I'll Miss You

Heartbroken. That is the best word to describe how I feel with my girls gone. Seven of my little ladies were taken by what we think was a Fox last week. It is truly devastating having any type of loss. I had a lot of love for those hens, still do. It breaks my heart knowing they went in fear. I only wish I was there to protect them. I understand that it is the circle of life, and that there is always risk you take when allowing your birds to free range. I guess I never excepted to go to close them in for the night and have half of them gone. The girls who are still around looked terrified. I knew something was wrong.

   I shouldn’t have favorites because I love all the hens. Each one had their own little personality. But, Betty Boop was my girl. She was my favorite hen. Always happy to greet me. The most curious chicken in the bunch who was always up to no good, typically with her sister Luna. All I had to say was “come here” or shake their bag of treats and there they were.

My mom did her best to comfort me. She made a joke about my Grandpa King now taking care of the chickens in heaven. “He knows how to do it!” Very sweet and incredibly true, he does.

They really were the best chickens. It is interesting to hear people talk about how mean some hens can be and how they are fearful to be around them. I at first was a little apprehensive getting chickens myself. However, our girls are very similar to little dogs. They would follow me around the yard. Come over to the car when I would get home from work. Jump up on my lap or shoulder just to hang out. Safe to even bring our nieces and nephews in to hang out with them. Great little creatures. They were not huge fans of Beanie, our pup but he knew to keep his distance because the girls “ruled the roost.”

Each day will get a little bit easier having them gone. We still have little hens that need our compassion and protection more than ever now. I am thankful that they were not all taken, sad for the ones we lost, and grateful for the time I did have with them all. Rest in peace my feathered friends! - Love your Chicken Mama

Long Live Linda

Hello my fellow readers! Oh how I have missed writing these posts. It has been far too long since I have posted on the blog. Four months to be exact. There has been a lot going on this year already! All very exciting things, but I hope to get you up to speed.

Cory and I are currently in the process of building a house and planning a Wedding! Yes, all in the same year! Haha! With everything that has been going on I honestly have not been able to spend as much time with the hens as I would like. Oh and we got a dog! Sorry had to drop that in there as well. I can tell you all about our rescue Beanie later. But back to the Hens! I have not had much quality time with the girls.  I feel really bad because typically when the weather is nice I spend my weekends enjoying a cup of coffee with them as they run around. Recently my weekends have been consumed by painting the house or taking appointments for the Wedding. I should make more time for the girls, it is really tough right now.

I will say though, they are getting a ton of free ranging time recently since the weather has been so wonderful so they are enjoying that.  This benefits us both. They run around and burn some energy and I save on food costs and feel better that they are not cooped up in the run all day. We have been getting a ton of incredibly hard rain these past few weeks so that has put a little damper on their outside time. For those of you who do not know, hens hate to be wet. Very similar to cats haha. They do overall enjoy this season the most. They have the shade of the trees, the ability to scratch at the grass and the dirt to take their baths in.

The Winter went pretty well with the girls this year. A lot of shoveling and laying down of straw but we had no frozen water and other than that only a few days where they were too cold to venture outside. A few times we had some of the girls picking on each other pretty badly but the pecking order is always changing.

I suppose the biggest hen topic of all was we lost one of our girls. It makes me incredibly sad whenever I think about it. This is our first chicken that we ever lost. I always had a feeling it was too good to be true to never lose a hen, but you still feel horrible when it does occur. Linda. Our girl at the bottom of the pecking order. She replaced Cleo. Cleo has finally moved up in the ranks a bit. So while there are some positives I always sympathize with the hen at the bottom. Linda was great. She was the hen who use to fly up onto my shoulder each night. She always wanted to be the last one into the coop and didn’t mind her alone time. We have a rehabilitation coop that we got. It is much smaller and honestly not even close to being as durable as the one Cory built but it served its purpose. For awhile that is where Cleo resided during the day and then it was Lindas home. She even enjoyed sleeping in there every once and awhile. It was inside the big run so I figured she would be safe. I was wrong.

The night it happened we went through our normal routine. Collected the eggs, checked the food and water, put the girls to bed, and locked the gate. Linda was sleeping in the smaller coop so I made sure she had her roost and then we left for the night. The next day I received a call from Cory at work telling me that when he got there in the morning Linda was gone. I was shocked and sad. A Raccoon got her. It managed to open the door to her coop. I understand this happens and we try everything we can to protect our flocks but I feel for anyone who has lost one of their hens. As many of you know I am really attached to my girls. At least now Linda is no longer being picked on and while she was around she was a great addition to our flock!

There is much more to share with you all but I will stop there for now. Until next time!! Happy first week of Summer!

Happy New Year!!

I am a little late but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! This year was pretty wonderful overall minus a few hiccups for the little hens and I. A lot has been going on!
This last month or so Betty Boop has been going through her first molt. The other “original girls” already molted late this past summer and I did not notice a big personality change in them but in Boop I did! Honestly, it made me really sad for a while because she would no longer come over to see me when I would walk into the run; she was being very anti-social. She would not let me pick her up. I am sure it is painful going through the process so I typically do not pick up a hen who is molting, but still! Her comb turned pale and flopped over and she was even letting some of the other girls pick on her a bit. Trust me, if she was her normal self that would not fly with her! Her egg production stopped which is normal for a molting hen.

I found if incredibly interesting how much personality a chicken can really have! Recently she is beginning to act like her normal self. Her molt must almost be over! Phew! I miss my little diva!

   Miss Cleo has moved in to her own coop during the day. For some reason, no matter what I tried the other girls just would not leave her alone. I let Cleo sleep in the main coop at night so she can feel a part of the “gang” but I can no longer risk leaving her out with them during the day. Luckily she is still around them just in her own little run where she is protected. This has been going well. We had a tough few months there of her getting hurt and having to heal. When the weather is nice they still all get to run around the yard together when Cory and I are home so that is a plus too!

Miss Cleo for President!

Another thing we have been dealing with is Rhode Island Reds. I should have a done a little more research on this breed before getting them. This might not speak for all Rhode Island Reds but ours can be bullies! So strange to me how much they chase each other around. Fortunately, no one is hurt so to me it is just pecking order establishment but they really do chase each other around the run. This breed is very rambunctious. One of them named Linda, loves to fly up onto my shoulder and just sit there. I have never had that happen before! It was strange at first but now I can walk around and she just hangs out. I told Cory soon I will like the lady in Home Alone except with Chickens! Haha!

  This past year we also had a good run with predators getting into the run! A few Raccoons, a Opossum and even a Skunk! They were always getting in the run at night when the girls were safely in their coop so no one was harmed thank goodness. Cory owns a have-a-heart trap which has worked out because we figured they were more after the eggs and chicken feed than the actual hens. However, we really could not risk having them in the area in case something bad happened and our theory was wrong. Cory would trap each one and the following day we would drive them to another property for release. It makes us feel better that the animal gets to carry on with their life and also knowing our hens are safe! 

    I must say, although Winter just started I am looking forward to Spring. These warm days are giving us a break from the cold and also giving me a bit of spring fever. I believe the hens are looking forward to warmer weather as well. They really do not like the snow. There will be days where we open up the coop door, a few of them stick their heads out, look around and basically tell us “nope” to coming outside! They then spend the day literally "cooped" up. I am looking forward to them getting back into their routines of laying eggs more frequently, running around the yard and taking dirt baths! The Winter season tends to be a bit more difficult to take care of the hens than during the Summer months. You have to worry about the hens keeping warm, frostbite, frozen water and snow removal. Some of those bad snow days led to me waking up before work to shovel and spread straw for them to walk on. However, this year Cory installed an indoor faucet so we can fill their waterers. I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing this is! It seems so simple, but it has been a huge process improvement when it comes to tending to hens in freezing temperatures. We will keep looking forward to Spring and taking naps in the sunshine but until then we will hunker down and wait for the weather to break!

We hope you all have a great New Year and that 2017 is your best year yet!