Feathers for Princess

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted about our chickens.  I thought I’d let you know how they were all doing since whenever I run into someone who reads my blog the first question out of their mouth is in regard to the chickens.

In the last chapter of the chicken saga, our chicken “Princess” was being bullied by the other chickens.  Her neck was bleeding and she was uncontrollably scratching and the other chickens were pecking on her wound…as chickens do.

We understand that chickens have their pecking order, but we don’t want to see any of them die because of it.  We started out with 20 chickens and after 2 losses, we are down to 18.  (One never came back from the woods…a black one, and one was attacked by are dog, was recovering well for 2 weeks and then died.)  In all honesty, I wasn’t planning on as many as 18 making it this far when I heard how easily chicks die. 

We had the dog kennel for awhile in the coop to seclude Princess from the rest of the flock while she healed.  This wasn’t working for 2 reasons: she wasn’t eating and drinking while in the kennel even though food and water were available to her, and she scratched herself terribly when in confinement that it wasn’t getting better even a little bit.  I wondered if the eating and drinking had to do with being separated from her little chicken friend I now call Ruthie who always tried to protect her.  Whenever I’d let her out to examine her she would run to the water and just stand there and drink and drink.  The water and food in her kennel were always untouched.

So we took some advice from our chicken book, and poured vinegar on her wound every day for a few days to at least make sure that any chickens who pecked at her open ugly neck got punished with a terrible taste in their beak.  Well, it must have worked because almost immediately the wound started to heal.  Then the feathers started growing back.

As of today, her neck feathers are almost completely back. (Just be glad you’re seeing the “after” pictures!) It’s getting to the point where I have trouble distinguishing her from the other brown chickens were it not for the fact that she always runs to me now on sight.  She still doesn’t like to be caught, but I feel like there’s some trust there.  She knows I normally make her feel better and bring her treats.  So when I’m refilling the food and water, she’s never far from my boots.  She and Amara are always at my heals and following me around the yard, or back to the house.

We bought a bigger water dispenser.  There were several old ones down in our old barn, but upon inspection every one of them leaked terribly and were beyond repair.  There was a feeder found, though that got put to work.  Our chickens are no longer chicks and can’t get their big heads into the little chick feeder anymore.

For awhile I was putting the food in an open trough so they could reach it, and their food bill nearly doubled at that.  They wouldn’t leave the coop but just sat and ate food.  So I stopped refilling the food in the morning and only refilled it in the evening to force them to go outside and look for food.  That part worked but they were still eating a ton when they got back.

With the “new” (found in the barn) feeder, the food comes as they eat it.  So they have access all the time but only see a bit of it.  This has dramatically cut the amount of food that they eat, and yet it is always available to them so they’re not starving.  I don’t mind full chickens, I just mind lazy ones.  Well…I mind their $40/month food bill that is now shrinking back to a comfortable $25.  I’m not even think how much they’ll need this winter.  I’m not even going to let my mind go there right now.

For now, there’s free food for them outside and I’m going to make sure they go and get it.  I love how our tick sightings this year have been only 2.  (That was our daily count last year.)  Now if I could train them to eat mosquitoes…

I love watching these girls.  They are so funny.  The relationships between themselves are hilarious.  Every night after I put the children to bed, I go out to the coop, check their food and water.  Every night they gather from the woods and all over the yard and have found their perches and are happily waiting for me to come and shut the door for their safety.  They really do come back to roost for the night.

Well, except one time David shut the coop door midday without thinking.  By the time I went out to make sure they were all accounted for and in for the night, I saw that 6 of them had been locked outside the coop and had found comfortable perches in the bush behind the coop.  I was afraid of them making a habit of it, and when the door was opened they stubbornly wouldn’t leave their perch on the bush.  So, one by one I had to carry them from the bush to the inside of the coop.  It wouldn’t be such a chore but the mosquitos were out like crazy and I got close to 20 bites because I couldn’t swat them because you need both hands to carry a chicken.

Sometimes I bring them choice slops from the day.  I sit and watch them for awhile as a lazy “behavior check” to be sure all is well with all of them.  Then I do the count: “1,2,3…1,2,3,4….1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11…OK girls, sleep well!”  Then I lock them in for the night.  (We have 3 yellow/whitish birds, 4 black birds, and 11 brown birds of various breeds.)

I’m starting to get impatient for eggs.  Knut finished the nesting boxes, with a few months to spare.  I think it was theraputic for him to do a woodworking job that in no way had to be exact or pretty. It gave him some relief from the mantle on the fireplace that has been having his brain all worked up.  He even let David use his drill and put several of the screws which David really loved!  We’re told they will start laying between 4-6 months, depending on breed.  They are still only 2.5 months old.  It feels like eggs are still so far away.