I cannot believe it has been a whole week since I have written in the blog, but I have been very busy with work and the chickens and being a cello mom, and in all the nooks and crannies where I can normally squeeze in time to write, I have been building the upcoming issue of Farmer-ish journal. Friends, I can’t wait for you to see–and hear it!
We are adding audio to this issue, and it’s beautiful. I have done some of the reading, but most of the authors read their works themselves. I have cried more than once hearing the authors speak the lovely words they wrote. I can’t wait to share it with you all.
I am thankful I have been able to put this together. I mean, I’m not finished yet, but it will be ready by Friday for sure.
I am knocking on wood as I write those words.
It has been a really, really tough week here in so many ways. I won’t write about it because I know so many people are having their own rough weeks right now, but I have to tell you the things I am grateful for today because it’s Tuesday.
I am so grateful the snow is melting, and you know how is the most grateful of all? The ducks!
They all made it through the winter, and though no one is laying an egg yet, they are getting wild and rowdy and having a blast in all of the water. Little Anna Maria is still struggling with her blindness but doing okay overall. It’s always a little hard on her when the snow melts and the flock is out and about more. She has a hard time finding them, so I am back to checking on her several times a day, chasing her down, carrying her to her people, only to be hissed at by our male duck, Ferdinand. I emphasize I am trying to help. I think at least Anna Maria is grateful for my efforts.
I am also grateful tonight that my daughter got a new and better job, that my brother continues to heal, and that it won’t be long before the rhubarb is growing. We are completely out of jam and jelly right now. That hasn’t happened in years. I did not make nearly enough last summer, and both my husband and son went on a peanut butter and jelly kick this winter.
Did you know I do not like peanut butter? I have, thus far, never met a single person who doesn’t like peanut better. If you do not, I would love to hear about it.
I do have to add one sad note: Hector is in her last days. I spent way too much time today snuggling her. I was going to make her a basket and let her sit in the sun today, but she leaned into my chest, which meant I worked to build pages of the journal in slow motion today with a chicken in my lap.
I am so grateful for that time with her though. I kind of want to go get her and snuggle her some more tonight, but she got tired of sitting still after a few hours. I took her to the coop, and she went to a nest box. She’s not walking too well, so I was impressed.
I was making dinner tonight when Ron did the nighttime chicken chores, so I had him check on Hector. He said she was in a really, really deep sleep. Hopefully, she will pass tonight in her sleep. She got a full 10 months longer than I thought she might. Gosh, she’s.a great bird.
It’s almost spring. The old birds who have held on all winter will start to let go.
It has been such a long, cold winter that we are running low on firewood. This makes my teen son who runs quite hot quite happy. However, the cats and I are chilly in the evenings, and we all miss the fire in the wood stove. Thankfully, we are starting to see a melt, and it feels like Spring is, truly, just around the corner. It is also nice that the kitties hang out with me in the evenings now instead of in front of or underneath the wood stove. My lap is now the warmest spot.
I am teaching a rhetoric class right now, and one of my students wrote about how she sends emails to her co-workers every single Wednesday to tell them how grateful she is for them. This resonated with me on so many levels. First, I have been trying very hard to convince my mother of late that people will help you more if you treat them kindly. She is resistant to this idea, but I don’t think it’s wrong. It’s true that there will be some who will just take advantage, but by and large, my kindness to others has resulted in a great deal of happiness and support in my life. I think my student is wise, rhetorically speaking, to send gratitude emails.
But there’s also just the goodness for goodness’s sake–that overwhelming feeling of good when you have helped someone or done some good in the world. It’s so real. Just yesterday, my son and I experienced this. He was driving us home from his cello lessons (he recently got his learner’s permit), and there was a person with a sign asking for money. We have been trying so hard to save every penny of late that we haven’t been helping others like we would normally. This has impacted me mentally quite a bit. I like to be as generous as possible, but I also understand that hard times are upon us.
I have not had cash in my wallet in quite some time, but by some miracle, I actually had some cash. It was a $20.
I hesitated. “That’s a lot of money right now,” I said.
“Please,” my son said. “I’ll pay you back.”
So I handed him the money, and he handed it to the man.
The man was so grateful. We watched as he packed up his bag. It was enough that he could be done for the day, it seemed.
“Being giving made me feel better. I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time,” my son said. “If you ever get lucky and win at capitalism, you share, share, share,” I said. “You’ll be a happier human for it.”
The story reminded me of how helping others really just helps you. I don’t tell that story to make it seem like we are so great because we are not. I have been so worried about the state of things that I haven’t been very generous to the world at all in recent months. But I am grateful I had that $20. It led to a good conversation with my son about the joy of being helpful to others and how we can’t lose that in tough times. And, truly, it felt so good to be helpful.
With that in mind, I am grateful the hens are laying now. Before I start selling eggs I plan to give a few dozen away because eggs are such a precious gift right now. I mean, they always were to me, but I think, right now, those beautiful eggs might lift some spirits. I took one dozen to my neighbor, and she paid with a hug. I was grateful.
I am also grateful that the snow is melting, that my son and I are gaining in health and strength, that Boudica is able to go on short walks again, and that my brother, who has been very ill, is in recovery after a liver and kidney transplant. We talk on the phone at least twice a week now, and I am so thankful for his conversation. He is so curious about our farming, and I tell him everything I can about the chickens, ducks, and what all we do around here. He lives far away, but he said he had a dream he was with us at our house working in the garden wearing a straw hat and that it was all wonderful.
I am grateful for the community I have been able to make around Farmer-ish. The journal is coming back online on the Spring Equinox, and I can’t wait to share it with you. And I am grateful to have a community to share it with. Thank you for reading and supporting in all the ways.
Every Tuesday, I am going to try to write about the things I am grateful for. We need good things. We need love and kindness and gratitude. How else can we combat the darkness, right?
I would love for you to join in. Are there things you are feeling grateful for right now?
To the many of you who have followed Mary Jane’s story over the last nearly 8 years, I wanted to let you know that she passed the night before last. I found her in the coop yesterday morning, and my heart is broken, of course.
The night before, we had been out pretty late because our son had a performance in Portland. When we got home, I went out to close up the chickens and put away the food and found that Mary Jane was not in her usual spot. I went to her and touched her. She got up and was moving slowly, but she went to the food dish and started eating and eating. I thought this was unusual.
I went about doing everything else for the evening chores–closing up the ducks, dumping waters, busting ice, etc.–and came back and told her I was going to have to take away the food dish because it was bed time. Because she was so old and so wise, she understood a lot of language and understood I had to take the bowl. I gave her some pets and kept the flashlight on, so she could make her way over to her usual spot in the coop. She was moving so very slowly heading to her spot, but she has slow been all winter. At some point, I just quit worrying about her quite so much. I think I just thought she might live forever.
I said good night to her and told her she was a good girl. I wish I would have hugged her, though she was only sometimes in the mood for hugs. I keep thinking about seeing her slowly making her way in the coop in the light of the flashlight. That’s the last time I got to see her. I wish I would have said more, but I know in my bones she knew I loved her. I made it clear so, so many times.
When I went to the coop yesterday morning, she was in her spot and had passed sometime during the night. The flock wasn’t acting weird at all, as they sometimes will when someone dies in the coop, and Mary Jane just looked like she passed in her sleep. She looked peaceful. I think it must have been a quiet death, as the flock was not disturbed until later when I was holding her and crying. .
I held her for the longest time and angry cried a lot, though I do not know why I was angry–other than I am just angry at the world, I guess.
When I went to get Ron and let him know, Boudica found me. She had heard me crying and was so worried about me. She did all she could to make me feel better–and I did feel better. I was reminded that I still have Boudica, and that, as much as losing Mary Jane hurts, it will pale in comparison to losing Boudica. So I had better treasure my time with that amazing girl.
I picked a feather from Mary Jane to save forever. Ron said he took her by the coop to say goodbye to the flocks, and Rooster was visibly upset. That old boy is also moving very, very slowly himself. Ron took her about a half mile into the woods to feed a hungry someone, maybe a fox, maybe a hawk. He lay her at the base of a big, beautiful Ash tree and told her how much he loved her and how thankful he was to know her. He told her the story of the day she was pardoned from processing and why she stood out from the others. That trauma was a part of her story, and she always carried herself with the wisdom of having seen some things.
There are so many lessons there that I don’t know if I will ever learn them all in this lifetime, but I will try.
I am going to miss her terribly. It feels like the end of an era.
She would have been 8 years old at the first of June. She was a Freedom Ranger meat chicken and one of the most intelligent creatures I have ever met. And one of my dear friends reminded me of this important lyric in Tom Petty’s song:
“She said, ‘I dig you, baby, but I got to keep movin’ on, keep movin’ on'”
We are flirting with mud season around here, and I am thankful for the melt but also not a fan of mud season. The chickens are not fans of mud season either. I put straw in the run, but it’s still messy. The girls stand at the front door of the coop and look at the driveway like they really want driveway time. I have been avoiding it, just trying to train them to lock down a little bit with bird flu in mind, but tomorrow, I think they are going to get a little driveway time. I think I am going to have to do a deep clean on the coop. I have a little dread about it. It’s going to be hard, but it’s time.
When I went to collect eggs this evening, I saw that Ruby has a poopy bum, so I had to pick her up to check things out. She does have a few mites, so I had to treat her, which led to me bleeding because she is fierce. That chicken is so wild and stubborn and histrionic. I was so kind and patient the whole time, but she made such a scene that the other chickens started to get upset. I promised them all that it was okay and that Ruby was just being Ruby, and I think that worked.
Anyway, she has now been treated. She pecked me one more time for good measure when I put her down.
In contrast, I thought I had better do a health check on Hector while I was checking on people tonight, and while she is not doing the greatest, she is certainly hanging in much better than I thought she would be. I am sure we will lose her this spring, but she’s holding up well and seems content. She was so chill while I checked her. Her crop is a little bit squishy, so I will have to treat that tomorrow. When I was done, I held her right in my face, so I could check out her eyes, trying to see what’s going on in there. Does she look like she has pain? Is she mostly okay? I am happy to report that her eyes looked good. She is such a great hen. I am so, so, so sad she didn’t win the genetics lottery.
I am thinking about ordering a few hatching eggs for heritage chickens this year. I think that should help in the genetics lottery. I also realize that a lot of our flock won the genetics lottery because of Rooster. We have so many old hens, and they are all Rooster’s babies. And, of course, Rooster will be 9 this summer.
We are all just trying to stay sane and focused on preparing for tougher times. The straw we get comes from Canada, so we bought a lot today because we assume the price will go up if the tariffs are put into place on Monday. Of course, you never know if he’s really going to enact the tariffs or just threaten forever. Either way, we have a good amount of straw, and I had a Blue Seal coupon. That coupon covered two free bales of straw–and straw is not cheap.
There is a part of me that feels like I am panicking too much, but then I read a little bit about what is going on and feel like I am not panicking nearly enough. All I know is that I wake up each morning so differently than I ever have. I wake up scared. Then, I get my brain to adjust to this new reality and tell myself, “put the anxiety into action.”
And then I get up and start getting the food and water ready for my sweet chickens. And Ruby too.
I wish I had talked to my grandparents more before they passed away, but I was actually pretty young. I was in high school when my great grandmother, who was like my grandmother, as she had raised my dad, passed away. I have wonderful memories of her. She was part Cherokee and taught me a kind of Christianity that I don’t see much of today. She taught me to be kind to everyone–no exceptions, to turn the other cheek, to help those who might have less, and to never judge others. She also taught me about chickens.
I wish I had a photo somewhere of her chicken coop that was in the back of an old garage. I can’t remember the outside very well, but there were strawberries and blackberries around the outside of the chicken run (I definitely remember those), and I remember the inside of the coop. It was kind of dark, without windows, and being in Texas, I guess there wasn’t a huge need for protection from the cold. It was a much “looser” structure than the coop we have now. I remember the nest boxes. I remember helping her collect eggs and being a little bit afraid of those hens pecking my arm. I remember her telling me not to look outside when she had to go get a chicken for dinner. And I remember helping her feed her chickens.
My great grandmother, Bertha (One of Poe’s grand babies is named Bertha in her honor), had lived through the Great Depression. She told me stories about growing and canning food and how she used to make clothes out of flour sacks (I later learned that the flour companies started using pretty fabrics for the flour sacks when they learned people were making dresses from them). She told me about surviving, and all of my memories of her are related to the habits she must have learned surviving the Depression. She kept a garden. She canned food. She made everything from scratch–from potato chips to syrup (no lovely Maple trees to tap in Texas). She made her clothes, and she worked non-stop even in her older age. Even when she was watching her “stories” on the little black and white television in her living room, she crocheted blankets and tablecloths.
One of my best memories of her was feeding the scraps after meals to the chickens. It was way more fun than collecting eggs, and I was so thankful to those chickens. I was a VERY picky eater when I was a kid (autism and all), and though my granny begged me to eat all of my meals, all I really wanted to eat was her homemade jam on her homemade bread. I was so thankful to the chickens for eating my carrots. Maybe that’s when I fell in love with chickens. I just didn’t know it at the time. My great grandmother’s chickens were fed with table scraps and grains. She didn’t use chicken feed, though it had been developed by the time I was a kid in the 80s.
I have been thinking more and more about my great grandmother as I try to figure out a million worst-case scenarios in my mind for what the future holds. My jobs are no longer stable, so Ron and I have been doing our best be as frugal as we can be, stock up where we can, and figure out how to live even more self sufficiently. It has occurred to me: What if we couldn’t afford organic chicken feed?
Using my great grandmother as inspiration, I researched to find out how people fed their chickens during hard times like the Great Depression and in the times before chicken feed was a thing. Below is a list of the things I have learned. I hope they are helpful to you, and I hope none of us need them.
Table Scraps
Right now, we use table scraps to supplement our chickens’ diet. It is a great way to save money on feed and avoid food waste. Plus, the variety is great for the chickens. They love getting new things to eat. You can tell it boosts their spirits. But in hard times, the table scraps become more of a staple for chickens. This means you have to get serious. We have always been pretty serious about it, and this is how we do it: We have a large glass bowl that stays in the refrigerator, and we put every single teeny tiny scrap into that bowl. When the bowl is full, it goes to the chickens. This is everything from the single edge of toast crust that my son didn’t eat at breakfast to leftover pan of rice when I accidentally cooked a little too much. It’s the three noodles left on the plate. It’s the piece of broccoli I just couldn’t fit in my tummy. Save it all. It adds up and can make such a difference and can help add variety to your chickens’ diet if you don’t have access to commercial feed.
For more information on what chickens can and cannot eat from your table (it’s pretty much everything you can eat), please check out this helpful list from Heritage Acres Market.
Foraging
Allowing your chickens room to forage for bugs, worms, and greens is a great way to feed them. Of course, given the fact that bird flu is on the rise, you may not always be able to give your chickens the space to feed themselves. It may be necessary to keep your chickens covered, but when bird flu is not a threat, allowing your chickens to fend for themselves can supplement other methods of feeding chickens. Ours love the dandelions and clover, which is a reminder to plant clover instead of grass if you can and definitely let your yard be wild.
Grow a Garden
I remember my great grandmother feeding her chickens from the garden, and we do the same thing. We can’t do it in the winter here in Maine, so winter would be tough on us in many ways if we couldn’t access chicken feed; however, from the first of May when the greens come to the middle of October when the tomatoes are winding down and the squash is ready, our chickens eat a lot from our garden. Ron grows greens the full growing season, so the chickens always have that. Then it’s beet tops, raspberries, blueberries, so many tomatoes, fresh corn, melons, and so on. There is always something about to get by us in the garden, and the chickens can take advantage of it.
And, at the end of the growing season, we let the chickens into the garden to glean, and they surely do. They love the leaves from the broccoli plants all of the tomato drops.
Grains
According to everything I have read, no grain is ideal for chickens because they need such variety in their diets, but corn, wheat, and oats can be good in combination with something like soy or another protein. While there is certainly nothing that can fully replace a really good layer pellet, the reality that layer pellets can generally only last about six months stored means that it might be a good option to store grains, which can be stored for years and may be easier to purchase during tough times. They can also be grown if you have the space.
After reading this helpful article on chicken nutrition and grains from Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners, I hope we can always access our chicken feed, but it’s good to know that chickens can get by without it. The key is definitely just to use variety and use all of these methods listed here. You also have to provide supplements if you aren’t using chicken feed.
Supplements
Without feed, there are supplements that your chickens will need. First, the laying hens will need calcium supplements. Oyster shell works great. We also save our egg shells and crush them to feed back to the hens as a calcium supplement. They will also need grit. Grit is really just small stones that chickens can eat that stay in their gizzards to grind up larger food items like bugs and pieces of meat from scraps.
Final Thoughts
I have read in some forums that people say chickens are not worth keeping if things get so bad that you can’t access commercial feed, but I disagree. My great grandparents survived the Great Depression by growing their own food, and that included chickens. I have also read stories from people who lived through the Great Depression and felt that the chickens were part of the reason they survived. Chickens provide eggs, meat, and fertilizer. They also provide resources for trade.
Humans domesticated chickens 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, and we have been living side by side ever since. There’s a good reason we have had such a long relationship with this amazing animal.
P.S. If you have additional ideas, please share. I have been wondering about a meal worm farm but don’t know if it’s hard to do.
I don’t know if it’s that I got used to easier winters or just the state of the world, but this winter has felt hard. I am sitting here listening to the sleet on the windows and the stove pipe, and I am wondering how in the world we are going to clean things up in the morning for the chickens and ducks.
I have shoveled so many mornings that, now, when I wake up, if I look at the window and see snow, I yell “nooo.”
But as I typed these words, I think I realize that it’s not the snow at all. We have a wood stove. I love the exercise of shoveling snow, and though I am slower than I used to be, I am thankful I have the strength to keep shoveling.
You wouldn’t believe the conversations Ron and I are having trying to figure out how to handle what might be coming our way. I cannot believe the words that are coming out of our mouths. I cannot believe we are here. I cannot even share my worries because I am worried about voicing my worries.
I hope I am not making your worries worse.
Today, I smiled big for the first time in a good while. My son was practicing his cello this evening, and Boudica came to listen. She hasn’t done that in a while. We got Boudica in 2016, and our son started cello in 2017. Boudica has been with him the whole way–since the squeaky Twinkle Twinkle Little Star days. Tonight, it was like she took some time off of work to just sit and listen to him. She sat and watched while I gave her pets, and I found myself smiling in a way that my face hasn’t felt in far too long.
The good cello and time with Boudica reminded me that it feels good to smile.
Oh, and I haven’t been writing as much because I am making really good progress on putting my chicken book together. My goal is to have it finished by the time I’m 50. I’m getting really close–on both.
I wish I had better news to share about the bird flu right now. In terms of spread to humans, chances are still low, but in the last 24 hours, another human became infected. This time, it was a dairy worker in Nevada. So far, there is no human to human transmission, but about 70 people have become infected from animals. And, according to research presented in a recent article in Scientific American, the virus is just one mutation away from being able to bind more efficiently to human cells.
And while transmission to humans is a concern as the virus continues to mutate, right now, outbreaks in wild and domestic bird populations are decimating populations. Eggs are so expensive people are stealing them by the truckload. I saw today that organic eggs were $11 a dozen at the grocery store. Maine has now also reported its first cases in York County, and the state has issued a high alert for the virus. I’ll speak to what we are doing and what other chicken keepers can do below, but I wanted to step back for a moment and talk about the devastation this virus is having on wildlife.
This weekend, I read an article at NPR about why the bird flu we are experiencing now is so much worse than the bird flu of the past. I have seen many people in farming and chicken forums skeptical about the dangers of the bird flu, citing evidence that bird flu has been around forever and that there have been outbreaks in the past. These things are true, but there has been an adaptation in the bird flu in recent years that has changed things. Things are not as they used to be. Nothing really is, is it?
Scientists in the article explain that, starting in 2020 to 2021, the virus adapted. In the past, sick birds would die quickly from the symptoms, which cut down on the spread of the virus. In recent years, the virus has adapted, and infected birds live longer–just long enough to spread the virus to another population. It’s causing the virus to spread differently than in the past, and there are many, many people who are in denial about this, which never bodes well for the prevention of spread.
The author of the article, Gabrielle Emanuel, citing experts who have studied the flu virus for decades, explains:
“The particular virus that causes bird flu — H5N1 — itself is not new. It’s a disease that originated in east Asia, first detected in China in 1996. The virus has mostly terrorized poultry farms and led to massive culling. It has occasionally spilled over to humans, causing some 400 deaths over the decades, but rarely spreads human-to-human. And while it has jumped over into wild birds periodically — killing many birds in many places — it never took off globally.
Then came 2020 and 2021, when the version that’s driving the current outbreak emerged.
The virus evolved so some wild birds are able to migrate just far enough to reach another bird community or mammal population to pass the virus on before dying.”
A scientist cited in the article explains it’s like “dead birds flying,” and the virus is wreaking havoc on wildlife–birds, marine mammals, and, of course, it’s spreading to both commercial and backyard chicken flocks, dairy farms, and some humans.
I guess the question comes down to this: What can we do?
While scientists keep stressing the importance of government preparedness (I read that the UK has ramped up production of vaccines), it’s not hopeful that our government is doing anything to prepare for this. In the immediate, if you live in a state like we do where there have been cases of bird flu, it’s a good idea to take some precautions.
We do not live near water, so that helps us, but it’s no guarantee, of course. We studied the migration patterns of birds and see that our greatest risk in our part of Maine is from the first of April to the middle of June. If we start to see cases in our area, we will have to lock down the flock. To make it possible to lock down the flock, Ron plans to build two covered high tunnels that he thinks will be able to withstand the wind. I’ll definitely keep you posted on Ron’s plans because he thinks his plans will be affordable and effective, and he’s usually right on such things.
In the immediate, we are keeping food and water away from wildlife. We are only feeding the chickens in the coop, and they are barely leaving the coop right now anyway because of all the snow. Last year, when we realized we had better not get new chicken babies and work on naturally downsizing the flock, who knew it was going to be so important so quickly?
It’s also important to keep people away from the flock, and we are using designated shoes for the coop, but we always do the latter. I have also not been letting the flock have driveway time this winter, which makes everyone sad.
Our ducks have also been locking themselves down for the most part on their own because of all the snow, but we do keep their feed and water outside, so I am making a canvas tent this week to connect to their duck house and put food and water in. My only worry is that those skittish runner ducks won’t stand for it. I’ll keep you posted.
Please take good care, everyone. There is so much to follow in the news that we can’t keep up with it all. It’s just exhausting. I’ll do my best to keep you updated on bird flu.
I am working on a new post on bird flu, but I may not have it ready until Monday, as this weekend is a big weekend for our son. He has made the finals in a concerto competition, so I will be away all day tomorrow. My son is well prepared, and it’s such an honor to make the finals. He will get to play in a lovely space with an audience and a pianist. He will get to play alongside the best young musicians our state has to offer. I hope things go well for him. It has been such a journey for him with his cello this year. Because of the long COVID, he is having to learn his body in a way I didn’t learn until my 30 or 40s. It’s hard for a teen to have the patience to handle an illness like this and keep doing what he loves, which is all very physical. I admire him, and I am thankful he will get to play tomorrow.
But I digress…I wanted to write an update on Boudica because I mentioned she was having some struggles. I was trying not to worry but was a little worried about her. When Gus died in 2021, I was so physically heartbroken and sick, I worried about my health. Boudica and I are so close. We read each other’s minds all the time and have similar personality types. It’s so wonderful to have that connection. I want that for longer.
Thankfully, we got pretty good news at the vet. She is overall quite healthy, but Boudica has some arthritis. We are trying some natural supplements for her, and they seem to be helping. I have no words for how thankful I am to have a chance for more time with her. She is one of the greats, though aren’t they all?
Anyway, I got this great short video walking with her this week. She felt so good after the first dose of natural supplement that she was able to go for a short walk with me in the woods. I love walks with Boudica in the woods. By the way, the supplements that seem to be working so well are from a Maine company, Coastside Bio Resources. Our vet recommended this company, so I am hopeful.
I hope this video makes you smile. This is my amazing girl, being so busy on the walk. She’s very serious, always working.
And, this reminds me of a story Ron told me. Later in the week, Ron took both Bairre and Boudica on a walk when I wasn’t able to go. It got late, and they were in the woods after dark. Do you remember that story I told you about Boudica being like the wolf who knew about the dying bison two miles away? Ron and I have talked about this and try to respect Boudica’s opinion. Well, Ron said, on their walk, Boudica just stopped in her tracks and refused to go any farther. She never does this.
Ron said, after first, he made her keep going, but she took a few steps, stopped again, and gave him a look that Ron understood to mean, “there’s trouble that way.” We have a lot of coyotes in the area, so Ron decided to listen to Boudica. He turned everyone around and came home.
It has been many days of bad news. I know overwhelming us with bad news is the point, but I feel so down nonetheless. But there are good things too, and I have the best story to tell about Hector.
Last year, we lost Silver, and I was heartbroken because it was partially my fault. She had water belly in a bad way. It had come on quickly, and I kept researching and researching on how to drain her. I was so scared to poke her with that needle and drain her belly. I finally did it, but I was too little too late. Perhaps because I had go buy the equipment and perhaps because I kept watching the same videos and reading the same instructions over and over, we lost Silver.
I as devastated, but a reader and a friend said, “Now you know how to do it, and it will save the next one.”
The next one came pretty quickly. Last May, Hector, who has never had the greatest health, developed water belly. I was still terrified, but I had the equipment, got my son to hold her, and I drained her. I did everything right, I had thought, but the liquid that came out was not a normal, clear color as it should. I looked it up, and it was infection. Everything I read said that the draining would help but that something was seriously wrong with her and that she didn’t have much time.
I kept watching Hector and spoiling her, thinking any moment could be her last, but so far, that moment has never come. I don’t know why. I definitely pulled infected fluid out of her. The ONLY thing I can figure out is that maybe, by some bit of luck, I got enough of the infection out of her that her immune system was able to help her fight off the rest.
Hector continues to be one who is a little slower than the others. I figured out pretty quickly that she did not have the best genetics because she started to develop struggles at a VERY young age. In fact, she will be just three years old this spring. Still, she is still with us and doing well overall. I am thankful because she is the sweetest little thing, and as she has gotten older, she has developed a little bit of sass, which you just have to adore.
The most interesting thing to me is that last week, Hector started laying again! I have no idea how she could be that sick last year and recover enough to be laying again, but I know her eggs. She is a Black Copper Maran and lays a beautiful chocolate egg. Faure lays an egg that is pretty close, but hers are speckled. Hector’s eggs are the only ones that are solid chocolate eggs, so these are definitely her eggs.
The chocolate egg on the left is definitely Hector’s, and the dark egg on the right is Faure’s. I put in two cream-colored eggs for contrast. Aren’t they all beautiful?
It feels a little bit like a miracle. My sweet Silver saved my sweet Hector, and I am learning all the time. I don’t know how much longer Hector has, but she got more time in a place where she is loved and respected. That seems pretty good to me.
This winter has been coldest we have had in some time. Some of our girls have barely left the coop since mid-December. I know everyone wants out of the coop for some driveway time because, for some reason unknown to me, the shoveled driveway is better than the shoveled run, but since we are trying to teach the flock to stay in their area, I have not let the flock out for driveway time all winter.
To make up for it, I have been trying to visit regularly with treats, and this evening, I decided to take photos. Some of them just couldn’t be still enough (I tried for 10 minutes to get a picture of Bianca), but I got some great pictures of some of the girls. I hope these make your heart happy after a really tough week in the world. These girls are so beautiful my heart almost can’t take it.
This is Juliet, and this is my favorite picture of her ever! She will be 5 years old this spring, and she still lays a beautiful olive egg–at least I think so. She hasn’t started laying this year yet. Juliet is the original quirky chicken of our flock and actually raised Ruby, which explains a lot.
This is Betty Jr. Betty Jr. is the daughter of one of our original Rhode Island Reds. Her mama, Betty, was the most perfect Rhode Island Red I had ever seen, so I named her “beautiful Betty.” Betty Jr. is a carbon copy of her. In fact, when Betty was alive, I couldn’t tell them apart unless they were side by side. Betty Jr. will be 8 years old this spring, and I don’t think she’s still laying eggs. She’s also looking pretty old, which breaks my heart, as she is a direct line to my original girls.
This is Clara. She is named after Clara Schumann, the composer. She was raised by Petty last fall, and she’s so friendly. She is one of my few hens who will let me pick her up and snuggle her, so she’s a favorite. I adore her and am so thankful for this beautiful picture of her.
This is Kate, and I have written about her many times. She is from my Shakespeare batch of chicks from 2020, and she was raised alongside Juliet. When Kate was a baby, she was the sassiest little thing I have ever seen. She has remained fairly sassy, but I am worried about her of late. I think the long winter has taken a toll on her mentally. She hasn’t even been taking treats from my hand. Thankfully, this evening, she finally did. I don’t see anything physically wrong with her, but she likes her freedom. She is definitely a wild and free kind of girl. I hope she’s going to be okay, and I can’t wait for the snow and ice to melt.
This Eleanor, named after the Beatle’s song, “Eleanor Rigby.” I wish I could tell you more about Eleanor, but I know very little about her. She is mysterious. She, and here three sisters, are Salmon Faverolles, somehow live in the flock but outside of it at the same time. I can’t explain it exactly. Sometimes, they will take treats from me but not at other times. They watch things a lot. Sometimes, they are all four together, and other times, they are separated into two’s. I keep thinking that, as they get older, I will begin go understand them more, but I am not sure. They’re chill and mysterious and beautiful. They will be three years old this spring, and that’s the most information I have on Eleanor and her sisters. Oh, and they were raised by Ruby, so maybe that’s what’s going on.
