Last week, I had a dream that one of our chickens died. In my dream, I went out to the coop in the morning, and there, on the floor of the coop, was one of our girls passed away. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I could see it was one of our girls from our Easter Egger line, which made me very sad.
I woke up heartbroken. I lay there in the dark thinking about how sad I was going to be if I went out to the coop in the morning and one of our Easter Eggers had passed. We have two lines of Easter Eggers in our flock–one line from Schumann and Schubert and another line from Poe. Those three chickens were some of the most magnificent I have ever known, and their children and grandchildren, mixed with Rooster’s genes, are brilliant, difficult sometimes, but so full of personality. If you follow my blog, you will know them–Kate, Juliet, Bianca, Cora, Bertha, Lenore, and, of course, Ruby.
I have been slow to move in the mornings for all of January, I think, but that morning, I was up as soon as the alarm went off. When I opened up the coop, I was so thankful to see that no one had passed over night, but there, in the exact spot where I had seen the dead chicken in my dream was Ruby.
It just came all over me that I needed to bring her in and give her a health check. This is never fun because Ruby does not like to be handled. She is an independent bird for sure. But after I put the food and water in the coop, I scooped her up and brought her into the house.
She complained as I turned her every which way to check things. She knows how to bite with a pinch, which not all of them know to do. Ruby definitely hates health checks. Even though I know she has the same reproductive issue Poe had, she was not thin, which was wonderful, but when I flipped her upside down, I could see an issue–Ruby had mites.
Ruby has always been prone to mites, but I haven’t checked her since before the holidays. I gave her a treatment and will give her the second treatment tomorrow night. She is doing great, and I noticed yesterday that she’s moved up a bit on the roost. She must be feeling better.
I assume it was a rat that gave her mites. I think we are maybe down to just one rat in the coop. I really need to tell the great rat story of 2025, but it is a long one. In the meantime, I will just share that this one rat I keep seeing is giant and smart. It has figured out every single thing we try to do.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in the coop in the evening gathering up the food and water for the night when I heard a bustling from the top roost. I looked up just in time to see a rat on the roost with the chickens. I screamed, and it dropped. I was in between it and the door, and I don’t know who was more terrified.
I have no idea what we are going to do about that rat. but I am thankful for my dream. Ruby needed treatment, and I need to do better about checking everyone for mites. I can’t let the depression of things keep me from taking good care of those animals. My dream was definitely a wake up call.
I have had those dreams too- a few years ago I dreamed one of our goats was bleeding and she was- needed 10 stitches in her udder. It was caused by one goat that had horns. I also know a beekeeper who has been warned of one of her hives being attacked in a dream. I also have dreamed accurately of things like measurement mistakes in time to correct them.
Hope you solve the rat problem. We also had to deal with that a few years ago. It has since changed to rabbits. Hoping the owls and coyotes and foxes will help on that one.
For mite prevention, I have put a cat litter sized box of sand with diatomaceous earth mixed in where they have to step to go indoors as an experiment. I also keep it under the hay in their nesting boxes. Not sure of the results, they seem healthy though.
Oh, I love these stories about your dreams! I love that you dreamed about measurement mistakes in time to correct them. I definitely have had similar dreams that have been so helpful to me. And that’s so interesting about the box of sand and DE at the door. I am also very interested in DE and sand under the hay in the boxes. Our nesting boxes are homemade with wood, but I wish they could hold something like that. I could see that would really, really help!