Contrary to my previous post, not all my decisions are impulse deciisiions. I actually do think things through. Like what has been working and not working for me here on the farm. As I mentioned here, I had decided that the Rouen ducks were not working. So far I enjoy the Muscovy ducks accept I need to find them a new pond as their poop on my deck is driving me crazy. And the call ducks are pets and aren't going anywhere. My chickens are also another critter on the farm that are not going anywhere. I love my chickens and the eggs they provide for me. We started off with 20 chickens and since then we lost three to death and four were roosters so I definitely had room to grow. I had seen somewhere (not sure where) someone had blogged an image of their rainbow full egg cartons and I knew then that was what I wanted. So the chickens I have selected I aimed for colourful eggs. In the death of two of my chickens I was loosing two wonderful colours so knew replacing them would be a priority, however thought finding any hens close to the age of my own would be next to impossible. Cause really, who would sell their young laying hens?! Well yesterday I found an advertisement for a woman who was downsizing her flock. Actually, she wanted to sell her entire herd! In that herd were spring hatches! And as a bonus, she was in the next town! So we went over today to see what she had. We came home with six chickens and one duck. Most of her spring hatch were mixed easter eggers and since I already have enough of those, I passed on them, but she did have black Jersey Giants and Barred Rocks from her spring hatch. Those I took. Two of each. Accept the female barred rock decided to hide on us so I left the rooster behind until she came out of hiding at which time I'll bring them both home. She also advertised she had leghorns which were also on my wish list but hers were approximately two years old. I nearly passed on them but she told me they were her biggest producers and she was willing to give me a discount. So I brought four of them home. And boy am I glad I did. Look at this huge egg one of them already produced for me within hours of being home?! Who knew such a small chicken could produce such a big egg! And the duck? Well, sadly, I let our German Shepherd, Dakota, out last night from her dog run to stretch and mess. and while she was doing her business I went into the barn and got caught up cleaning stalls and completely forgot about her. When I did remember, we had another dead duck. The boy wasn't too happy about that. So when he saw this beautiful chocolate coloured muscovy he had to have her. I loved the colour so agreed. We've named her Cocoa. Hopefully, for her own safety, she has already learned to fly. Here she is meeting Sir Quacksalot. I'm sure they will fall madly in love and give us sweet little chocolate babies.
Just call me Brittany. I went and did it again. I impulsed shopped. I blame Farm Girl. She gets an idea in her head and there is no letting go. She gets that trait from her mother. We've called this little porker Miss Elizabeth, named after a character in Farm Girl's favourite book, Pride and Prejudice. And really, something that ugly needs a pretty name to help her in any way possible.
We have slaughtered our first animal. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, not that I actually performed the slaughter, I left that to the professionals! :) In reevaluating our farm, I decided that the Rouen ducks were not what I wanted. I had five, four of which were females and females, as we know, are the quackers. And Rouen's are loud quackers. Multiple that by four and good lord the barnyard got very roudy. So they were the first to go. It was actually not as hard as I had thought, though my hubby kept asking me if I felt guilty. Surprisingly, the answer was no. For years our ancestors before us had done this very deed though they didn't have the luxury of sending them to slaughter. My inlaws recall stories of their own childhood when they had to kill chickens and ducks on their farm growing up along with plucking all those feathers. It wasn't an easy job. So I am grateful that today's farmers are able to leave that part of the slaughter to others. I simply dropped off the ducks and the next morning I brought them back home. While there, many others were picking up their chickens and ducks. The place was hopping busy. Seeing all those chickens actually got my mind spinning. What a good little business it would be to raise chicken and sell them at market.
In other news, Pearl has sadly lost her battle. She has finally died. We had discussed ending her torture but I couldn't bring myself to it. Not only because the idea of killing was unappealing (see above) but because I was hoping for a miracle. She had held on for so long, fighting to the end. I still have no idea what killed her. Her eyes remained clear right up to her death. She lost strength in her entire body and stopped eating and drinking until finally she slipped away. I had thought about bringing her to the vet, but this may sound harsh to some so I apologize in advance, but really it came down to the fact it would cost far far less to replace her than to invest in vet bills to save her. Though I love all my animals on the farm, I have no problem separating which are pets and which ones are simply there to provide for me and the family. Look who's getting her own up close and personal lesson from her sister, Mary Ellen! It seems locking Sue Ellen with the laying hens was a good idea, she suddenly has taken an interest in what all the fuss was about in the nesting boxes. And apparently it worked for when we went back later, we found TWO little brown eggs! So not sure if the sisters laid one each or Mary Ellen was in double production today, but I'm excited. Four eggs today! Yay! And look at my happy chickens sitting on their roosts! I love my chickens!
This guy has visited our pond before, but I always just seemed to catch the back end of him as he left. My ducks have gotten use to his presence and allowed him to hang around longer allowing me to snap some photos.
It was the last day of the fair but we finally made it out to it. The Western Fair is our counties biggest fall fair and it was the first time I have ever attended. I usually attend my hometown fall fair and if we need a ride fix, we hit Canada's Wonderland. Well we never made it to Wonderland and next weekend is our town's fall fair and my boy is going camping for the entire weekend with his cub scouts so we won't make it to that one, so catching this fair was important. Still, it was only me and the boy and Farm Girl who could make it. But we still had fun. A ride on the back of this monster truck was the highlight of the day for my boy. But the visit to the Canadian Forces exhibit was a close second. His genuine excitement and interest had all the soldiers giving him their full attention. This soldier gave my boy his coat and cap to try on. Isn't he cute? He's soluting. Another exhibit that was a huge success with us was the petting zoo. This pen of adorable mini pigs put thoughts into my head that really had no business being there. And this little guy I would have happily placed in the back of my van and taken home if I were allowed. There were plenty of rides but my boy, it turns out, is not much of a ride person. He rode a couple, cried horribly on one.... That's him screaming on the left. So we ended the day with a pig race and with the boy assuring me, regardless of above ride, he had a great time. They also raced ducks which was by far funnier but I didn't snatch my camera up quick enough as they ran too fast...except for one that flew to the finish line!
I had no intention of posting about Pearl because truth be told I hate bad news and I especially hate when I am the bearer of bad news. But in after thought I decided to post about Pearl because bad news is inevitable and perhaps we could all help each other and learn from our experiences if we shared. Back in the summer I had decided not to share some bad news. Our Americauna hen, Elana, had died. We had no idea why and it happened so fast that I decided not to post about it. I found her acting broody in our picnic cooler which was airing outside. When I went to remove her she allowed me to pick her up and then proceeded to collapse into my hands weak. It was then that I noticed how thin she was and that her belly was completely bear. I assumed the other chickens had been picking on her and she was unable to get any food. So I started toward the coop when she suddenly vomit. Realizing I had a sick chicken on my hands, I took her to the horse barn instead where the brooder is kept for such occassions. She was very weak and could barely stand on her own two legs. I gave her water and food in hopes that she would recover, but the next morning I found her dead. I had no idea why. And truth be told, I did not look it up. I let it go as a freak occurrence. Then last week our cuckoo maran, Pearl, became ill. Farm girl had caught it. She spotted her in the yard acting broody. After she reported seeing this and suspecting Pearl wasn't feeling well I went out to take a look. I thought for sure she was fine for I had seen her running around the yard just hours before looking healthy and active. But sure enough she felt very thin and when I put her on the ground she went to flee but fell over her own feet. I've never seen a chicken fall over their own feet, so new something serious was wrong. As Elana before her, I immediately separated her and took her to the brooder in the horse barn. When I placed her in the brooder she fell over again. Remembering how weak Elana was and how fast she went, I figured that was the end of Pearl and I would find her dead in the morning. I didn't. But she was weaker. I assumed she would die within the next few days. She didn't. She became weaker and got paralysis in the neck and one side of her body, but she did not die. It was then that I finally did some research. My conclusion---Marek's Disease. I debated whether to put her out of her misery and to save the rest of my flock by killing her, but I couldn't bring myself to it. A couple mornings ago, I went into the barn and found her lying on her side with her legs in the air. I figured she was finally dead and went to take her out of the brooder. But then she chirped ever so softly and her foot flinched. She had complete paralysis. I new it would be within the hour or by the end of the day for sure. I was glad. Poor girl had taken so long to go, I knew she was suffering. The day went by, I got busy and forgot to check on her. The next morning my girls did morning chores and I remembered then to ask one of them what they did with Pearl's body. She informed me that she was alive and standing up. I couldn't believe it so ran out to the brooder. She was indeed alive, but was sitting on her belly looking up at me from one side of her head as her neck still had paralysis. I lifted her and found she was able to stand as my girls reported. I did further investigation on Marek's Disease as I thought it was a disease where there was no cure. On Wikipedia, one of the symptons is Ocular lymphomatosis which "causes lymphocyte infiltration of the iris (making the iris turn grey), anisocoria, and blindness". This is an image from the website. The healthy eye is on the left, the sick eye on the right. We went out to the brooder with flashlight in hand and shone it into Pearl's eyes. She blinked from the bright light but we were clearly able to see her eyes were healthy. Nor did she have any fluid coming from her eyes or nose or show any signs of lesions that I could see. She was still completely thin and weak but she was fighting to survive. We went back into the house to do more research and learned about another disease called Botulism. It is supposedly mistaken often for Marek's Disease. I read on a forum somewhere about a woman who added molasses to her sick chicken's water and fed it high protein food and it survived and grew to be a happy healthy chicken. So that's what we did. We had to help her drink the water as she didn't have the strength, but miraculously after she got some sweetened water in her, she suddenly got the strength to stand and eat her food. We added scrambled eggs to her feed as well. So far, she seems to be doing better. Not grand, but healthier than she did before.
I really have no idea what Pearl had or for that matter, Elana, but I am crossing my fingers for Pearl and hope she pulls through. Being a chicken owner is enjoyable and rewarding but at times sad and frustrating. And at times, like now, I wonder what the hell I think I'm doing owning a flock of chickens when I obviously have no idea what I'm doing. But then I calm myself and remind myself that it is all a learning process and that I grow as a chicken farmer with each experience. Good or bad. I love going into the coop every morning to look and see if my hens have left me an egg. Actually, my whole family does. We will literally run to the coop to outrace the other just to get there and find the egg first. And though I love finding Lucy and Charlotte's green eggs, I have been waiting anxiously for a brown one. And this morning I got what I wanted. Mary Ellen, one of our Rhode Island Red's produced this cute little pinkish egg. When I went into the coop this morning, I found Mary Ellen sqeezed into a nesting box with Lucy. It was quite funny actually but I figured she was getting an upclose and personal lesson. I left them alone and went and did chores in the big barn and when I came back, she had moved into her own box and Lucy had left me an egg and was off free ranging. I left Mary Ellen alone and when I came back she had moved again. I new it would be today then. She was restless and trying to find a place to lay. It was this box that did the trick and where she left her little pink egg. After bringing it into the house and giving it a wipe, I proudly went around and showed off my find....only to turn around and break it as I was putting it into the fridge! Oye!
When looking up nesting boxes when building my hens theirs, I wondered why so many had sloped ceilings. Uh, of course! That makes sense.
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