Strike out

Great disappointment at the Pampered Chicken headquarters. Three weeks ago I set 19 Ameraucana eggs into the incubator. This time around I also purchased a hydrometer, a digital thermometer, and an automatic egg turner. I was expecting a nearly full hatch, and was so disappointed to get a ZERO hatch. Even when I incubated my French Marans and had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I at least had a 1/3 hatch. There were some discrepancies between the two thermometers, and I went with the digital one which didn’t read as warm as the bulb thermometer. I should have erred on the side of keeping the incubator a little cooler because despite a successful initial candling, I didn’t get a single pip. I think I cooked them. Literally.

So instead of a flock of Ameraucanas laying pretty blue-green eggs next Easter, I walk away from the experience with a heavy heart and a lesson learned.

 

 

Bittersweet Chicken Days

We had a bittersweet weekend during the first days of December. Melanie, my black Marans, had her respiratory illness return with a vengeance.  It was a rough passing as I would assume she was struggling for oxygen there at the end. Just prior to that, one of my white leghorns, Blondell, died. I found her under a bush where she has snuggled down into the leaves to sleep and just didn’t wake up. Blondell hadn’t laid an egg in four months, however, so she likely had something wrong with her in the beginning. I had been gearing up to cull her myself but was glad Mother Nature took care of the situation.

That same weekend, however, while I was in Columbus with my sister, our Marans chicks began to hatch.  Two hatched overnight and the third hatched under the watchful eye of my Papa Spaz.  I missed the last hatch by 30 minutes. When they first hatch they’re ugly little boogers — wet and clumsy. But the peeping wins you over; the peeping begins before the pipping.  Noisy eggs!

Marans eggs cooking in the incubator.

The incubation was a job, and I’ll include that update in another post.

Until then…keep on clucking!

There’s a first time for everything.

The most difficult part of having a blog is sitting down to write. Designing and setting up the site, making a list of things to cover, and taking pictures to share with my readers has been relatively easy. Now that it’s time to actually launch the blog, I have ‘cold feet.’  It’s the question of where to start:   At the beginning? That was eight months ago! Today?  What about the explanations of what has led me here?

The great Dr. Carl Sagan said, “You have to know the past to understand the future.”  He was, I’m sure, speaking of much more influential spheres of knowledge and existence, so I think I will just jump into my first blog where I am today and fill in the back-story as I go along the best that I can.

Today’s news is that Melanie, the Black Marans recently acquired at the Ohio National Poultry Show, returned to the hen house tonight. She had been very ill with an upper respiratory infection, as well as a nasty case of Coccidiosis. Additionally, she was in terrible shape from being the lowest in the pecking order at her other farm, and was coincidentally missing a large part of the feathers on her back. My chickens wouldn’t even let her in the hen house. They literally blocked the entrance with their bodies, like mean girls in junior high. She was an alarming four pounds underweight.

So I brought her into the house to be nursed back to health. I washed her, gave her a blow dry, and cleaned up her wounds. She couldn’t stay awake, and only opened her eyes long enough to eat ravenously, take a long drink and doze off again. After watching her sneeze, sleep, and look miserable for a day, I took her to the veterinarian.

Let me first say I have five dogs and four cats. This veterinarian knows me by name because I rarely walk out of there without paying at least $100 a visit, so I’ve done my share of funding the proposed addition to the building. If the wing isn’t dedicated to me, then I should at the least have a plaque with my name on the wall.  That said, in all my years of sitting in this veterinarian’s office, or ANY veterinarian’s office, I never dreamed one day I would have a chicken on my lap.  Honestly, I felt pretty silly until the technician explained there was a gecko and hedgehog ahead of me. That made me feel much better.

After Melanie’s examination and fecal test, I left the office much more informed than when I entered. The doctor was very gentle and thorough, yet she was eager to answer all of my questions.  I was able to buy Melanie’s  medications at the local feed store, and learned how to calculate the powder-to-water ratios.  Day by day she stood a little straighter, plumped up a bit, and the sneezing stopped.

I let her hang out in the bathtub today to stretch her wings while looking her over (for over a week she has been patiently enduring a rabbit cage for a home). She still has a small bare spot on her back (see picture) but I applied purple antiseptic cream to camouflage the area to prevent more picking/pecking.

I hope she’s doing okay tonight. There’s a miserable storm out there, so hopefully all my girls are cuddled up together without letting their social status get in the way.  I’m sure the roosters are unhappy because they were kicked out into the covered run, but that’s another story for another post.

Until next time…

Dozing while having a blow-dry.

Hanging out in the tub before going back out to the hen house. Tail feathers look great and back is healing!