Latest Molting Story

She's the worst of the bunch

 Today she showed up with no tail feathers.

RayJeana is slowly losing her feathers.

Ms Sassy Pants, Crispy, shows no signs of molting.

Judy is starting to look better.

RayJeans doesn't seem to mind being a little light in the feathers.

Esthelle lost her tail feathers yesterday.

Dixie just runs away so no one can see her.

 oh no, I see some really light spots.  Guess she is next.

 Pecking some of that new food that will add lots more protein to her diet.  Good girl!

And then there is poor, poor, poor EffieGrae.

 It looks bad but this is actually good.  The bare skin is where she has lost her feathers.  And you see those little straw looking things...those are the new feathers.  It is really a neat thing to see.

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One day soon she will pretty again.  Hope it is before the middle of the month.  According to the Farmer's Almanac we are going to get some snow showers around the middle of the month.

Let The Games Begin

I decided to leave the obstacle course up so The Girls can get used to all the new colors and shapes.  I even enticed them with chunks of tomatoes today.  EffieGrace seemed interested.  We were just getting started with some unexpected company (a cutie-pa-tootie little Gracie) came and I had to go play with her.

Another Marker In The Chicken Cemetary

Plaaced another marker today.

Emmy comes home tonight with this story...she told her 'Nanny kids' that Susie had died.  They were sad and made sure to tell PJ all about it.  He was sad too.  He was just glad that it wasn't Sunny the one that he picked up and held.  They were having a conversation and they wondered if Susie had a best friend.  So they asked Emmy and she said sure.  They wanted to know who it was.  Wammy she said.  No Emmy, a chicken friend.  Emmy really didn't have an answer for them.  Instead they figured out that it was really probably Keithetta.  Now they are just sure that in the spring there will be a red fern growing between their markers. (If you haven't ever read 'Where The Red Fern Grows' you won't understand the meaning of the red fern...go read it...it is a great book...one of our favorites!)

So we are going to be on the lookout for a red fern to plant this spring.

Losing Old Feathers and Growing New Ones

Mark went to pick up food for the girls yesterday.  He talked to the staff and they suggested since the girls were in the middle of a molt they should have this feather fixer.  Great idea.  One problem.  It is pellets and they don't eat pellets.

So being the good Chickie Ma that I am I crushed up the pellets and aded them to the chicken treat that I feed them to get them a little heavier for the winter (so they will stay warmer with an extra layer of fat).

So we will see tomorrow morning what the verdict is.  If they haven't eaten much, I probably going to send Mark back to the feed store to get the regular food and I'll have to figure something else out.  They need more protein now that they are growing new heathers.  Maybe some mealworms.  I'll need to do a little research.

Chicken Trick Or Treats

"You are trickin' me right?  Get that camera out of my face!"

Gave the girls a little treat today.  I pulled the tomato vines out of the Tower Garden.  Might as well give it to them...they ate all the leaves up as far as the could reach.

I Hate This

I have an alarm set on my phone to make sure that The Girls are all accounted for and I lock them in for the night.  I always talk to them and they answer back.  Tonight I tucked all the Little Girls in and then went to the Big Girls.  Head count and I find Susie laying all spread out in between the nesting box and the roost floor.  Her eyes are still open but she is not breathing.  Just this afternoon I saw her sitting in the sun and I even pet her.  She seemed fine.  Another chicken mystery.  I will be looking thru all my chicken books for an answer.  She was eating well.  She was being bossy.  She was in the middle of a molt.  None one the Big Girls have laid for days.  I thought it was due to the molt.  Could she have be egg bound?  It was cold the other night could that be it?  She wasn't over weight.  So now she is resting beside Keithetta in our little chicken cemetery.

If anyone has any ideas please leave a comment.

This is waht I have found so far...from Mother Earth News

Causes of Sudden Chicken Death

 Apparently, it’s not entirely uncommon for this sort of thing to happen.

Heart attack: Sudden death is a pretty well known syndrome among fast-growing broiler chickens. The birds die with a “short, terminal, wing-beating convulsion” and often flip on their back. The cause is a heart attack. Recent research suggests the heart attack is triggered by stress; the chickens seem predisposed to heart attacks because of microscopic lesions in the muscle of their hearts.

Egg-bound: Layer chickens can die if a fully-formed egg gets stuck somewhere between their shell gland and vent. Possible causes: the egg is too big, there is injury to the reproductive tract that blocks the egg, or the chicken has hypocalcemia (calcium deficiency). Overweight chickens are prone to getting egg-bound. So are young hens that are pushed to lay before they’re fully mature. Egg-bound death isn't sudden; there are signs that a hen is egg-bound and a few steps you can take to move the egg. However, the blockage often isn’t discovered until after the chicken is dead and owners can be caught by surprise.

“We all got to go sometime”: Accidents happen. A chicken could ingest something poisonous. One bird could jump down from a high roost on to another bird. Heck, a chicken could just run into a wall too hard. Once I had a chicken get a single toe stuck in the edge of the coop loft and hang upside down for a couple hours before I found her. The bird was fine once I got her unstuck but the point is: weird accidents happen.

How important is it to find an answer when a chicken suddenly dies? That’s completely up to you. Like with all things chicken-related, it comes down to paying careful attention to all your birds. If you have reason to suspect contagion or disease, or notice abnormal behavior in other chickens in the flock, get the dead bird examined immediately. If the rest of your chickens keep doing their happy chicken things as normal, maybe it’s not a high priority. As one chicken owner put it: “Where there’s livestock, there’s deadstock.”

The only unsettling thing about having no obvious reason for the death is there’s nothing concrete you can change or improve as a matter of prevention and protection for the rest of your birds.

Molting Profiles

They are just plain pitiful!  Egg total today...a whopping 2!

Sunny just keeps her head down and beak in the dirt.  She is starting to lose her hiney feathers.

Knock on wood, Inez is still holding on to all her feathers.

Effie Grace is a sad sight.  Mark even laughed at her.

Ethelle still looks good.

Crispy might be losing wing feathers.

RayJeana is still hanging in there with all of her feathers.

Dory is a sight!  I'd hide under the tress too.  She has lost all of her tail feathers.

Susie lost a tail feather today while I was taking pictures of them.

Ethel is looking a little thinner around the middle.

Judy looks a little rough around the collar.

Dixie gets whiter by the day!

The First Molt

This is what the backyard looks like!  You would think something got in and attacked the girls.  But no they are just molting.  It is an ugly picture!

It is not a good look for any of the girls.  Some have lost all the fluff on their behinds.  Some are losing the feathers around their necks.  And then there is poor Judy (no picture will ever be taken of her), she has missing feathers in splotches all over her body.  Looks like someone that was asleep went after her with hair trimmers.  She hides under the bushes so no one can see...so embarrassing.

EffieGrace looks the most presentable of the bunch.

Guess I am going to have to look up how long this phase will last.  Research is a good thing.  Another thing, while they are molting there is no egg production...or very few eggs.  In the last two days I have gotten 6 eggs.

Open For Business

The girls love it!  The Cluck-Thru is a huge success.

They come running like crazy birds from underneath the hosta and the burning bushes.

All I had to do this morning was open the window and they came running.  

Yesterday I threw together some makeshift steps for them.  Hoping to find someone giving away pallets so we can build a little box for them to stand on.  The box will also cover the window well so leaves can't accumulate there.  Along with snakes.

She Wants Us To Do WHAT?

This lady ready is crazy.  No wonder some call her the crazy chicken lady!  You'll never guess what she is teaching us to do now.

She knows that we love frozen corn.  So now for an early morning treat while all those little yahoos are eating breakfast she opens the kitchen window and calls us.  We all know her voice.  And we know when she says 'here chick chick'...there will be a snack that we love involved.

She has made us a little log ladder to climb us on because we were all scared of that plastic see through thing under the window sill.

I hear that one of her friends from high school (something about her twin) called it the Cluck-Thru.  I'll see if I can't talk her into getting it on a video for you to see.  I think we are learning very fast.  You know we are pretty smart chickens.  And she loves us so.  We decided that it was up to us to make her smile everyday because you know that she is getting up there in years...and besides that she takes really good care of us.  Just the other day we weren't laying very well (some of us are molting and when we do that we don't lay eggs during that time)  She got out all of her chicken books and read up on what herbs to put in the nesting boxes and run.  It smells so good in there who wouldn't want to sit for a while and maybe plop out an egg or two.