Chickens, Great And Small

The baby chicks are doing great...although wings have come in and the start of tails, and we can tell that we got skunked on Frizzles.

The traditional grassy dirt clod that provides dirt to scratch & dustbathe in, green material to eat, hidden bugs to find, grit for crops, a first introduction to our local pathogens to help build immunities--plus a primo thing to leap on your sister from--was introduced.

...and there was much chickspicion.

 As in lots of glaring and pointedly turning their backs to it because that'll fix THAT weird new thing.

Eventually the grassy clod was accepted and is being joyfully used.

But who needs a dirt-clod-toy when you can just go and flat-out LAY in your food like a little feathered heathen?

Or, when that gets old, roost your big butt on your poor little sisters. Because why sit on just one of your siblings when you can camp on two of them?

Geez Nora, move your butt.  Poor Gumdrop and Bobo--!

Zuul prefers to ignore all these goings-on.

Meanwhile in big chicken news, Blossom the Silkie mix hen is still in the house recovering from her attempt to rip off one of her toes via a compound fracture.  I had to reset (poor thing!), bandage and splint it and so far she's doing fine, having herself another housechicken stint until she is healed up enough to go outside again.  I have no idea how she managed this one.

But wait, there's more!  Why have ONE entitled, grumpy hen in the house when you can have TWO?

Cue Alice, the Barred Rock hen who we discovered one day as a 3 day old chick at Tractor Supply, her broodmates had attacked her vent and had wounded her so grievously that the guy who came to remove her headed for the back door...where I'm sure she was destined for the trash can and death. I asked him if I could have her and he gave her to us...frankly she was so profoundly injured at only three days of age I never expected her to live, I just didn't think that death in a trash can was something she should have to suffer.

So we took her home, treated her wounds and gave her her own little section of the brooder box where amazingly, she lived and eventually grew up to join the flock!

 Alice has been glowingly healthy...until today.  Today we found her suffering from a condition known as Ascites, or Water Belly--a buildup of fluid in the abdomen, usually in laying hens, that can be caused by Fatty Liver Syndrome, amongst other things (I suspect her injuries as a chick have come back to haunt her).  I have a home treatment for it gleaned from other chicken people, and I'm also going to drain off some of the fluid with a syringe to make her more comfortable.

When you keep chickens, you learn pretty quick to take a deep breath, woman up, buckle down and be your own vet. Chicken keeping frequently involves smelly, disgusting procedures that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

But first, since Alice apparantly hasn't been able to perform her poop curtsy properly and has badly soiled vent feathers--a bath!

This is the beginning of the bath, before the warm water soaked off all the gunk.  You don't want to see the 'after' condition of that bathtub.

After the bath will come meds and sticking her with a syringe to draw off some of the fluid, then she and Blossom can hang out and watch TV together.

Sigh...