In Memory of Garretta

           A couple Sundays ago, Garretta, our spunky Barred rock hen, passed away. We aren’t sure how or why she died. Maybe she ate something poisonous while foraging in the yard, or maybe she was sick for a long time, but didn’t show weakness until she was about to die. She got sick sometime during the summer, but after taking some antibiotics, she was fine again. However, I don’t think she ever fully recovered after that. She acted normal, but didn’t lay nearly as many eggs. The Saturday before she died, she was acting a little lethargic, so I thought I would give her some medicine the next day if she was still acting odd. But the next day, I found her on her roost late morning, eyes closed and hardly moving. I picked her up and she didn’t react at all or make any sounds. She was still alive, but barely. As I was carrying her up to my deck, she lurched forward, as if having a seizure, and flopped on the ground. I carefully picked her up again and brought her into my kitchen, where she died a few minutes later in my arms. Of all the deaths in our coop, Garretta’s death was the quickest, most peaceful. Although her life was short, I think she led a pretty happy life.

        I got Garretta, along with General Gow and Rosebud, in July of last year when they were about six weeks old. We did not if they were hens or roosters yet, but I named her Garret, thinking she looked like a rooster. However, when she started laying eggs, I changed her named to Garrett”a”, to make it sound more feminine. The three chickens became good companions and would always roost and forage together. After Rosebud and General Gow died, Garretta was the only chicken I had left from that mini flock, which was pretty sad for me. Seeing as there were no other younger chickens to pick on, Ginger and Guinevere started pecking poor Garretta. Although Garretta started out at the bottom of the pecking order, she soon realized that with those sunglasses on the boss chickens, she could totally take advantage of their defected sight. She would push the hens and Dali out of the way to get to the food. She was a docile chicken, but when it came to food, she was aggressive! And she would eat anything! Cabbage, bread, spinach, yogurt — whatever I was offering, she would eat. I would enter the coop and she would jump a mile high to snatch the morsel of bread clutched in my hand. (And, sometimes, she succeeded.) She was the spunkiest, most vigorous Barred Rock hen I will ever raise, I am very sad she has died. I know she was just a chicken, but it made me really happy every time I saw her fighting for the food, strutting across the pen with her bare butt hanging out, or clucking obnoxiously after laying a small speckled egg. She was my favorite, and I will miss her immensely.

Pictures of the Chickens

These pictures were taken during the summer. I know I haven’t uploaded recent pictures lately, so here they are.

While foraging, Cinnamon and Saffron found a patch of dug-up dirt under a worktable in my yard. They decided it would be a perfect place to take a dust bath so they plopped themselves down and started getting cleaning!

They sprayed some dirt at me while I was taking the pictures!

Caught!

Saffron all ruffled up!

I let my chickens forage in the yard and I put Cinnamon and Saffron's food and water out in the yard, too. Cinnamon and Saffron, however, didn't have much of a chance to eat it. The big chickens came right over and started helping themselves!

Garretta and Ginger in the area under my deck. Ginger is looking glorious in her peck-free sunglasses!

Dali looking as marvelous as ever!

Cinnamon and Saffron almost never forage with the other chickens. They hang out under the sgade of the lilac bushes.

My mom planted flowers in front of the coop to make it look pretty.

I braved the rain during the tropical storms of Hurricane Irene and headed out to the coop to check if any of my chickens had blown away. When I peeked my head inside, I found Ginger and Guinevere, snuggled up in the nest, safe from the wind and rain.

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The girls weren't going to let Garretta into the nest, though. Poor Garretta!

SILKIES!!!!!!!

After months of waiting patiently to get my Silkies, we finally have them! Nine chirping chicks, five white and four blue!! We ordered them from Ideal Hatchery in Texas and they were hatched on Tuesday, August 16th. Two days later we got a call at 6:00 A.M. letting us know our chickies were waiting to be picked up at the post office. As we walked through the post office doors, we heard little chirping sounds emitting from behind the little box window. The postman opened up the window and handed us a small package. And inside were nine peeping little bundles, all cuddling together and chirping happily. It was a very happy day!

They are now three weeks old and looking very scruffy! A few are quite large, while a couple are still very small. They are all healthy, except for one, who we received with a broken leg. It looked like spraddle leg at first, so we tried the Band-Aid Method, but soon realized that the leg was broken. Three weeks later, the leg is still lame and useless. The toes are curled up under its foot and the chick carries her leg to the side. We weren’t sure she would survive, but she is still alive and basically healthy. She eats on her own and although I don’t see her drink from the dish, she must be getting water because otherwise she would not be alive. She is small and blue and her name is Charlie.

This is a Ridiculous Story:

So, last Monday night, while I was away on vacation, some animal ripped apart the wood on the back of the new coop. The predator made a hole in the wood big enough to fit through. Now, this wood was nailed together with about six nails and it would be absurd to assume an animal could rip it apart. But on Monday night, this animal ripped through the wood and proceeded to terrorize my chickens! This is a picture of the hole:

Our caretaker of our chickens came to the coop Tuesday morning to let out the chicks and found the mini coop empty! Cinnamon and Saffron were gone! She found the hole and lots of feathers and assumed they were dead. She felt awful and dreaded telling me the news. But, when she came back that night to put the chickens away, she found Cinnamon and Saffron inside the coop! They were both fine and had no battle scars. Someone had propped up a small table from our backyard against the hole and had put a rock in front to secure it. Our caretaker, being baffled by these odd events, asked our next door neighbors about the chickens. They said that they had found Cinnamon and Saffron inside their garage, had put them back in the coop, and had blocked off the hole. But if a predator had ripped the wood, made a hole, and tried to attack the birds, how did they escape? The hole wasn’t very large and the animal probably entered the hole, thus blocking off the exit with its body size. There is no logical explanation that suggests the chickens fled the coop while the animal was blocking the door. So, how did the chickens escape past the predator unscathed? And furthermore, why would they escape to the neighbor’s garage? Why not to under my deck or inside my tree house?

My neighbor’s have a small dog, named T.J., who has attacked our chickens before. He injured Ginger last year when he entered our garage and opened the pen door. And when Richard disappeared last summer, the neighbors acted strangely. So was it their dog who ripped through our coop and they are just too “chicken” to admit it? Or maybe they really did tell the truth and it was just another predator? I suppose I will never know the real truth, but the important thing is that Cinnamon and Saffron are happy and healthy — acting as if nothing ever happened!

New Coop

Today, at about 9:00 A.M., my dad and I went out to the yard to build a mini coop for Cinnamon and Saffron. They have been staying in our garage for the past two months in a box with netting around it. They were cramped and our garage had begun to stink. So, yesterday, I cleaned all of the poop, feathers, dust, and straw out of the garage and got rid of the box. Cinnamon and Saffron spent the night in the outdoor run while the big chickens roosted inside the coop like usual. The pullets are still too young to live with the big chickens.

Anyway, this morning my dad and I built a mini coop out of his wooden work table. He made a pull-up door that leads to an attached run. They have room to scratch and play during the day and a safe shelter and a roost to stay in at night. It’s the perfect size for them at this age. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, Cinnamon and Saffron will be big enough to live with the older chickens. We can also reuse this new mini coop for our future Silkies when they get older.

Chickie Update

Sorry, I haven’t posted in awhile — I have been busy playing outside and enjoying the summer weather with my chickens! Everybody is happy and well, including Garretta, who is now laying again! In a previous post I said her butt was completely bare of all feathers due to pecking and molting. Well, her butt is feathering in nicely now and her molting has ceased for the time being. Dali is as happy as ever and still not relocated, although we will have to bring him to his new home sometime this week because we are going on vacation soon. We have decided to bring him to a local petting zoo where he will have plenty of hens to annoy and hopefully be very happy! At the petting zoo, there is a pen with four hens and no roosters. I am hoping the zoo will allow him to hang there with the girls seeing as he loves companionship.

The chicks — er, not so much chicks anymore — are happy and healthy and are growing as quickly as ever! Cinnamon and Saffron (the chicks) are both quite large and I can tell by there size right now that they will outgrow Guinevere and Ginger by a couple of pounds! They are currently living in our garage in a pen, but will soon be transported into an outdoor pen. They are not old enough to live with the big chickens yet, but have already been aquainted with them. Dali pecked them very lightly only a couple of times and mostly just left them alone. He did, however, shuffle around them like he does to the other hens, so I’m hoping the chicks are girls!!

As for the baby Silkies, Mary still does not have any chicks. If she doesn’t have any Silkies by August, we will have to order them from a hatchery.Well, by for now!!

Garretta . . . Again

Sorry, I’m really late getting this post out, but Garretta is well again and acting totally normal. She hasn’t laid an egg since she was sick, though. I suspect her lack of eggs is due to her molting — she is very dishevled-looking!

Garretta

Starting yesterday, Garretta isn’t feeling well. She laid in the nest box all day, drank a lot of water, didn’t eat anything (even bread!), had drippy droppings and was basically listless. She laid an egg with an extremely thin shell and it had a little blood on it long with some other gooey thing. It was gross and we threw it out. We put her on medication.

Dali Rap!

In the coop

my hens are my groupies,

they follow me around like my

Possie.

I’m

the fluffy

one in the flock

but that don’t mean

I’m a wimp or a sock.

‘Cause I’m just as cool

as you normal-haired cocks.

Well,

Dali is my name

and it fits me per-fect-ly.

My white afro hair-do

and my regal stance and stature

it only suggests

that I’m as crazy

as the painter.

I’m

a Silkie

a unique kind of bird.

There is no chicken

just as cool

in the entire world.

And all you Silkie wanna-bes

you just wanna look like me.

All you really wanna-be

is just like ME!

In the coop my hens are my groupies,

they follow me around like my

Possie.

I’m the guy in the group

but I got a heart, too

to protect my coop

and my girlfriends, too.

I’m strong and I’m handsome

I’m a bird you wanna see

What can I say?

No chick can deny me!

Bread, apples, and pears

are my favorite treats

and purple cabbage

is also good to eat.

Hey Peeps!

Hey guys, I haven’t posted in awhile, so I will start with older news. About a month ago, the striped chick died due to sickness. It was very sad, seeing as it was the cutest, friendliest, and a family favorite. It’s name was Clarence. The Buffs are growing oober fast and are starting to get little combs and light red coloring under their beaks. One chick is dark brown and the other chick is tan and brown. The colors are questionable for a Buff Orpington, so we think that the Buffs are a mix of Buff Orpington and something else. The dark brown chick is named Cinnamon and the lighter one is named Saffron. Saffron is a little nutty and has lots of energy. Cinnamon is calm (mostly) and likes to be pet.

As far as the big chicks are concerned, everything is fine. Guenevere and Ginger are wearing “Pinless Peepers” — little orange pieces of plastic that you hook on their nostrils. The Peepers prevent the chickens from seeing straight ahead thus disallowing them to peck Garretta. Talking about Garretta, she is doing great and laying about five times a week. A few weeks ago she was molting and her butt has been bare for months due to pecking and molting. We will take the peepers off Ginger and Guenevere after Garretta’s feathers return. My mom ordered the “Pinless Peepers” at an online store. The Peepers have been very effective and I recommend them to anyone with small flock dominance issues.

Dali is still here — we have not relocated him yet. He is hilarious as ever with his funny little dance moves and happy clucking. I will miss him tremendously after he’s gone.

The Silkies still haven’t been born at Mary’s farm. I guess with the cold spring weather her Silkie hatches haven’t been very successful. Looks like we’ll have to get them during the summer. See y’all later.