Book crap.

Chicken Backsliding

(Broadcast 5/17/2013)

When we first started letting the chickens out in the yard, it was sometimes…

10 May 13

Chicken Disappointments

(Broadcast 5/10/2013)

I know I like to come on here each week and act like having chickens is…

3 May 13

Boss Chicken’s New Digs

(Broadcast 5/3/2013)

When I left off last week, we were going to try to get Boss Chicken back in…

26 April 13

Reintroducing Boss Chicken

(Broadcast 4/26/2013)

Reintroducing a chicken to the flock is a tricky business. You have to ease…

15 March 13

My First Broody Hen!

Spice must flow, eggs must hatch.

8 March 13

The Things We (Or I, Anyway) Do For Chickens

25 January 13

Made the front page of my town paper!

Posted: 4:01 PM

All Things In Time … But Where Are My Eggs?

(From the Friday, January 25th broadcast of Garden Guys Green Revolution Radio)

My mom used to…

18 January 13

Too Many Chickens!, January 18, 2013

I have a tendency to not call things by their proper names. Or at least things that have proper…

shared via WordPress.com

Posted: 9:18 AM

Sick chicken!

This morning when I was putting out the chickens’ food, I noticed an egg in the far reaches of the undercoop. I took the stick I use to hang the food, and tried rolling the egg towards me, but it went sideways … right into Henny Penny.

Huh?

She apparently had spent all night out in the cold. On the plus side, in spite of weather in the teens, her comb seemed fine. On the other hand, what the hell, chicken? I was worried something awful was wrong with her, and when I tried to grab her, she made an attempt to get away, but one of her feet was balled up, and she couldn’t walk on it. I brought her inside and put her in a box with some shavings, food, and water. She ate like normal, which made me feel a little bit better. That seemed good. I remember hearing of something called “bumblefoot,” so I looked that up. It’s an infection of the foot caused by little cuts from being in dirt all the time. Chickens get it a lot. All I had to do was rub hemorrhoid cream on it, and presto! Of course, we did not have that, and I was not looking forward to buying it. “Oh, this? It’s actually for a chicken.” Instead, I rubbed bag balm on her feet, which should help, if that’s what this is. I posted on backyardchickens.com about this, and someone suggested it might be a sprained ankle, since bumblefoot often has tell-tale black scabs which she did not have.

I was looking up more on the train ride in, and found a site that showed you how to do DIY bumblefoot surgery. It warned it was graphic, so I didn’t look. I suppose being the graphic chicken foot surgery on the phone on the train guy is better than being the porn on the phone on the train guy, but I don’t want to be either of those guys.

I’ll see what happens when I get home. Like I said, overall she seems fine, but I need to figure out what’s up with the foot before anything else.

Hold tight chicken!