She's a Hard Chick Now

But still very sweet...


Ha! I like 'em chewy.

I hope everyone had a happy Easter and is enjoying soft Spring weather now.



© Copyright 2011 Mountain Harvest Basket

Menopause for Chickens? I think not!

Surprise Egg!

Just when I was saying it was kind of boring and ho-hum around here this past week, I go out to close up my hen house tonight in the cold and quiet, nothing unusual except that I notice how beautiful everything seems when illuminated by the almost full moon shining overhead.

I peek inside the hen house to check on my two old girls, Red & Lucy, they look fine. They have food and water and stare up at me from the straw covered floor contentedly, and then just as I was starting to close the door, I spied it! Sitting pretty as can be in the top nest box, was this beautiful, if a little enlongated, light brown egg! I haven't had an egg from my hens for over a year now. I've even stopped looking for them in the nests. That's why I almost missed this one.

I carefully lifted it out of the nest knowing that sometimes a first-laid egg can be soft or malformed. It was perfect. Hard shell. Looked normal. Slightly elongated as they usually are when a hen starts laying again after a long vacation. I guess the egg ducts need some time to adjust to the size of the eggs traveling through them, and the first egg gets a little squished on its way out.

I carried it carefully inside, cleaned it up and took its picture to share with you here in my blog. It weighs exactly 2 ounces for those of you who care about such things. I weighed it just for you.

I think it is beautiful.

And all I can really say is....Wow! One of my hens is almost 9 years old and the other almost 8, as of this coming Spring. I am not sure which hen laid this egg, but either way, it's a pretty big deal for hens that I thought were menopausal. I guess they are not. You go, girls!

They must have heard (from a passing deer?) that things were financially tight around here lately so they decided that they needed to start contributing to the household food supply. We will see if they keep it up or not. They may be just teasing me a bit.

A middle of winter egg from an 8 year old hen! Wow!

Not so ho-hum around Mountain Harvest Basket anymore.



© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Sad Day for Chickens and Mother Hen

Miner's Lettuce ~growing wild in the shady places


I am very sad to report that my brave little hen Barbara did not make it. She died in my arms this morning about 30 minutes after she received her fresh antibiotic injection. Although I did exactly as instructed by the vet and gave her the usual dosage, I believe that the medicine was too strong for her weak body and it was just too much for her. The older medicine may have been weaker and also less effective at fighting bacterial infections. This fresh stuff was just too strong for her. She may well have died anyway even if she hadn't received the drugs but I still feel very bad. I know I did everything I could to help her and to save her, but I still feel responsible for her death. She would have been 7 years old on April 6th.

Before I buried her, I made sure to show her body to the other two hens so that they would know what had happened to their friend. Just for a few moments, and from a little distance, just in case she had something contagious. I just wanted them to know where she was so that they wouldn't worry and wonder anymore. With the help of my partner Jack, I buried her near the chicken coop where there are other chickens buried from years past. I wrapped her lovingly in a special cloth, a remnant from my old childhood bedspread complete with fringe attached. I laid her softly deep in the hole we dug, gave her some miner's lettuce for the trip, and placed a piece of cardboard on top of her (to protect her) on which I had written my little eulogy for her. "Barbara Chicken, my brave little hen. You were a good layer and you will be missed by me and your sisters. We love you." That's actually only an excerpt from it. We filled in the grave with the soft earth and covered it with a plastic grid material weighted down by heavy rocks and things so that she would be safe from predators. We dug her grave about 2 feet deep, which is deep enough, but still I don't want to risk some predator coming by and disturbing my friend. I placed a couple of lavender flowers on top of her grave.

It has been quite some time since I have had sickness and death occur in my small flock, but I never get used to it. I need to make sure that my other two hens, Lucy and Red, are healthy and stay that way. Barbara's illness may indicate that I need to keep the hen house cleaner or add vitamins to their water or perhaps just keep a closer eye, and hand, on them to check for signs of illness. I don't often hold them and feel their bodies anymore. It's very difficult to tell that a chicken has gotten skinny merely by sight because their fluffy feathers hide their little bodies. You must hold them and feel them and maybe weigh them from time to time. Since they have been grown up hens I haven't done that very much, and they don't encourage me to do it either. They used to fly up on my lap and sit and visit with me when I would go out there and sit in my coop chair. As they got older they stopped wanting to do that as much. I guess I also stopped going out there to just sit and visit as much too.


Lavender on Barbara's grave

I am a very sad Mother Hen today. I have been mourning and crying over my lost friend. I know most folks wouldn't do that, but I can't help it. I never get used to someone being alive and conscious one moment and then still, silent and dead the next. I can't wrap my head around how the life force can just leave us like that. In an instant she is gone. It leaves me feeling scared and makes a hole in my heart.

Goodbye my Barbara Chicken. You were my brave little hen. I love you.

Mother Hen Jen


© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Chicken in my Kitchen

Barbara in my kitchen

It's been almost a week since I've written anything in this space! I have been busy. I have been sick. I have a sick chicken. That's Barbara in the photo above standing on a card table in my kitchen. At least I think it's Barbara. I have two hens that look very much alike. Barbara and Lucy. They are my favorite breed, Buff Orpington, and the only way I can really tell them apart is by their personalities, which are quite different. Well, I had noticed that Barbara was acting strange for a few days last week, not very active and not wanting to sit up on the roost at night or even in one of the nest boxes as she had always done. Then I noticed last Thursday evening when I went to close up the hen house, that she looked very weak and her comb was a darker red and she just didn't look well to me. So I brought her into my house (to keep her warm and separate her from the rest of my flock) in a big dog carrier that I keep for just such an occasion. Clean straw lined the bottom. Food and water dishes hang on the door. I set her cage near the woodstove to keep her warm at night. She ate a bit of oatmeal and cooked rice from my hand that first night, but not much.

I have doctored sick chickens before, but it had been 5 years since my last sick hen. My three remaining girls have been quite healthy up until now. Anyway, it was late at night when I discovered that she was ill, so I had to make do with my own chicken care knowledge until I could call the vet in the morning. There are several vets around our mountain area, but only one who really will take care of a chicken. Most people don't take their sick chickens to the vet. I am affectionately known around here by vets as "the Chicken Lady".

In the past I have learned to give antibiotic injections and subcutaneous fluids to chickens, as well as to give them medicine, food and water by syringe or eyedropper placed in their beak. It's been interesting and challenging. I have been successful in healing some of my hens over the years, and I have lost a few as well. I worry over the sick ones and cry and grieve over every lost one.

So that first night, Thursday, I gave Barbara some subcutaneous (SQ) fluids to help hydrate her and keep her comfortable and warm. I called the special vet who doctors farm animals in the morning and asked her if I could still safely use the bottle of injectable antibiotics that I had that had expired awhile ago. She told me to go ahead and use it and guided me on the dosage. She was the one who trained me to give the injections a few years ago. So since Friday morning I have been giving injections of antibiotic and SQ fluids twice per day to my old hen Barbara in the hope that it will cure her of whatever infection or ailment that she has. She refuses to eat and is very very thin. This tells me that she has been having problems for probably weeks before I noticed anything wrong. Her fluffy feathers and stoic attitude hid her illness from me. I am worried that she won't get better.

This afternoon, Barbara and I traveled the 30 miles (one way) or so to the special vet's office in a neighboring town. The vet examined her, told me to keep giving her the antibiotics and the SQ fluids and also told me how to force feed her to get some nutrition into her so she might possibly heal and recover. It looks pretty grim, but I must try to help her heal. She is old and doesn't lay anymore, but I have grown attached. She is one of my pets.

Six years ago, when my partner's grand niece visited here, she was only 3 years old, but quite precocious. At the time, I had another hen temporarily recuperating in my home, in the big carrier sitting in the middle of the living room floor. This little girl was intrigued by my chicken and also my vegetable garden. I let her pet the chicken and showed her how to feed the other hens who were outside. She helped me harvest some baby carrots and we washed them for her to take with her as a snack on the trip home. On the ride home, her lasting impression of me with my animals and my gardens, was shown when she turned and told her grandmother (my partner's sister), "She has to live with the chickens!"

So yes, I do live with the chickens from time to time anyway. They get doctored in my kitchen on a card table that is in the way of everything. They sleep next to the fire, in the big dog carrier in the middle of the living room floor. They are a curiosity to my two indoor cats, who have both been very respectful and tolerant of their chicken guests. Jessie, my sweetheart tabby, is very curious and gentle. I placed the vase of miner's lettuce on the floor for Barbara to eat (she didn't want any) and my Jessie came running right over to explore the greens and have a quick taste. Miner's lettuce grows here as a tender weed in the early Spring. It is edible and full of vitamin C. Not bad in salads, although I usually just pick it to feed to the chickens.

I have my hands full with challenges this week. My own health challenges (I was really sick on Saturday, better now) and my pets health challenges. Life is busy around here right now.

Please send Barbara any good healing energy and prayers that you may have to spare for her. She is a good little hen. I want her to live a long and healthy life.


Jessie and Barbara with fresh miner's lettuce

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Chicken Field Trip

The Coop

Normally my chickens (3 old hens) live in their chicken wire enclosed yard and plywood hen house under the shade & protection of their big Live Oak tree. They are not allowed to run free on my property because of the danger of too many predators.

They roost at night on their oak branch perches and in their 12 x 12 nest boxes

Hens Roost

The blondes are my Buff Orpingtons, Lucy & Barbara. The black and white hen is a Silver Lace Wyondotte named Red. (named thusly because she had a red head when she was a tiny chick)

Yesterday, I had some weeding and tilling to do in my garden to get it ready for Spring vegetable planting. So I decided that “the girls” and I would go on a little “chicken field trip” to the garden. I corralled all 3 of them into a large pet carrier and carried them over to the big raised bed garden. At first they wouldn’t come out of the carrier, so I picked each one up and gently put them out onto the garden soil. They looked at me like I was crazy. Soon they got the right idea and started to scratch and peck at the green grass and weeds...

We worked alongside each other. I dug and pulled weeds and tilled the soil. They watched me and nibbled on the green stuff and pretended to do their “chicken tractor” thing. By “pretended” I mean that my old girls have gotten lazy in their advanced age. They are 7 and 8 years old, after all. That’s pretty darn old for chickens. They didn’t do very much tilling of the garden soil...

I was the only one out there doing any real work, but they had fun and kept me company. The green grass added good nutrients to their diet. They were happy and comforted to get back to their hen house at the end of the day. Such was our chicken field trip yesterday. There is always something going on around here.

Here is a metal “garden art” hen and her chicks who live in my front flower bed that I include here for Farmgirl DK’s metal rooster “Mike”.

Hen & Chicks Garden Art

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket