Death on the farm...and near death...

Friday, May 17 2013.
This was to be a happy day, my wife was coming home from a week long seminar in Las Vegas. Which was a very happy event in itself, because I did miss her greatly.
Also on this day while I was working in the yard, I noticed the Rooster mating with one of my Jersey Giant hens and not putting much thought to it. Several hours later I could not find the hen in her usual egg laying spots, but I did find her under the hen house. When she came out I noticed that she was breathing quite heavily, so I immediately thought that she was having trouble with an egg. I rubbed her abdomen to see if I could feel an egg, but nothing, it was so tight. I continued to rubbed for a few more minutes and then set her down on the hen house floor to see if she would take a drink and she just fell over, I quickly scooped her up again and held her only for a short time before she just went limp and closed her eyes. That was it...no other signs or symptoms.
I had a private funeral for her in the orchard with the other chickens that we have lost. While I was digging the hole for her my wife called to tell me she was on her way, although I was excited about that I did have to tell her that Carliqua had passed on. I also had to tell her that at the same time all of this was happening, her favorite hen Crookie (special needs chicken) who had gone broody had become not well and had gotten off her eggs several hours earlier and I could not get her to drink water and she was fading fast. I pulled her out of her nesting box and I sat with her on the back porch with a bucket of water praying that she would start to drink and get a little life back in her. My sister-in-law had stopped by to drop off a book and we started to discuss my situation, we all agreed that we would pray about it and that she would get better. By the time she had left Crookie had started to drink from the watering bucket and had stood up. She then jumped off the porch and started to pick at some grass. I then moved her to the front yard away from all of the other chickens, shortly after that my wife made it home and had brought some chicken vitamins. To make a long story short, she did drink more water and got more energy and by the next morning she was back to pretty much her normal self. By that evening she had worked it out with three other hens to give her more eggs since we had to throw her others. 

To update this June 7, 2013.

I had to cull our last Black Jersey Giant "Chaniqua", she had developed an impacted crop a few weeks ago and we had treated her the best way that we possibly could, but it turned into sour crop and it in the end was what made me choose to cull her, as one of the members on BYC says "out of compassion and love". It was for the best.

Again another funeral and she was placed next to her sister "Carliqua" in the orchard.

Crookie did recover and conned three hens into giving her more eggs, which she has successfully hatch one of them as of yesterday and she still is working on the other two eggs.

First chicken egg hatch in incubator

Here are some images of my first hatch.

The incubator that I used, after retrofitting it for my automatic egg turner and using light bulbs as the heat source.

 The Girls responsible for the eggs in the incubator.

Name: Alice

Breed: Amber Star (Rhode Island/Leghorn) 

Name: Cow Pie

Breed: Auracana/ Americana

Name: Crookie (crossed beak)

Breed: Splash Wyandotte

Name: Liberty

Breed: Blue Lace Red Wyandotte

Name: Ms. Cluckie

Breed: Amber Star (Rhode Island red/Leghorn)

Name: Penelope

Breed: Amber Star (Rhode Island red/ Leghorn)

Name: Rhode Island Rhoda

Breed: Rhode Island Red

Name: Betty Barred Rock

Breed: Plymouth barred rock

The Boss of the Barn Yard

Name: Roo Paul

Breed: Blue Lace Red Wyandotte

The outcome of the first hatch has not yet been determined, at this current time it is still going. When they are out of the incubator I will post more photos of them.

Started an egg hatching project on the first of April, so the eggs would hatch around our 17th Anniversary and Megan's Birthday. We are almost there, only a few more days. I will update this post and put in pictures as soon as I have some thing to share.

I have been keeping a daily log of the journey through egg hatching. I was going to type it all in here but who really cares.

I also have a hen that is setting on eggs, so I have been writing a journal about her as well.

Today, April 17th is a sad day for me. At about 1:30 this afternoon I stopped in to check on her and it was upsetting, I think more for me, I do not know.  When I lifted the lid to the nesting box Liberty was trying to clean up a broken shell by dropping it into the open nesting box that I have closed off for her food and water. None of the other eggs seemed to be damage but they were covered with egg. I tried to clean up the mess as fast as I could because she just wanted to get back on them. I ran back to the house and grab a few paper towels and a moist one to wipe the egg off. I pray I did not do too much damage to them. She went right back to setting on them.

I am going to go out and have a service for the little chick, I know it seems silly but it only seems right to me. If Megan were here she would want that too.

Saying goodbye...

Ed came to us about 11 months ago as a Black Jersey Giant chick, we picked him and a four others up from a lady down the road. Out of the five chicks there were three roosters, which one of them came down with wry neck early last spring and I had to cull him. One other rooster we gave to a couple from church, and the other was Ed, he was my special rooster, early on he liked to be held and petted but as time went on he became aggressive toward the Mrs, and others who would go out into the yard. I read about is aggressive behavior on Back Yard Chicken and thought that I could break him of it, however it did not work.
   So today marks the day that I have to say goodbye...breathe, I did not cull him. He is going to go to a farm down the road where she has a lot of hens. I will miss him, but it is for the best.

It has been nearly a year since my last post...

With that being said, what is new with the Idaho guy?

The sprouting test that I did proved to be good, the garden did fair, considering that we did not get the garden boxes done and the planted until July, because of weather.

We have since built another chicken/hen house, larger, to accommodate all of the chickens that my wife brought home.We now have 12 chickens (2 Black Jersey Giant hens(Carliqua & Shaniqua), 1 Rooster (Ed), 3 Amber Star hens(Penelope, Miss Clucky, & Alice); 1 Blue lace Red Wyandotte (Liberty), 1 Blue laced Red Splash Wyandotte (Crookie, special needs chicken), 1 Blue laced Red Rooster (RooPaul), 1 Barred Rock (Betty), 1 Rhode Island Red (Rhoda), and 1 Arucana/Americana (Anastasia). We gave 5 Silver laced Wyandottes to a neighbor to be with her 60 hens. I hope they all work out for her. I gave one (SL) rooster to a wonderful lady from Washington, she has offered to share hatching eggs with me this spring. We have one of our hens that has gone broody on us, mid-December, which she still is sitting in the nest thinking that she has eggs. I have taken them all from her, I know it seems mean but I am concerned about the babies in the snow. If she is still broody come Spring, I will let her hatch the eggs from the Lady in Washington.

We also added Ducks to our collection of farm animals, which meant another house. We have one male Jumbo Pekin "Big Ducky"; one fawn and white Indian Runner "Miss Bossy"; one Cayuga "Aunt Jamima"; and one Khaki Campbell "Molly". They have brought us great joy, they are so entertaining. We spend evenings in the summer on the porch feeding them watermelon, they love it, almost as much as they love dandelions and peas.

Our travels have been limited since my position elimination September 2011. We are thinking about close trips this year, things that are not going to cost a lot of money. With the farm also it makes it a little harder. We know that the family would be more than happy to take care of them for a few days, but we just feel that it is our responsibility since I wanted them and the wife brought them home.

I am very thankful for the WIA program that I was able to get into, which is helping with my schooling to become an RN. I have Spring semester and Summer this year and then hopefully I will be able to apply for the RN program and start that in the Spring of 2014 and graduating Fall 2016. I know it seems like a long way off, but really when you are only looking at 16 weeks per semester, it really is not that long. Semester starts next Monday, and again I am very thankful that I will not have to drive every day to the College, it is about 170 miles round trip.

I will get updated photos of all that is going on here. We are talking about a root cellar and a small barn this year, on the cheap, with as much salvaged materials as possible. Check back soon.