The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

So sorry you are having a rough start to the new year, Cyn. I hope Mary recovers well from her injury. Glad to hear Atlas is feeling better and Dusty is a bit more comfortable.

Yay for Zara!! The waiting game here is driving me crazy. I now know what my eggs are worth after buying expensive "pastured" eggs that didn't come anywhere near the size and quality of mine. I just buy the cheap ones now until I get eggs. DH keeps asking when it will pick up, it seems our feed bill is outrageous right now with nothing to show for it. Too old and too young is the only answer I have for him.

How is that quilt coming along?

It's coming along fine, not rushing it. I need one more row on the right and one more top and bottom, then the border, but I need to go to Hobby Lobby this weekend, barring MORE unforeseen complications. It's an hour away in Cleveland, TN.

 

[MistyMountain]

That looks great!! Beautiful work!

I LOVE Hobby Lobby! I wish we had one nearby. I think the closest may be in NC. Probably a good thing, now that I think about it. I have enough projects pending...

 

[1muttsfan]

Seems hardly likely that it has been that long since we have followed this thread. Long and enjoyable!

 

[speckledhen]

Seems hardly likely that it has been that long since we have followed this thread. Long and enjoyable!

Glad you're having a good time. I'm glad you're here, Mary. This is a good crowd. You know, since I was moaning about my January with multiple weirdnesses, I decided to upload a Youtube about "Anything Can Happen With Chickens: Be Prepared!". It's taking awhile, as usual. Hopefully, it won't tank.

 

[speckledhen]

 

[Wyatt0224]

Very insightful video. Hope Mary gets better soon and glad to see Atlas is back to his great self again. Has Dusty gotten any better?

 

[speckledhen]

Very insightful video. Hope Mary gets better soon and glad to see Atlas is back to his great self again. Has Dusty gotten any better?

I wish the video quality was better. I have a sucky little camera and have zero talent with editing stuff. I use the shaky fix thing and color enhancement auto fix on Youtube but anything more complicated confounds me. I have no iphone like most do. And of course, there's the super long upload time. My modem went down in the middle since it's still not right and dang it, Amazon has not shipped my new one still. Have to get on their case about that.


A slight improvement with Dusty, but she still has a bloaty crop. It refuses to clear up. So, she is back with her group. We massage the crop daily to try to push food through, but it's hard with the bloat because she begins to have liquid come back up. I think she's also drinking more than usual. We couldn't just keep her separate with no food and keep her starving, though she still isn't getting a lot of nutrition. It is probably just close to her time to go.

 

[1muttsfan]

Likely she is happier being with her friends anyway.

 

[speckledhen]

Likely she is happier being with her friends anyway.

That's our thinking, Mary. It's much less stressful for her. Stress plays such a huge part in chicken health, overall. If we can't help her and no one is picking on her (woe to any who do pick on Dusty the Destroyer!), she is better off staying with Xander. He sleeps with his head against hers every night.

 

[speckledhen]

After checking on Mary, she does not seem any better. We took her from the cage and sat her in the barn aisle to be sure she wasn't sitting in messy poop. There was no real poop. She walked, in a squatty way, about three steps then sank to the floor and stayed there.

In more positive news, I found TWO eggs in the back corner of Apollo's pen, together under the roost, so BOTH Athena AND Zara are laying, yea! I know those are fertile so I put them aside as hatching eggs. Since they were wormed, we can't eat them yet anyway. They won't lay in the milk crate nest-Zara is too big anyway. She used to be smaller than Athena, but she has really bloomed! I need to get a different next. I put a coke crate flat in there, but they just dug all the hay out of it, playing and laid the eggs under the roost, so off to figure out a nest for that narrow little pen they're having to be in right now. If I eventually move Xander in with the four remaining hens where Maretta used to be, I may move Apollo to Xander's pen, which has a nice nest box made from a 2 drawer file cabinet. We'll see.

Maretta is no longer acting broody, though my blue partridge Brahma pullet, Bonnie, is. She does not sit on the nest overnight, but she screams and settles down onto the nest deep like a broody and stays there most of the day, taking everyone's eggs.



ETA:

Ohohohohoh, hey! Guess what?? Dusty's crop is down a lot! No other treatment, except we gave up trying, and put her back with Xander, didn't let her have access to grains, only layer pellets and yogurt with rice, stuff like that. I noticed when she was outside today that her crop seemed smaller and she wasn't snaking her head/neck like she had something stuck in her throat like they often do when their crop is bothering them. I asked DH to check her when he locked up the barn and lo and behold! She is much, much better! They love to make monkeys of us, don't they? Of course, she could be dead in the morning at her advanced age, but she seems to feel better which is all I really wanted. I know I can't keep her with me forever, it's just that she is my last blue Orp. I hope Mary makes her own surprising recovery.