Today was another nice day. Not as windy as yesterday turned out to be. Early it was nice, but later it was just short of violent. Today I had to go find a tarp that had blown across the yard into the brush at the edge of the woods. After church this morning I came home and gathered the eggs, let the turkeys out, and let Sushi and Purple out too. There were 11 eggs! I am glad that Purple is healed well enough to start laying again. Both Sushi and Purple had been pecked pretty badly, so they are kept in dog crates inside the coop to protect them from the other hens while they heal. Sushi is a black hen, and her whole rump underneath her tail was not only plucked clean of feathers, but I went in one day and saw the most horrible sight. Her rear end looked like hamburger! About the size of my hand, from palm to finger tip, with fingers slightly spread. They had pecked her rear end out, and wouldn't leave her alone. That is why I named her Sushi. Now she is healed up very well, just has an area about 1" high by 3" wide that is still covered with scab. Her feathers are coming back in also. Here are a couple of pictures of her from the rear. The 1st picture is kind of funny because it shows some little tufts of feathers coming in on the underside, just below the scabbed area. Her skin is nice and healthy, the pink shows good blood circulation, and the wound looks great. I am very happy that I could save her, she is a very good laying hen and just plain nice to have around.
She is healing up very well, and lays about 4-5 eggs a week. Since she has been handled so much she is quite friendly and will come to me and allow me to pick her up, so I allow her to run loose in the yard for a couple of hours when I come home from work. I also allow Purple to run in the yard for the same reason. Purple is a New Hampshire hen, and her wounds are such that I spray them with a livestock spray called Blue Kote. It turns everything purple, so she went from being called "the purple hen" to just Purple as a name. I think Sushi knows her name, but Purple doesn't show any sign of knowing it. They both come running if they think I have a piece of bread in my hand. I will have to get a pic of Purple some time soon.
Purple was almost totally healed about 2 weeks ago, so I put her back into general popluation again, and they just beat the snot out of her, pecked her back open again so I had to re-crate her. Then last Tuesday night I didn't have her crate closed properly and she escaped from it. The other hens got her again. Now she is back to being the walking wounded again. This time it was only shallow flesh wounds, but dog-gone it, I hate having to keep them crated! She just got re-purpled because of it. They are both laying well, and it would be nice if they could have full freedom. I am going to have to think of a better arrangement for them soon if I can't re-intigrate them into the flock.
The other hens have a small fenced yard attached to their coop and can go in and out all day. They are not very hand tame, and some of them are a pain in the neck to catch, so they don't get to roam freely.
Yesterday one of the other random hens got out, and I figured that she wouldn't be a problem because the other two are so easy, but NO, the brat tried to take off into the woods, and I had to chase her back twice before I could corner her and scoop her up! I even had bread in my hand for her but that wasn't good enough, she wanted to see the world. If I could reliably tell her apart from the other hens I would name her Dora the Explorer! I have a few that are easily recognizable who have names. I will have to introduce you to them later. Here is a picture of the hens in their small yard. There is some random lumber in the foreground, but you can see that the coop is made of all reclaimed lumber and plywood. I am rather proud of having scrounged almost all of it! The only thing we bought besides nails and a few pieces of hardware is the corrugated roofing material and the corrugated window material that you see at the top of the wall. Everything else was scrounged.
If you look closely you can see that some of the hens are red. Those are the New Hampshires. The black ones are called Black Sex Links. They are a cross between Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks. Both are generally docile and good layers, but this spring I have orded Rhode Islands and Easter Eggers. The Easter Eggers are Americauna mixed with something else, and they will lay me green and blue eggs. The RIs are brown egg layers, and they are supposed to lay an average of 5 eggs a week each. the NH hens that I currently have are supposed to lay an average of 3-4 per week, although I am getting closer to 5 each per week. With the new flock that is coming I will get 25 hens total, and we will have to expand the coop by about 8' to accomodate the larger number of hens. Along with increasing the fence area, expanding the coop will be this summers project.
Anyway, today I took the loppers out and brutalized my apple trees. I haven't pruned them in a looooong time, so they were desparately in need. Some of what I need to cut off will take a chain saw. I would be better off to have an experienced orchardsman come and guide me so I don't do anything stupid, but since I think I erred on the side of caution, there isn't much damage I could do. The darn tent worms are already making small tents on the trees, so I got out my can of brake cleaner (my favorite instant-kill pestacide for this problem) and blasted the little buggers to oblivion. No, it isn't really a pestacide, but it does the trick. I probably should have put a band of bearing grease around the trunks a month ago, but didn't think the darn bugs would be crawling yet.
Just for fun, here is an extremely cute picture of 3 month old Ivy. This pic just shows her flirty personality. I think this would make a great t-shirt!
Time to sign off now. Good night world, good night chickens!
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