When Vanille was really ill cucumber was all she would eat, in fact it's what lead me to post for the first time on BYC 🙂.
She's been unwell for the last three days after passing two soft shell eggs in a row, and with the heat. She has eaten nothing yesterday but today we gave the girls a zucchini that had overgrown and she's been pecking at it like crazy.

We've talked about how they choose to feed before when they are sick with Minnie. It's still pretty much a mystery to me if it's just individual taste preference or if they do have some instinct to get things that are right for them.
When humans are sick a bit of both happen.. sometimes you don't feel like eating and your body needs to fast for a while, or to only have broth. And sometimes you actually do need to eat to get better.
I would always tell my sick patients to eat what they wanted but to EAT . Other nurses where so much bullies telling them off for not eating properly.

Me, I was of the opinion that as long as they were eating something I was happy.

Same with my animals - as last my as they were eating something and drinking fluids I am happy.
 
To celebrate 100,000 posts here are my lot.

The first four
The school project I agreed to take on.

Diana who now rules the roost with wisdom and calm. Seen here inspecting the site and possible materials for the Chicken Palace construction. View attachment 3181075

Maggie who is loud and seems to like sharing her views with me.
View attachment 3181088

Elizabeth (RIP) our first leader who established many good behaviors and died quietly and suddenly. She had a short life but I think a good one.
View attachment 3181090


Scary (RIP) who wasn’t scary enough to save herself from the fox. Her death precipitated me joining this thread as I was heartbroken and guilt ridden at my first loss and I felt only this group would understand.
View attachment 3181092

Here are the first four in my favorite video of them all together.

And then came -
The Roadrunners

Dotty the ankle biter
View attachment 3181108

Minnie the clown
View attachment 3181109

The two of them always bickering (Minnie usually loses) but somehow always together.
View attachment 3181110

View attachment 3181112


And then came -
The Hooligans

Bernadette the leader who had so much trouble with lameness and now is joyously celebrating her long legs.
View attachment 3181111

Bella my much-coveted black chicken with purple and green but is sadly unwell right now and wasting away.
View attachment 3181113

Lulu who is in touch with aliens and likely to take the title of flock clown from Minnie at some point.
View attachment 3181114


It feels like only yesterday they were in my bathroom and had just learned how to jump on top of the heat plate.

View attachment 3181124
Oh that was wonderful to read, and I love all the photos.

What did the tests show for Bella?
 
Thanks for thinking of her on your special celebration day ❤

I've taken a huge risk I mixed Epsom salt olive oil and milk thistle in warm water because she wasn't improving with acv and coconut oil.
At first she spat some out a bit of thickness came out. So I did it again and she is having a nice little stand around and walk in the garden now. She's as noisy as usual 😀
I hope sure continues to improve ❤️
 
To top off our record heat my outside ac unit quit working. Fortunately I had the right parts to get it going. Earlier today I noticed the house not cooling off but blamed the excessive heat. We put a window unit in the dining room. Together they have the house cooling slowly but with the ambient still at 106 degrees at 745 pm it's gonna take a while 😓🥵
 
I love the car too! Has power everything. And the air conditioning works great! 32 mpg. All the way back home from SanDiego on 3/4 tank of ga$!
Train tax: 668C0178-1A6A-4BC6-9E11-BEEA848D933F.jpeg
 
If you have space in your freezer, put some gallon jugs filled with H2O in them (Squeeze them before putting cap on, so has room to expand & not split jug), then wrap in an old towel (or just bury in bedding). put it somewhere shaded the girls like to hand out...buried under bedding or something similar. They can they choose to 'rest' next to it. Surprising how much of a difference that makes! I also freeze 20 oz soda/water bottles (filled with H2O) and bury it in the bedding in the nest boxes. Also, I have a raised bin for dust bathing. I also bury 1 or 2 in the bottom of that dust bath. Those I ABSOLUTELY slide into old socks...to keep them reasonably clean so I can slip them out & re-freeze. Honestly, this makes a world of difference! Most of my girls gravitate towards those spots, especially after a few days of heat and they get used to them being there. The few that don't, that aren't looking good, I will move them to one of those spots, and generally they stay there! Given how hot it is where you are, I would have a couple in the freezer, so you are able to swap one out mid-day when it is melted and put a new one in the run in it's place.

I also have cooler drinkers, that I put large chunks of ice in so they always have cool water. (This in addition to open dishes with cool water, so they can get their feet wet and/or dunk their wattles...both important means of cooling for chickens.

Difference between shade cloth/no shade cloth - this is a picture of the ground:View attachment 3180781

Cooler Drinkers:View attachment 3180795
This container holds about 1.5 qts (1.5 liters) frozen, so a good chunk of ice (I also use the 1 lb. deli containers, those fit in my 1 gal. poultry drinkers)
View attachment 3180796View attachment 3180797View attachment 3180798

They know these contain cool/cold water and this BR immediately came running over when I set it down:
Can those cooler drinkers be purchased or did you make it? It’s brilliant. My flock doesn’t know how to use nipple waterers, but they can learn!

I use mini silicone loaf pans for my ice blocks. I haven’t broken them out yet, but will soon.
 

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