Winter plans 2014

I am now down to 7 hens. The two big hens, Maud and Amber, live in the splendid Pink Omlet cube that Fleur gave me when her last hen was eaten by a fox. The remaining 5 bantams, Lulu (white bantam silkie), Velvet (black bantam silkie), Lyra (grey bantam frizzle), Buffy (buff bantam wyandotte) and Vera (gold laced bantam wyandotte) all live in the red eglu attached to the 2m walk-in-run. I plan to move them all out onto the patio for the start of the winter while I level up their large area and put down fresh wood chip for them. Then I may be able to move them back again over winder provided the weather isn't too bad. Nice to have enough eglus to have summer and winter quarters. I currently have a green, pink and red eglu. I have a green rablu that I can convert into an eglu (as I did the red rablu) and a large pink cube together with a 2m WIR and extensions for the cube run up to 2m. It will be garden space that I am missing.

Agatha RIP

So sad. This morning I went out to check my happy hens, only to discover my beautiful Agatha sitting outside the eglu dead. She looked quite peaceful, just sitting there with her beak resting on the mesh as her head had I suppose, dropped forward as she drifted away. Animals do tend to go outside to die for some reason. Maybe they feel a bit peaky and fancy some fresh air. Anyway, she must have passed away gazing up at the sky and looked to be in no pain at all.

Such as shock. She can only have been about 3 1/2 years old and last time I saw her alive looked perky, red comb and wattles and trotting around happily with all the othersI wonder if bantams or wyandottes have a short lifespan. She was my favourite to look at - to me the sliver laced variety is the prettiest.

I'll try to hold off getting any replacements until spring. After all, I still have 7 hens. Deeply upsetting though :(

Storm on the way - Battening down the hatches

Or in my case, strapping every bit of sunshade/windbreak/rain cover on my runs.

Can't have my hens getting wet - the silkies aren't waterproof!

Nutmeg RIP

Sadly today nutmeg finally died. She had been getting progressively worse and at the weekend we had to move the big chickens into the small eglu and the little chickens into the eglu cube because Nutmeg couldn't make it up the steps into the cube any more,her balance had gone,

She still pottered around but looked a bit hunched and uncomfortable. 

I gave her a large dose of meta am on some grapes. She really enjoyed this but even thought I'd cut them very small ahe had trouble swallowing them, I think the lumps must have affected her throat. She had also got very thin by now. At one point she toppled over and we thought she'd died, but she got up and carried on eating the grapes.

We expected her to have died overnight but she didn't.

Today she wandered out but didn't move much. She was a lot worse. She seemed to sunbathe a bit then I couldn't see her at all. I found what looked like her corpse under a bush by the fence but when I went to pick her up she twitched and lifted her head. She wasn't far off so I moved her to a cool shady spot and she was dead within the hour

I probably could have taken her to the vet sooner to have her out down, but each day she seemed to be eating and drinking up until the end and I always found myself asking "Would she really be happier dead?" And thinking that the answer was no.

Nutmeg more lumpy

It is now June and Nutmeg is still with us. Of late, her lumps have got worse, and I notice that she twitches her head a little more than the other chickens as thought they irritate her. Her comb is paler and although she seems happy with the others, I sense that it won't be long. Still, she is a good age and has had a good life. 

Eglu cube fits in a Citroen Picasso

I acquired an eglu cube from a friend whose chickens has sadly perished from a fox attack one morning after she had let them out. Cube and 1m run fitted in my car as shown with room to spare.

Arriving home I unloaded the car and I then jetwashed the cube before reassembling it.

Here it is all assembled. It was very easy with the help of the online instruction PDF. Here it is ready to br rolled onto the chicken enclosure. 

Nutmeg - defies the path lab with her lumps

First I took Nutmeg to my local vet who prescribed Tylan (antibiotic) as I expected. When this had no effect, we then added metacam (anti-inflamatory) but still no change. I decided I would have to seek out a poultry specialist and went to The Scott Veterinary Clinic who have a nice vet, Natalie, who specialises in exotic animals. I hadn't realised that chickens were classed as exotic but its rather nice.

She had a good feel and observed that some of the lumps were quite fleshy. She didn't think it was respiratory - so she took samples from each of the four lumps and sent them to the path lab.

Took longer than expected to get back to me because the path lab were so stumped they did the tests twice. There is "reactive lymphocites" in each of the four samples, but different ones. We discussed at length, but I decided that since Nutmeg is very happy in herself - she is even still laying eggs occasionally, and since she is already nearly 6 which is a good age for a chicken, I'm going to leave her and see how things go. If she deteriorates fast (as may happen) and is in distress I'll take her to be put to sleep. If she dies overnight, which may also happen, I've also promised to take her corpse along because the vet and the path lab are really keen to do a post-mortem to find out what this mysterious problem is.

Of course she could just recover :)

You never know.