Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[ChicoryBlue]

A year for Maggie (and RC)
Warning: long post.

The last couple of weeks has been an important milestone for Maggie and @BY Bob said it was OK for me to mark the occasion here.

On September 18, 2020 I found this in the nest box.

Spoiler: Warning - not for the squeamish

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I had no idea what it was and no idea who laid it. Everyone was acting normal and all cameras were deployed monitoring rodents and other, scarier, visitors.

I did research and learned that it was a lash egg – a sign of serious and long standing infection in the reproductive tract. I also learned that it is invariably fatal with the maximum life expectancy of less than 6 months.

I confirmed it was Maggie who laid it. She had stopped laying real eggs and laid one more lash egg a few days later.

Off she went to the vet.

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Because of Covid I wasn’t allowed in with her but she apparently wandered around the vet’s office investigating everything while she waited for him. The vet-tech was rather taken with her and fed her the blueberries I had brought.

The vet was very kind but confirmed what everyone else had told me which was that she would not live long. He offered to euthanize her but agreed with my view that it was a bit premature as she still had quality of life. I felt reassured that he would be able to put her out of her misery when the time came.

He also educated me about production breeds who are not really expected to live past 2 years. I spent quite a while really upset and furious about that and I still am.

Everyone on this thread was very kind and supportive. @BY Bob encouraged me not to give up on Maggie and at the same time helped me be prepared for the worst.

And I resolved to spend as much time as possible with Maggie and make sure her remaining time was as wonderful as possible.

Maggie visibly declined. She started molting and wouldn’t eat anything that wasn’t alive. I dug for worms, I trapped beetles, and I bought live mealy worms to tempt her to eat. I provided heaps of leaves so she could pick through them for bugs.

Slowly she started to develop new feathers
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And to share in some treats
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And then much to my surprise, on January 23rd – 4 months after the lash egg - she laid a normal egg. I think nobody was more surprised than @BY Bob who posted:
“She successfully laid an egg today!?!”
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-of-our-flock.1286630/page-3059#post-23891234

So, I am marking this week as one year since Maggie got her death sentence.

I feel she has had a good chicken year.

She dug some deep holes.
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She explored snow.
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She shouted at me.
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She spent time with chicken friends.
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She sunbathed (a lot).
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She helped with construction projects.
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She shouted at me some more.
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She got in my face.
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She posed with her left side
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She posed with her right side
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She ate ice cream

She sunbathed some more
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And she cooled off by dunking her wattles.

Today, a full year later, she is still shouting at me, she is still in my face, and she is the undisputed queen of the long grass.

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* * *
Thank you all for indulging me in this post and joining me to celebrate Maggie's gift and mine - a whole year of chicken fun together.

Wow I did not know this whole story, thank you for making this celebration post, it is wonderful!

 

[LozzyR]

All of the above

What’s your beef with raincoats?

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I am genuinely interested in the viscosity of the egg whites of older hens.

Can anyone comment?

No, sorry, I am too new with chickens. The viscosity and behaviour of egg whites does change with the age of the egg itself, ie you can't whip really good high-standing egg whites from a too-new egg. That's probably not relevant information...

 

[rural mouse]

What’s your beef with raincoats?

No insulation/not worth the time to dig it out. When it rains around here, it's 1. COLD (drops the temp from 95F to 55F in the summer) 2. Over in 10 min (or such a light drizzle that it doesn't matter), 3. Mixed with/turns to snow or 4. Not an article of clothing, but rather a sail.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Not long now. A week or so. Nighttime temps are my concern. They are still not fully feathered.

Run an extension cord and put the heater plate out there with them, it's not like it's going to be a permanent thing and it will ease your mind and warm their little pin cushion fluffy butts too if they need it. It's a familiar item also, they will find it comforting.

My gals were out there on pretty cool nights so I gave them the heating pad on low on one-third of the roosting area of the coop. They did use it. I could tell by their poops. After several days when I checked them at night I saw a couple were half on and half off, like a cat with a bit of shoulder on it, and two were all on it. Then it wasn't long when all of them stopped hanging out on it and I removed it.

 

[featherhead007]

I have corn in the freezer for them, some would be fine to give them I guess, it's not a great food but there's calories! PS Just came inside from putting the chickens to bed and DH has on a Clint Eastwood movie called Cry Macho, I'm watching because there's a rooster stealing every scene. I hope the rooster doesn't meet a bad end though. After all it's a western..

Awesome CB! You are my kind of peeps!

 

[fuentemoon]

First a Monday mug

I should have gotten a picture of her out in the rain this evening, she doesn't let any but the heaviest shower stop her

I am supposed to be working a ridiculously long day tomorrow starting at 6am, but my covid test results did not come back today as they should have. So now I am left hanging, technically I can't work without a negative result, haven't heard back from work either, so if I don't so I risk a penalty for being a no show.

 

[micstrachan]

I hope to read ahead that she's done fine at the vets and is able to do chickeny things well again! It's your call, but I agree with your line of thinking about her and am glad you're able to help her this way.

Thank you! Ruby is vocalizing again! I just LOVE her voice. She also lets me cuddle her now. We’ve become pretty close.

She is eating, drinking, pooping, foraging preening, roosting, and bossing around the lower ranked girls. My heart is full.

Now, yesterday I did feel the left-sided mass the vet spoke of. Today I can’t feel it and fear she may already be bloating, but we will see.

She’s so much stronger than last time, I think because last time I tubed her until her appetite returned AND because I tubed fluids the first two days post draining this time around. (sorry… patting myself on the back a bit here, but I’m just so pleased I have been able to help her.)

I think we’re at the point where I need to evaluate her ratio of good days to bad days. Right now she’s having good days and seems to understand the vet and I are helping her. I can’t believe how attached I’ve gotten to this girl!

 

[micstrachan]

Good finding an apple tree! Looks like you have a Roadrunner there (picture #5).

Yes, I mentioned I saw at least one road runner!

 

[micstrachan]

I'm working my way through them slowly trying to work out what is moult, what is feather pecking and what is the result of their earlier life. They're a pretty scruffy lot.
I've given all the Ex Batts some vitamins and everyone got fish for supper.
I haven't found any with lice yet. I guess I've checked 7 now including Henry The Second.
I got soaked this afternoon weeding the nettles from inside their run and from under the tree just outside it. Pulled out bits of plastic, broken wooden fencing pales, wite netting, string, plastic pipe, nails and discovered a small apple tree in the weeds.

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Shad, I can’t wait to watch their progress. This reminds me of an old thread I go back to from time to time when I need a refresher on focusing on flock wellness instead of illness (now would be a good time, actually, since there has been a lot of illness lately.)

I am not in the cull-all-sick-birds camp, but other than that, I find her husbandry fantastic to learn from… so wise and effective!

Oh, and I’d say photo #5 is definitely a Cream Legbar!