Tag Archives: chicken

Alice

Homesteading is all about decisions. What to grow, who to eat, how to provide, why do something a certain way, and when do you call it a day.

As much as I would love to say that these decisions are easy, many of them are not, especially when it comes to the animals on the homestead. In the picture above is our White Lady, Alice by name. She is a Leghorn/Aracuana mix who is sneaking up on five years old. Alice has had a rough life. She was stolen by neighbourhood hooligans and brought back by their sisters. She has been eggbound previously. She lost her sister to a coyote attack.

Unfortunately, age and life seem to be sneaking up on her. She has stopped laying entirely. At first we thought maybe Alice was eggbound, as that’s been an issue for her before. When a hen is eggbound everything slows to a stop – eating, defecating, and laying. The egg does what the name of the issue says: it binds everything up. If not caught, it is fatal. Some hens can have repetitious issues with eggbinding and then the homesteader needs to make the decision to cull or not. Alice is not eggbound. We’ve checked that and it’s not the culprit to her illness.

Neither does it seems to be respiratory nor diet.

No lash eggs have been found in the coop, either.

So….what to do? Without a clean cut diagnosis, there are only two options. We can either cull poor Alice or hospice her to the end. We’ve never had to cull a chicken from our flock as nature and predators normally do it for us, and I’ll be honest and say I hope that ends up being the case here. For the meanwhile, we’ll hospice Alice. She’ll continue to roam and room with her flock as we keep an extra sharp eye on her.

Missing a chicken? Check everywhere!

Last night, when Hubster went to count chickens, he only counted 23. I went out to do a double count – standard practice when one is missing – and sure enough, Wafflette was no where to be found. We did a precursory look, but had to tend to another chicken’s injured toe.

While we were bummed that one of the hens might have become fox fodder, we knew there was a chance that she might have headed out somewhere to brood up. For the time being, I wrote her in the ledger as deceased.

This afternoon, I stepped out to collect eggs. Waking towards the barn, I saw a junked tote that I had set aside to bring to recycling. It had been flipped upside down.

“Might as well snag it to load up singe stuff from the basement for a dump troll this weekend.”

Imagine my surprise when I listed the thing up to find none other than Wafflette and two eggs! She looked up at me, stretched a wing, and then walked off for a drink like nothing had happened.

I’m starting to think she rather enjoyed her night of solitude.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, meet a lovely officer.

Yesterday I was standing at the back door with Little Miss bugging the chickens and practicing different chicken calls. All of a sudden I finally got reaction with the “air raid” call. 

Or so I thought. 

Right in front of my eyes, our little chicken theif walks around the corner of the house. 

“A–! What are you doing?!” He looks at me and keeps following the chickens. I think he was in momentary shock. “Get out of here!” The paralysis dissipated and off he went like a shot – or a six year old trudging through knee deep heavy snow. 


I went to the front door, on my way calling for Little Mister to snag my phone. I snagged some shots of A– and his little brother making their departure. 

“I told you we shouldn’t have tried to steal another chicken!” says the little brother who then promptly loses his boot in the snow. 

After they made their return adventure home, Hubster came home for lunch. I finally had the chance to get outside and discovered Beardie, one of our Easter Eggers, was missing. I wasn’t 100% that they had taken her, as there were no tell tale signs and she was a struggler even with us handling her, but I didn’t know if the younger brother’s comment about “another bird” was referring to the last time they’re stole one or today. Hubster and I discussed the issue and decided a course of action. 

I called our local state police barracks and explained the situation, how he’s stolen a bird before, how I spoke to the mother myself last time and was pressed upon that it wouldn’t happen again, and the young age of the kids. The officer I later talked to was just as concerned about making sure the kids got the message now and not later. “Let’s nip this in the bud.”

The little bugger tried lying to the officer, saying they didn’t come down at all. She took a walk behind the house and saw their tracks, took a couple photos to show them, and they quickly admitted that they came down, but claimed they only wanted to pet the chickens. I don’t buy it, and I don’t think the officer did either. She did say, however, that the mom was livid and the two boys were bawling their eyes out. Here’s hoping they learned a lesson. If not, I’m going to just watch and see if Greenleaf and MacGyver do their job.  

As for Beardie, she showed up about an hour after the boys came by. They spooked her enough that she had hidden out in the brush somewhere. 

Alice’s Adventure

Today was a bit….eventful. When I went to check one the flock today I noticed little boy boot prints all over the yard and around the coop. I figure that one the neighboring hellions came by to look at the birds and left. I didn’t see any harm, went inside, and proceeded to make honey cakes for Imbolc with Little Mister. 

While working on our snack, I kept having a nagging feeling. I decide to go back out and investigate. I’m glad I did. The run door was ajar. There were feather prints in the snow indicative of a bird trying to get away. Also, Alice was missing. 

I woke Hubster up from his Norovirus-induced nap and told him someone has stolen one of our older ladies, an Arcuana/Leghorn named Alice. We went outside and tracked down the footprints. Our suspicions were correct: one of the neighboring kids took her.

Just as I was about ready to walk over, the boy’s two older sisters came down the gulley with Alice. Hubster met them down by the stream and apologized. Their six year old brother and four year old brother – only an accomplice – had stolen her and had snuck her up to their attic. 

After the girls went home, we checked Al out. She was none the worse for wear and we treated her to some left over eggs, loved on her, and put her back with the rest of the flock. Once she was settled in, I walked to the house where the kiddos lived. I thanked their mother for sending the girls over with Al. The little boy tried his damndest to plead with me. (He “only wanted a pet” and could I give him “one with a cage to keep it in?”) I’m hoping that by taking the step to go over there and show a thankful, positive front the little shitter won’t try it again. 

If he does I wouldn’t be too broken hearted if a rooster handed the kid his ass. 

Overcoming Fear

I have to be honest, there was a time I was scared to death of birds. I never knew this fear existed until a lovebird my then boyfriend (now hubster) adopted had lit out of her cage and was dive bombing me in our bedroom. I freaked. I ran out of the room bawling my eyes out, shaking, and calling him to come home. Of course he couldn’t come home, he was at work. Of course I knew no one who knew birds well enough to come to my rescue. Of course I was on my own. On my own I can deal with, but this sudden new fear of birds? That was something I couldn’t deal with.

Fast forward twelve years and now I’m the one in charge of chasing chickens, pinning down pissy roosters, tending to torn combs, popping feather pimples, and binding busted beaks. I keep track of who is laying, who is holding out, and who is hiding the eggs. I pick up, hug, kiss, and love on chickens every day. I never thought that I would be able to overcome that fear of avian animals until we decided to start our homestead. Every now and then it just hits me how far I have come and I can’t help but be amazed at myself.