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Yes, I worry he could have a heart attack stressing himself out. I might try some herbal stuff for stressed animals on him.
She is certainly interesting looking, a bit big to my liking. She looks a lot like Kara, similar shape and her markings with the heart shapes in front. Which makes me wonder why they don't make black hybrids with yellow leakage instead of red. Maybe it's not as easy to obtain.
She has two spurs now, by the way, but only one is pointy, the other is small and round.
Laure's little hearts compared to Kara's
I like her a lot because she is such a strange chicken. She is calming down a little getting older, but she is still very different, a bit as if she was autistic in the chicken world. It's amazing to me how different in personalities the chickens that grew up here turned out to be, even raised by the same broodies and for some sharing the same genetic parents.
I'm glad she's doing better.
We only gave her slippery elm and metoclopramide for two days. Slippery elm once a day, metoclopramide twice a day.
I may try the slippery elm if I'm confronted again to sour crop, but I'm terrified of metoclopramide from memories when I was sick as a kid
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Merle hadn't laid the last two days and I thought she would start sitting, but this morning she laid a tiny egg, and when I took her off the nest in the middle of morning, she didn't try to come back. She spent the whole day in the chicken yard, which made Théo was very unhappy. In the morning Annette stayed with him, but at noon something scared all the chickens. She went back in the chicken yard and didn't come out again. Poor Théo was really upset all afternoon, trying to call the hens to him, and to pick fights with Gaston. When Merle went to roost very early at four, I let Théo in the coop. I thought he would try to look for Annette and pick trouble but he went to roost next to Merle and fell asleep almost instantly.
It seems that Chipie is feeling better because she is now trying to attack the few hens she still dominates
. Tonight she almost tried to sleep on the roost instead of in the nest, but when Laure charged her it was too much and she jumped up in the nest to safety. She's been pecked above the comb, but nothing serious, not like last year when she was constantly getting hurt.Every year it's the same - it feels like the days are very slow to lengthen throughout january and the beginning of february and then suddenly every day seems longer than the one before. Now the chickens are going to roost at 5.30 pm, and night falls toward 7 ; they get up at 6.20 and dawn is about 15 mn later. Apart from Chipie, all the hens are laying regularly now except for Kara, who hasn't laid an egg for more than a year, and Alba.
Yesterday morning
This morning. Lovely day !
Chipie dustbathing...
She may have overdone it
Alba was again not well at all today.
Giving some shepherd's purse to Kara. You can see her damaged upper beak, it was like this when she arrived here and it never grew back. It doesn't bother her too much, but she clearly has less strength using her beak to grab than the other hens.
I have a project that the chickens were delighted to help with. Our Jerusalem artichokes have grown invasive and they are overtaking the strawberry patch. I am digging out as many as I can and I will relocate some in the chicken yard. The chickens who come out of the yard have always loved hanging out under them in summer. In the yard they will make shade and a nice place to hide , and when we cut them down the chickens eat their mulch. It was full of worms where I dug ...so the chickens helped dig more.
well and your chickens are okay if you get home again. 
