Category: chickens

Cooling their heels

On By CarynIn chickens
Two chickens cooling off in an iced foot bath

It is hot. Feels like temperatures over 100 F in the afternoons. This time last year I was in a panic trying to keep the chickens cool. I’m a little more calm this year, as I know they use the foot baths to cool down when they are hot! I put gallon containers of water in our freezer, then when it is frozen, take it out before noon to put in the foot baths. By about 3pm, the ice is melted, but not yet hot, so I clean out the yucky water and fill the foot bath (which is a plant drip catcher) with the cool water. When it is exceptionally hot, I’ll put a 16oz frozen water bottle in later in the afternoon. They all look like they’ve gained weight because their feathers are all fluffed out to circulate the air near their skin. Egg production is also down. Hot.

Rest in Peace, Pooh. Yesterday we went to check on the chickens, and Pooh the hen had passed away. She is in the picture above, top left. We figure it was something with her oviduct (an exam of her cloaca revealed a full egg, but it seemed caught in a thick membrane), or it was the heat. My eldest and I are not up for a necropsy, and since Pooh was a healthy weight, my Mom thinks it wasn’t a disease. It was hot that night too.

Golf balls in the nest

On By CarynIn chickens

A couple of months ago, I took all the golf balls out of my hens’ nests because we were seeing a series of broody hens. A few hens were sitting on only a golf ball and getting sassy about it! The golf balls have been in the nest since the chickens were pullets to show them where they should lay their eggs. Hens will look for the safest place to lay, and if another hen has laid an egg there, it must be a safe place. I took all the golf balls out to see if it would change their behavior.

Two hens in one nest. Um no, girls.

I did see a dramatic drop in broodiness (where the hen insists on sitting on eggs), which could be because there were no fake eggs, or because it is summer and just too darn hot. However, several times I also caught a hen not waiting her turn for a nest, but just climbing in with her sister. Ugh. I’ve read that this is one way eggs get broken in the nest – overcrowding. The two nests pictured above are the two favorites. The other four nests have been completely abandoned. So I put golf balls back in the shunned nests to see if that will cure the doubling up, but not encourage brooding in a favorite nest. Time will tell.

Flying purple goo

On By CarynIn chickens
Pick-No-More applied to hen’s comb

I noticed that our hen, Magic, had a wound on the back of her comb. Not sure how, whether she caught it on something or one of the other hens got her, but I thought it best to put some Pick-No-More lotion on it to help healing and keep the other chickens away from it. Yeah, that was fun. I was able to get a nice big glob on her comb, and she immediately shook her head and sprayed the purple goo everywhere. I’m glad this stuff smells nice. After a few hours, the purple stains even faded from my skin.

A portion of purple goo

Freedom!

On By CarynIn chickens

Well sort of free. I removed the poultry wire from between three runs since I’m done trying to sprout seeds in them (except in the salad bars). It gives the hens more room to roam and some extra outdoor perches. The whole run is still covered in hardware cloth because they still need protection from the neighboring wildlife. (Although not spiders. I watched a hen take down a wolf spider this week. Spider didn’t have a chance.)

Chicken wire removed between runs

The outside run now looks like a chicken jungle gym. The hens had no problem with the removed wire and they wandered happily under the dividers. After a couple days, they started perching on the 2x4s, I did sand the splinters down to try to prevent bumblefoot. I left the doors intact, since it is helpful to have a closed off space when we are doing health checks, but right now the doors are all open.

Happy Fourth! Celebrating our freedom like the hens: walking under dividers. Or maybe enjoying our apparent freedom. There are probably many comparisons between the chicken life and life during pandemic, but I’ll let you draw your own.