Today was a bit of a rollercoaster…I went out to let the new puppy play and try going potty and decided to give out some treats since the sun was shining. As I went to each run I discovered that my one bobtail girl that I’ve been fighting with to quit brooding, is not well and has lost a bunch of weight :-( Then I noticed Willy, Aria’s favorite Bobtail rooster is limping and won’t use one foot. Then I found a huge cache of eggs that my kids had not collected even though they claim to be checking each day

The “nest” was right next to the door so I know they didn’t even look at all. Then I sat down with my breeding cage birds and realized the boy I was looking at was the wrong boy. I had sold my favorite young dAnver cockerel, Fennel, by accident.



So that was the straw…and I just started sobbing. We lost Alfredo too, our one black Watermaal rooster on Sunday…found him head first in his feeder like he’d fallen dead right off the roost bar.

And yesterday we also learned my husbands cousin lost her battle with cancer and passed away. It’s been a rough few days emotionally and the dam finally broke. So I sat there and felt sorry for awhile…vented to a chicken friend for a bit, and then started dealing with all the issues. Just to add to the fun, when I checked everything at bedtime, I found a door wasn’t closed because it was blocked by wet muddy shavings, another one wasn’t closed because a bird was blocking the door, Parmesan was just out sitting on a fence top instead of inside her coop, Oliver was wandering around the yard, and the Watermaal coop door won’t close all the way and leaves a rat sized gap at the bottom. BLAH.
So I chopped up organic greens, scrambled some eggs with mashed up egg shells, poultry cell and flax seeds and fed the broody girl, I cleaned out the clogged doors and put away naughty chickens, and then contacted the person I sold Fennel to and she agreed to swap him this weekend for the one she was supposed to get.
Then I sat down and a friend texted me in a panic because she’s chicken sitting for her neighbor and came out to THREE bobcats feasting on a couple of the chickens, some injured ones laying in the yard, and a bunch more missing or in the trees


So I spent the next hour helping her treat the injured ones via phone. These bobcats look super healthy too! Zoom in and you can see a couple of them.
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I’m feeling emotional and drained and sad tonight…chickening is hard sometimes.