Chickens and Unschooling

I think only one of our geese is laying. The others are older.

We lost a fawn and white runner duck. Maybe to a hawk. That was a few days ago. So far, no new casualties, and *knock on wood* it stays that way.

Today, I did full spray down, re-dust, and fresh hay to the chicken house and nesting boxes. It was hard, but very satisfying.

Our new feed store had its grand opening this weekend. Everything at least 10% off. I have all the bird feeds now. Our storage situation is not ideal, so overflow bags live on my front porch.

Somehow I have a flock with three integrated roosters who do not actively try to kill each other. One of them does actively try to kill me on a regular basis, though. It is no longer safe for me to walk in my yard without carrying a shovel. He's a tough bugger.

I figured out a way to use up a dozen eggs: french toast.

For the first time in a very long time S and C both have night shifts on a weekend day. That is the situation my package of bacon was waiting for, so add in a large batch of french toast and, voila, breakfast.

My french toast recipe is basically 1/2 cup milk to 2 eggs. Plus some amount of vanilla and cinnamon. Cook in a generous amount of butter. Scale up as necessary. Today was a 12 egg day.

I have a well established flock*, so unlike the rest of the country dependent on store bought eggs, egg scarcity is not my current problem. Quite the opposite, in point of fact.

Last week I made german pancakes to use up another 11 eggs.


*Knock on wood, so far the coyotes have not attacked my flock like they did my neighbor's.

Prompt: Nest.

Twitter link.

I should have posted this nearly a month ago. Our broody hen successfully hatched three chicks, of the two we brought inside, one survived.

Flufkin, the Ameraucana/Silkie, born September 11th.



She's bigger than that, now, obviously.

Friday.

The girls and I went shopping in the county of freedom. We met up with our old glass instructor who lives out that way. She had texted me out of the blue last week. I think the social isolation was getting to her. She brought her dog, Lyric, with them so S could give him pets. I gave her a couple dozen eggs, and successfully refused offers of money from both her and her husband. They both preferred wearing masks in public, but she was up for hugs from all of us. I do think it was the case of them buying into the idea that masks help protect grandma, but her preferring to take the personal risk for the hugs.

Fresh duck eggs.

Fresh chicken eggs.

The way the ducks talk to each other.

The way the chickens greet me in the morning demanding I open the duck house for them.

My hubby building a house to keep the ducks safe from the owls.

No goose eggs, nor duck eggs, yet, but the chickens are starting to lay again.

Finally.


From H's Americana hen.

It's been a sad, eggless winter. I had to buy several dozen eggs to get us through the baking holidays. Should be turning the corner now.

She is growing back some skin and feathers around the edges of her injury. She started picking off scabs yesterday, but I think the freshly exposed layer looks ok. The bits she tore off kind of looked like cooked skin, possibly from the alcohol I had to pour on her when we were struggling with the maggot infestation on her first night of extreme treatment. She's gone from barely moving, to drinking water, to eating grass, to eating grass and her pellet food, to using her water to give herself a bath, to demanding extra grass treats from me whenever she hears a door, and to yelling at the other geese whenever she hears them outside. Best indicator of her improvement to date - yesterday she layed an egg.

The only reason to keep her inside now, is to keep the flies away from her. I'll go into more details about the first night of treatment below, but if maggots is not a topic you want to spend a lot of time with, you might want to stop reading now.

You have been warned.

I yelled "maggot infested goose" a bunch of times the first night we brought the goose inside, and for the few days following.

When she had been injured a couple days before by Arrow, I rinsed her off, treated her, and released her back to the other geese. At first she seemed ok, but after a couple of days she started acting unconcerned about where she was resting, whether I got near her, or even if I moved her. I figured she wasn't doing well and might not make it, so gave C the chance to say goodbye. He sat with her in the yard for a while, then asked if I could bathe her, since she smelled really bad. That led to the discovery of the maggots. They were packed in so thick, at first I couldn't tell that they weren't just part of her flesh. H was a rockstar and held her still while I worked at getting the maggots out of her. There were so many, and she bled a lot from where I pulled them off. I'd never experienced anything like that before. M got me the alcohol to try to help kill any stragglers, and hopefully knock out any infection. We brought her to live in the bath, since we didn't figure she'd survive if we left her outside (I wasn't really convinced she'd survive anyway, and for the next two days I fully expexted to find a dead goose in the bath whenever I went in to check on her). Once inside, I spent another hour, with the better light from the bathroom, cleaning more maggots off of her. It took about three days to be able to declare her maggot free (two days in, some eggs must have hatched, so I had to break out the alcohol again). I doused her injuries with vinigar regularly for about a week. Once she started eating again, I figured she was on the mend. Unfortunately, her injuries were severe enough, that they are taking a long time to heal. Until they are better enough that I don't have to worry about flies, she's going to be our grumpy, loud, house guest.

Btw, this is C's goose, Talon.

Tiny little duck eggs!

I found three eggs in the ducklings' night pen when I let them out today (I took the picture by the water for perspective). New egg layers always start off with smaller eggs; the eggs get larger as they mature.


Baby egg on left, mature duck egg on right (Fang's).


A picture of the new ducks, since I haven't posted one of them in a while.

For the first time in over four years I had to buy store eggs. Last winter we managed on the goose eggs from our new geese. This fall they did not start to lay for us, so it seems last year was an anomaly. I fully expect the geese will start up in the Spring, like our first girl goose used to do. In the meantime, if they are still good, I have about 8-10 duck eggs left in the fridge. I haven't gotten duck or chicken eggs in the last month; this is likely due to the shorter days and colder weather and the advanced age of our hens. It probably doesn't help that two of our younger ducks recently got picked off by predators.

I ended up with a basic grocery store brand dozen. I looked at some of the cage free ones, even though that doesn't really guarantee a better quality of life for the birds. The real reason I didn't go that route, was their proud declaration that their hens were fed an exclusively vegetarian diet. Hens are omnivores. They shouldn't be fed a vegetarian diet. In addition, if they truly had a free and happy existence they would have access to insects. If their diets are so strictly controlled as to guarantee vegetarian, they must not be able to move about much on their own, even if they aren't in individual cages.