I went fruit crazy at the grocery store and picked up cantaloupe, fresh pineapple, nectarines, and peaches. We chopped them all up into fruit salad (which was quite good despite being quite orange), and saved a slice of cantaloupe for the chickens.
The rain. The rain that just keeps coming. I know it is springtime in Texas, which means rainstorms, but this year feels different. It isn’t Harvey bad, we actually have seen the sun and blue sky, but the ground is so wet and has been soaking wet with little chance to dry out. The chicken’s run has been wet for so long it is growing algae. Twilight couldn’t care less, and wanders out into the downpour, coming back looking bedraggled. In the picture above she is not mad about being soaked, she is mad that I am chasing her around with a camera (and also, since I’m there, is there another round of grubs?) On the plus side, the drainage I dug continues to keep the area around the coop door dry, so their food is dry and they have some dry dirt for dust baths. Everything else in the runs, though, is damp and soggy.
I found an egg under the roost with no shell again. It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened multiple times since they started laying. The egg membrane is intact, so it is possible to pick up, but it certainly has an interesting texture, much like an egg that has been soaked in vinegar to remove the shell, but without the bouncing. I recorded a video to show the squishiness, if you are interested. These eggs typically go to the dogs!
We had a run of rain and once again my hens don’t seem to care if they get wet, especially Twilight. Although wet hens do look rather deranged. So “mad as a wet hen” maybe isn’t anger but crazy?
Magic had been up and putting weight on her leg, so we decided to let her down with the flock for a bit to get some time out of isolation. She immediately had a dust bath in every usual spot. Such a dusty hen! We observed her for while, but when it was obvious that she could get around well, and wasn’t being picked on (quite the opposite actually), we left her out for awhile. When I went to put the hens up for the night, I really expected her to be on the ground somewhere, but she was up on the roost with her girls! So she stayed out of birdie jail. She is still limping, and I wonder if it will be a permanent limp, but there is no reason to keep her cooped up (haha) if she can get around just fine and isn’t showing signs of disease, especially with our temperatures starting to soar.
Critters and Craft 