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

[speckledhen]

Little tracking collars with gps locators for you phone, so you can track them down. LOL!

That little imp will probably need one. She's trouble. You can see it in her eyes.

 

[speckledhen]

Tried out my newest camera today on Wynette and her chicks. She wanted to be the baby today so it wasn't easy, as you can see by the closeups I took of her hugging me. She had me trapped, LOL. But, hey, this little Sony camera does great in macro! My other one would never do this at less than a foot away.






The little girl on front who almost gave me the heart attack yesterday has a name. After one of the daughters of Suede, her name is Athena. Ladyhawk in Kentucky raised Athena, who went broody at 5 years old, her only time, raised her chick and not that long afterward, passed away. She suffered from hereditary pendulous crop like her mother, my Smoky. Athena was the head hen as long as she lived with LH's main group, headed by her blue Orp rooster, Lancelot. So, this is Athena.






Hard to balance on my heels with Wynette trying to hug me the entire time.

 

[holm25]

Great name and pictures!! Wynette loves her hugs!!

 

[1muttsfan]

Aw that is the sweetest hug.

I can see Athena now - sprung full grown with sword and armor from the forehead of Zeus her father. No wonder she is fearless.

 

[speckledhen]

Great name and pictures!! Wynette loves her hugs!!

Aw that is the sweetest hug.

I can see Athena now - sprung full grown with sword and armor from the forehead of Zeus her father. No wonder she is fearless.

Wynette's love can be painful. If you are standing and she wants your attention, she grabs your pants leg and plenty of skin with it, ouch!

 

[speckledhen]

I think I was correct about Ida's two being a pair. Look at these pics from today. (by the way, June is not doing well. She was straining and I decided to give her a sitz bath, lube her up and check, but no palpable egg. She keeps straining, though, so I think she's feeling blockage of gunk in her oviduct or something like that).





In the pic below, you can see the wings and the down color of both. Male left, pullet right.

 

[speckledhen]

Development with June. She strained and strained all day, audibly, too. We lubed her up, no egg. I gave her group scrambled eggs with yogurt and a high dose Tums crushed in it. She ate quite a bit of that. Later, she was walking around better, even went outside to dust bathe. Tonight she was straining and moaning loudly. I saw something fall out of her bum and picked it up since it did not appear to be poop. It was about half of one of her egg shells, looked flattened and folded over. So, apparently, she did have an egg break in there or something along those lines. She could still have something else going on since she's never had any egg issues her entire life till now. I decided to give her a round of penicillin to offset any infection from the egg in there.

 

[1muttsfan]

At least she has passed something. Sounds like she was very uncomfortable.

 

[speckledhen]

At least she has passed something. Sounds like she was very uncomfortable.

Her color is good today, she has more energy, seems almost her normal self. I hope this was just an "incident" and she will be okay, but she's never had any egg issues at all in her entire 8 years so I immediately decided at her age, it was just her time. But, if she had an egg stuck or broken and a resulting infection, not to treat it, IMO, would be neglectful. DH was not going to because of her advanced age, but I couldn't let her just keep straining like that. I guess the lube, the manipulation we did and the calcium boost may have, at least, temporarily, given her a reprieve.

 

[speckledhen]

Well, I was wrong. June may be dying but she isn't dying anytime soon, at least that I can tell. She is perky and back to normal now. Amazing.


And here is Wynette and her four hoodlums, plus Daddy.