a mile down the road and still return safely before dusk. I never felt too worried that they would get hurt, because they never did.    Then one day, I had fed the chicks--now in the hen house-- and was back in the house, when I noticed an odd sound: ACK! ACK! ACK! ACK,ACK,ACK,ACK,ACK,ACK!!!!!!!! Startled, I ran to the window. It was the Father, alone and screeching his head off!   Greatly worried now, I raced out side.  I joined Father and searched the yard. Mother was missing! A faint sound stopped me: OOH, AAH! OOH, AAH! -The Mother! It had come from the hen house!-- Or so I thought. A futile search proved me wrong; NO Mother. OOH, AAH! OOH, AAH!  The woods! No; NO Mother!  Where was she?! Was she injured and unable to come to my calls? I HAD to find her!                                      OOH ,AAH! OOH, AAH! The brier patch! --NO Mother! The road!-- NO Mother!  Suddenly, the Father leaped into the air with a whir and flew clear over the pool! I dashed after him.  I nearly passed out with relief. There, creeping out from under the old slide, was the bird who had caused all the trouble. " Mother! Thank goodness your okay!" She was fine. Without further ado, I locked them both in the hen house with my juvenile chicks.   Thinking my job was done for today, I turned toward the house. Then it came to me: Why had she been hiding? I crouched and looked under the old slide. In a cosy nest, lined with grass, were three still-warm eggs! They were  beautiful, pale pink, and pointed at one end, more sharply than chicken eggs. I took them in the house and refrigerated them. They were the best eggs ever.

My Chickens: The Easiest Pets/Poultry!

I found out that chickens are the easiest pets/poultry to take care of. You don't need as much prep as you think. When I got mine, it was just a spur-of-the-moment idea.   I just thought ' Hey I'll get some chicks!' and I did. I brought them home and put them on the porch, as it was the warmest, safest, place. At first the little dollies lived in a cardboard box, which I thought was inescapable.  Then one morning, Bam! Chicks everywhere! Inside my shoes, in the feed bag, and on the coats! Their wing feathers had come in and they were using them! I rounded them up and shoved them back in their box, but that didn't stop the little rouges, they were making a mess!    Finally, I decided they were going to have to live with my guineas,Mother and Father, out in the henhouse like real chickens.  At  first  I thought the guineas would hurt the chicken babies, but they were great parents! Sure, they pecked one or two, but after that they wouldn't let me near their adopted chicks. I fed the guineas wild bird seed and the chicks Starter/Grower. They grow fast!! Soon they were almost as big as Mother and Father. Then the young roosters started trying to mate with Mother. They would wait 'till the Father was out in the yard, then grab Mother's pore  head and pulling until she lay down. It was so sad to witness. I never let them succeed in mating though. The Father couldn't do any thing to protect  her; he was very old.  But I think I did a good job. The chicks kept growing.
Here is another great website to check out! click right here! And this blog is also a chicken-lover treat!         



                              Soon I will write about how the guineas layed their first egg, and how I found it.
                                              Also, will be the story of the fox and the lost(and found)chick.