One of our first wild flowers to bloom here is henbit, with their delicate purple flowers. As they grow in the meadow outside the run, the chickens appreciate it when I gather some to share with them. Appreciate might not be quite the right word, as they are hopping before I get in the run, and the bouquet doesn’t last long against the ravenous hoard.
Well, she has done it again. Magic the hen has hurt her right leg to the point that she can’t move around well. We seem to be in a cycle. She hurts her leg, heals enough that the limp goes away, then hurts it again. I think she feels better, then goes and jumps off a high perch. Maybe. Anyway, the first time I isolated her with food and water. That didn’t do much but make her lonely, so now I just make sure I go out twice a day to see that she eats and gets water. We have a routine: I carry her out for distribution of grubblies, then we go over to the food bin, then to the outside water, then back to the waterer inside the coop. She tells me when she is ready for a station change by clucking and looking around. As long as I catch her wings when I pick her up, she is calm and lets me help her gain her balance when I put her down. I am a chicken minion.
I think she quite likes the pampering. I keep the rest of the chickens away while she eats. She can get around a little on her own, and somehow manages to get up to the perch every night. I did make a ramp of shavings so she doesn’t have to launch herself far, and the perch is only about 18” tall without mulch. I think it might be a tendon thing, or maybe I’m just thinking of my own healing tendon. Since the chickens are in laying mode I should be going out twice a day anyway to gather eggs so I have less of a chance of one going broody, so it really isn’t intensive nursing.
Ultimately, I hope the crossvine will grow up the sides and across the top of the chicken runs, providing shade in the summer (and a whole host of orange blooms). Several times last year I had to redirect trailing vines away from the man made shade sail I put up. Rather than have warring shade makers, this year I put the sun sail inside the run to keep the afternoon blaze off their food dispenser (which is metal and gets hot).
The hens were not happy at first; having me rustle around their enclosure with a huge scary cloth was not appreciated. To keep the cloth from flapping too much in the wind, and scaring them further, I used cable ties like a stitch to hold the fabric to the poultry wire.
The next afternoon, they were all clustered happily in the shade in front of the coop. Mission accomplished.
… are greatly exaggerated. It always makes my heart skip a beat when I see one of my chickens lying boneless in the blazing summer sun. As I approach they always pop up and look at me like I’m the crazy one (and do I happen to have some treats?) Seriously, it is 100 degrees and you are sun bathing?
The temperature is dropping, the wind is blowing, and the flock is huddled in a feathery ball in the outside run. Huh.
The coop is open, and draft-free, just in case you are wondering. It is their choice to be in this place at this moment. I don’t understand chickens. As a side note, they did have all their heads tucked down, until I so rudely crunched the leaves and rocks trying to take a picture.
Critters and Craft 