This is not celebrity rehab. My chickens are not getting high off mushrooms in the yard or fermented corn or unharvested illegal herbs. No, this is rehabilitation in the sense of getting the Omega hen to heal up enough so that I can let her take the air a bit.
She has scabbed over nicely, no apparent infection, so I carefully opened the cage with one hand, the other ready to prevent the rush that surprised me last time.
How does a chicken go from looking like a lump of feathers to propelling herself with instant top speed with no warning? She's refused food and water for two days. I got her out of the cage, calmed her down, and inflicted a further indignity by maneuvering her into a "chicken saddle". Yes, the thing finally arrived, and I was ashamed to see how easy it would be to make, compared to what they chicken accessory vendors charged for it! It doesn't cover her tail, but it will help, I think - I hope.
She ran off at top speed for the bushes, and wedged herself under them before Buck had time to get interested. The Alpha Girls took brief notice, but it being too much trouble to go after her, Pearl, the Omega of the originals, went after the other 2 new girls who have so far kept their feathers and their health.
Bibs is so naked and chewed; her status is so lowered by the added article of clothing, that she is beneath notice for now.
I probably should have refused this chicken when the women handed her to me, I seem to remember a pause, as if she was waiting for me to ask for a discount, or a different chicken. It was $24 for three of them and when I handed her $25 she made no move to get change. I must have looked like an easy mark. Wouldn't be the first time.
I see that she's choosing at night to go in to the cat box to sleep while Barbie & Becky prefer the Eastlake chair. I'd really better get that out of the shed this week or it will be too late to save it. The smell of chicken shit is pervasive when allowed to soak into fabric, I'll bet. All it needs to perfume the air is a bit of heat from the wood stove.
Looks like I'm going to be coughing up for another electric door before winter, but first, I have to install a window and fix the warped doors on the shed, I'm not confident that everyone will be happily roosting together by November.
A niece of a friend has passed on the only sensible suggestion as to how to get new hens to assimilate. The plan has to do with synchronizing their hormone levels. Of course, that was too logical for me to leap to on my own, but hens being so much like middle school girls, naturally I should have remembered that members of the clique get their periods around the same time.
There might be hope, but it means trying to separate out a section of the main coop so that hens are safe, visible, but not peckable until that happens.
For now, they share pillage space.
She has scabbed over nicely, no apparent infection, so I carefully opened the cage with one hand, the other ready to prevent the rush that surprised me last time.
How does a chicken go from looking like a lump of feathers to propelling herself with instant top speed with no warning? She's refused food and water for two days. I got her out of the cage, calmed her down, and inflicted a further indignity by maneuvering her into a "chicken saddle". Yes, the thing finally arrived, and I was ashamed to see how easy it would be to make, compared to what they chicken accessory vendors charged for it! It doesn't cover her tail, but it will help, I think - I hope.
She ran off at top speed for the bushes, and wedged herself under them before Buck had time to get interested. The Alpha Girls took brief notice, but it being too much trouble to go after her, Pearl, the Omega of the originals, went after the other 2 new girls who have so far kept their feathers and their health.
Bibs is so naked and chewed; her status is so lowered by the added article of clothing, that she is beneath notice for now.
I probably should have refused this chicken when the women handed her to me, I seem to remember a pause, as if she was waiting for me to ask for a discount, or a different chicken. It was $24 for three of them and when I handed her $25 she made no move to get change. I must have looked like an easy mark. Wouldn't be the first time.
I see that she's choosing at night to go in to the cat box to sleep while Barbie & Becky prefer the Eastlake chair. I'd really better get that out of the shed this week or it will be too late to save it. The smell of chicken shit is pervasive when allowed to soak into fabric, I'll bet. All it needs to perfume the air is a bit of heat from the wood stove.
Looks like I'm going to be coughing up for another electric door before winter, but first, I have to install a window and fix the warped doors on the shed, I'm not confident that everyone will be happily roosting together by November.
A niece of a friend has passed on the only sensible suggestion as to how to get new hens to assimilate. The plan has to do with synchronizing their hormone levels. Of course, that was too logical for me to leap to on my own, but hens being so much like middle school girls, naturally I should have remembered that members of the clique get their periods around the same time.
There might be hope, but it means trying to separate out a section of the main coop so that hens are safe, visible, but not peckable until that happens.
For now, they share pillage space.
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Glad to hear from you, but criticisms will be ignored. It's the beauty of the web. I will answer all friendly remarks. Buck handles the rest.