would'nt ya know-hazel decides to go broody right before i leave-she's been sitting on one wooden egg and 2 unfertilized eggs for 2 days. i felt a bit sorry for her so i ran to mimi's house for fertilized eggs as she has a rooster. last night when it got dark- i took the blanks out from under her and slipped 5 explosives underneath- we'll see if she's still setting when we return. thanks for the eggs mimi!
as promised-my may chicken chronicles article.-titled- "Poop Talk"
The girls seem very pleased that spring is here. Green sprouts everywhere and juicy bugs to snack on. Well, Ruth just so happened to develop a case of diarrhea which I’m assuming was caused from all these delicacies that are bursting forth, as she was not acting sick and there was no change in her egg laying. The diarrhea stopped but the feathers around her vent (aka butt) area were coated in white fecal matter-yes-it was pretty gross the more she pooped the more poop build up there was. So today the boys and I gave Ms. Ruth a bath. Yes, you heard it-a bath! I didn’t know what else to do. We filled a rubber maid tub with nice warm bath water. She knew something was up and catching her was a challenge. I recently read an article about giving chickens baths-mainly for show purposes but the basics are the same. We omitted the blow drying-mainly because we don’t own one-gee what would the neighbors think if I asked to borrow their blow dryer to dry our chicken’s butt!-but even if we did, I don’t think Ruth would have stood for that! The article stated that once the bird was in the nice warm water they would relax and some even fall asleep-ha! Well, they obviously weren’t talking about Ruth-she was as wide eyed as they come and talking up a storm- I suppose my hand massaging her butt didn’t help matters. The bath worked wonders-the poop dissolved. We tried drying her with a towel but she was not going to let that happen-she had enough. She ran under the porch hiding and preened her feathers. She is now happily pecking with the others with a nice clean butt and is very proud of it. Currently, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of six baby chicks-any day now!
On a sadder note, our dear dog Chelsie had to be put to sleep due to an accident. We are heartbroken, as I’m sure all of you who knew and loved her are as well. Chelsie-aka "the beef jerky bandit" was a rescue dog and came to us with a huge heart and just loved everyone. She also loved to wander. Her favorite place to visit was the Rebel Ridge Store (where she would steal the jerky-sorry Gary and Denise!) Many of you probably met her there. We could have chained her up-but she would have been so miserable and depressed. Chelsie touched our hearts deeply and we are happy to have had her in our lives as long as we did. We would like to thank everyone who put up with her visits and gave her love-she was very happy.
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