Transitions

This boy loves to stop and smell the flowers.

Trying to move on after losing Mayzie. It's an awful, terrible feeling to know that she got sick because of my error with the feed bags. But I keep telling myself that I can't go back in time and fix it, so I just have to learn from it and move on... And count my blessings that the other hens are still healthy. I try to remind myself that even though Mayzie's life was shorter than it should have been, at least she was very loved and very happy while she was here. But I sure do miss her sweet little coo. Sigh.

Okay, time to lighten up. I'm trying hard not to focus too long on the sad parts, because then it would be too torturous to have pets, as the sad parts come with the territory.

Speaking on focusing on the happy times--Minerva Louise gave me a gift this week that definitely helped to boost my spirits... No, not another nasty lash egg, although I know you were all hoping for more photos of that! ;) Nope, this was MUCH better.... For the first time in over 3 weeks, and the day after laying that gross lash egg, Minerva Louise laid a beautiful, perfectly formed and healthy egg. 

It was the best gift ever. Just the good news that I needed.

I'm hoping it means that she has fully recovered from her illness. She has gone on to lay a perfect egg every day this week. So, so great! Of course, we can't eat her eggs for two weeks because of the medicine she was on, but every healthy egg she lays gives me hope that although we lost our Mayzie, it looks like we were able to save our Minerva Louise.

Minerva Louise's best gift ever!
Her first healthy egg after her illness.

More happy news and transitions....

Last weekend we moved our "teenager" chicks into the big coop with the grown hens! I was really nervous about this transition as grown hens can often bully any newcomers to the coop. But I have to say, that I'm really proud of my grown girls. Generally speaking, they have been very tolerant of the four teenagers invading their space. Of course, the teenagers have been playing their correct roles of "submissive and terrified" which has helped to avoid any major problems. 

While the big hens were out free ranging,
the teenagers got to check out the run.
It was their first time being outside!

Jessie watching Ruby explore the run.

It's interesting that I've only seen the hens in the middle of the pecking order be mean to the teenagers. The top ladies (Buttercup and Gertrude) ignore them completely. It's Reese, Penelope and Minerva Louise who I've seen throw a mean chase and peck their way a few times. But Daffodil, silly Daffodil, at the bottom of the pecking order... She loves the teenagers! She's like the welcoming committee. She keeps trying to hang out with the teenagers, but unfortunately the teenagers run away terrified when Daffodil gets too close. I'm hoping that with time, the teenagers will realize that Daffodil actually wants to be their friend, and they'll accept her. But for now Daffodil remains a party of one. Love that sweet hen.

"Hi there, welcome to the big coop! I'm Daffodil and I would love to be your friend!
But wait, why are you running away from me?"

We did a few things to help ease the entry of the teenagers into the established coop. The thing that I would recommend to anyone else looking to introduce new chickens to a coop is that we cut a pretty big branch off an apple tree in our yard and put it in our chicken run. The older girls were so interested in this new piece of furniture that they ignored the teenagers for the first evening. They were too busy investigating the big branch. And then once the older hens noticed (and chased) the new chickens, the teenagers were able to run for cover underneath the big branch, hiding among the leaves.

The girls checking out the big branch.
Grown hens on the left.
Teenagers on the right.

The branch has been a great place for the teenagers to hide from the grown hens.

But most of the time they all hang out together pretty peacefully.

I also let the grown hens free range a lot that week, which helped to tire out the grown hens and gave the teenagers a chance to explore the coop and run without having to worry about getting bullied.

Lastly, I had moved the big wire dog crate into the coop where I had the teenagers sleep at night. That way, I knew that they were safe from harm during the night and morning until I could get out to the coop. That didn't last too long because everyone was behaving and Fern and Charlotte kept going to bed on the roosts, one roost lower than the others, of course. Ruby and Matilda have been going to bed ON TOP of the dog crate. That's fine, too.

The set up at night.
Grown hens on roosts,
Teenagers in wire dog crate.
But now they get to choose where they sleep because they are behaving well.
Fern and Charlotte (the Welsummers) are now choosing to sleep on the roosts, too.
But one roost down from the big hens.

During the day, I leave the dog crate open, with a piece of cardboard in front of the door to make it a smaller entrance. That way, the teenagers can get into the dog crate, but the grown hens haven't been venturing in because it would be a tight squeeze for them. Inside the dog crate I am continuing to fill their little feeder with chick feed. In the main feeder, I have switched the feed to one that has lots of calcium and lots of protein, so it should keep all the chickens healthy. I have to say, it's really wonderful to finally have all the chickens living in one place.

Here's Charlotte sneaking under the cardboard door.
I've caught Daffodil in there once or twice. Not sure how she fit through!

Life has been busy, so I didn't get to mention that two weeks ago we got our garden planted!
Woo hoo! This year, we are growing:

-SunGold Cherry Tomatoes (These are the best variety ever, I highly recommend them.)

-Pickling Cucumbers

-Zucchini

-Arugula

-Kale

-Swiss Chard

-Scallions

-Rosemary

-Parsley

-Dill

-Basil

-Fennel

-Carrots

-Corn

-Sunflowers

-Pumpkins
-Concord Grapes

In pots, I am growing spearmint and chives.

Can't wait to see what we get! It's a first time for us with the carrots and corn, so I'm especially curious to see how they do.

The 2015 Glen Hill Farm garden.
Can't wait to see what it looks like two months from now.

The boys helped to weed the garden this weekend.
I'm posting a photo (and not a video),
so you don't have to listen to the whining that was involved. :)

Chives.
Love their flowers!

Spearmint and Marigolds.

Concord Grapes that we planted last year.
Curious to see if we get any grapes this year.

Lots of pictures, just because....

Daffodil & Gertrude

As always, Jessie stays close to the free rangers.

Cooper hunting for little creatures.

Wood ready for campfires this summer!

Love seeing flowers everywhere I turn.

Daisies lining the riding ring.

Some people call them weeds,
but I love the wild flowers growing all around.

Reese made it up the barn ramp.

Peonies opening up.

What's up, Buttercup?

Gertrude and Reese hanging out on the ladder in the run.

Gertrude,
mid-flight

Lazy dog.
Can you see Cooper laying in our bed looking out the window?

Charlotte,
Welsummer chick
(8 weeks old)

Matilda & Ruby

Ruby
Silver Grey Dorking chick
(10 weeks old)

Matilda
Easter Egger chick
(9 weeks old)
Such interesting coloring.

Fern (left) and Charlotte (right)

Cooper is always hunting.
This time he was going after the garter snake that slithered into the tree.

Jessie loves lying in the new mulch.

Jessie got the girls running!

Everyone loves watermelon!

My girls came over to visit while I was writing my blog outside.
They must have known I was talking about them. :)

More Answers

Minerva Louise happily free ranging

Minerva Louise relaxing in the shade.
She's such a tiny bird. So cute.

Minerva Louise seems to be getting better each day. Today is her last day of antibiotics. Her poops (I like to refer to them as her 'report cards') have been looking good, so that's giving me hope.

She also laid something nasty yesterday. Which, after a quick google search, I learned was called a "lash egg". Don't google it. They can be pretty gross. (But of course, I'm going to post a picture here, so prepare yourself! LOL! It's below.) The jury is out on whether a 'lash egg' is a good sign or a bad sign. It definitely indicates that the chicken has been fighting off an infection. I am hoping that it is a sign that she's over the infection, and in the passing of this lash egg, she's closing the door on the illness. The more negative thinking is that if she passed a lash egg, then she's pretty much doomed. I'm choosing to stay positive and hoping she will be a survivor. She is acting and eating normally.

So, what is a lash egg? First off, it's not an egg at all. Basically it's a ball of pus that is created in response to an infection in the hen's oviduct. Yuck. Poor girl. So, if we hadn't already been aware that Minerva Louise had been sick, this would have been a very bad thing to find. But because we already knew that she was ill, and have been treating her with antibiotics for the past 10 days, I'm hoping that she's going to beat this thing.

Okay, here are the gross pictures, get ready (or just scroll past them really fast)....

This is Minerva Louise's "lash egg". Not really an egg. And totally gross.
It felt more like a sausage, actually.
(Sorry for that, and I won't be eating sausage anytime soon now.)

Of course I dissected it! It's the scientist in me.
I had to find out what the heck it was!
(Again, my apologies.)
But admit it, some of you were curious, too, right?!
(No? Just me?)

ANOTHER BIG, AWFUL DISCOVERY....

So, we knew that poor Mayzie died due to a problem with her egg laying system, and we knew that Minerva Louise was having a similar egg laying problem, but we didn't know exactly WHY. Well, as the weeks went on, a few of my other hens started laying rubber eggs, too. (A rubber egg is an egg that is missing the hard outer shell. Click on this link to watch my quick video from last September to see one and learn more about rubber eggs: Rubber Eggs.) Rubber eggs aren't gross, don't worry. :)

I just didn't understand it! WHY?! Why were more of my hens having these problems? They had plenty of calcium-providing oyster shells available to them at all times. I had been giving them the same high-end chicken food for the last year. In fact, I traveled 4 towns away just to buy them their very special non-gmo, organic, soy-free layer pellets. The best of the best, and not cheap either. So what the heck was the problem? What were they eating, or not eating, that was causing this?

And then it hit me.

I ran out to the barn this morning to check the bag of feed. And there was the answer. The supply store had given me the WRONG type of feed!

They had accidentally given me chicken feed that was GROWER PELLETS instead of LAYER PELLETS. Grower pellets are for young chickens who are not laying eggs yet. It is full of protein and very little calcium. My hens, at their age, need the opposite... They need lots of calcium and less protein. My girls were starving for CALCIUM. (Even though they had the supplemental oyster shells available to them, they just weren't eating them. They have never eaten them, even when I tried to hand feed them as treats. So, for my girls, those oyster shells are useless.)

Now you might wonder how the heck did they give me the wrong type of feed without anyone noticing? Sadly, this brand of feed packs all their different types of feed in the same exact bags. The only way to tell the different feeds apart is a little paper tag along the seam of the bag, which either gets ripped off as you open the bag, or if you open it from the other end, it sits on the bottom where you can't see it anymore. (This was the case for my bag.) Dumb, dumb packaging design.

Can you tell the difference between these two bags of chicken feed?....

The bag on the left is the LAYER feed
The bag on the right is the GROWER feed
The labels indicating that? On the bottom of the bags.
 Yes, underneath the bags. :(

I had asked for two bags of layer feed. Sadly, I got one bag of layer feed and one bag of grower feed. And I didn't realize the error until the damage had been done.

So why did I lose my sweet Mayzie almost two weeks ago? Human error. First error by the supply store and second error by me for not double-checking the label. Ugh. Feeling pretty awful about this. I think she had been more vulnerable to this lack of calcium problem because she had gone broody, and then had to eat the chick feed while she was with them. (Too much calcium can cause kidney problems in baby chicks, so their feed is lower in calcium.) So Mayzie had not been getting the correct amount of calcium for a long time, and clearly that threw her system out of balance. I don't know why she didn't try to make up for that by eating the crushed oyster shells. So, yes, sadly she died from something that I should have been able to fix if I had realized the error. So awful.

The strange thing is that I actually just changed my hens' feed this past weekend. I made the change before I discovered the mistake of the "Grower Feed" label. But something in my gut was telling me that the problems had to be with their food even though I couldn't imagine why since their feed hadn't changed in almost a year (...Or so I thought. Obviously, I just wasn't aware of the mistake at that point.) So I switched them to a different brand, with the correct amount of calcium. I just hope my other girls will all recover easily now that they are getting the correct nutrients. And you can be sure that I will be checking every single label very closely with every purchase from here on out. A very hard lesson learned.

TEENAGERS....

My girl, Ruby, really is a beautiful bird.
Love this Silver Grey Dorking breed.

This made me so happy.
Usually the teenagers operate in teams of two.
But the other day Matilda chose to snuggle in close with Charlotte and Fern.

Look how grown up the Welsummer chicks are getting!
And they are so much less shy now.