Best Buds

Statler

Waldorf

 

Simple Life Lessons. Taught by a Chicken.

When I was looking up chicken illness information, trying to diagnose our Sweetums, I came across a line in a blog (I would link it but I can't find it now!) that really struck a chord. "No one said the simple life was easy."

That line has popped into my head repeatedly these past few weeks as we've debated our course of action with our sick hen, finally concluding last night that euthanizing her was the humane thing to do.

Sweetums was my favorite little hen of the bunch and she taught me so much about chickens, chicken keeping, and life in general.

She had a wound on her leg that was being pecked at by the other hens (shame on you sister hens!). J and I became masters at chicken catching, cleaning, applying Bluekote to a chicken leg, cleaning Bluekote off of hands and clothes. We separated Sweetums from the rest of the hens while she healed and watched her quickly adapt back into the flock when she was better.

She taught me that chickens can out smart a fox. We had them out free ranging one afternoon last summer and somehow she became separated from the rest of the flock (she had a tendency to wander off to find the best piles of leaves with the biggest worms hiding underneath). We searched through the woods for her for 30 minutes or so when J saw her being chased by a fox. She disappeared again and we thought the worst. A few hours later, she was pacing at the run door trying to get back in to her sisters. I'll never underestimate a chicken again!

She was the first chicken I've ever given a bubble bath - and she loved it!

And she proved that when you are sick - a day in the sunshine with your family will perk you right up.


Probably the biggest thing that Sweetums has taught me is that chickens are wonderful little animals that deserve more than the life most hens have. I know that J and I have given all our chickens the best life we can. They aren't caged. They get treats and (supervised) free ranging time. When they are sick - I won't hesitate to bathe them, nurse them, and (literally) spoon feed them warm oatmeal. But when you have to put down a little bird that you care about, it's hard not to second guess what you could have done better.

The changes J and I have made to try to live a "simple" life has been one of the hardest things we have done. It takes a huge amount of time, it's hard work, it requires working in the extreme hot and the extreme cold, a lot of extra planning to go away for a weekend, it's not cheap, and it can be emotionally draining. I know that going forward we will be faced with more hard decisions. Our birds will get sick, they will die or disappear, or we will (again) have to make a hard decision. I hope that we continue to feel that it's worth it.

I know that it's worth it when we enjoy our eggs. It's worth it when I can sit outside on a beautiful evening and watch our hens dig for worms in the woods, or watch them run full-speed to be the first in line for a tasty treat. It's worth it when we eat a dinner made from our summer harvest, or when we pop open a jar of sauces, jelly, or salsa in the middle of winter.

The simple life isn't easy, but it sure is rewarding. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

RIP Sweetums

Last night, we had to make the hard decision to put our wonderful Sweetums to sleep.



Sweetums was one of the four older hens we have. We were given these girls when they were about 4 months old from J's cousin, who owns a farm nearby, and was looking to reduce her flock size. They are all now 4 years old. They lay intermittently - we get an egg (maybe two) a day between the four of them.

All four girls were wonderful little mutt chickens - we think Sweetums was a mix of an Easter Egger and a Partridge Rock. She had cute fluff face (hence the name Sweetums for the monster Muppet), was the smallest of the four, and had the coloring of a Partridge Rock.

We knew something was wrong with our lovely little Sweetums about a month ago. She wasn't pooping right, was shivering (it was during one of the last really cold-snowy spells we had this winter), pale comb, and we hadn't seen her eat for a while. We brought her inside, bathed her to get the poop off, (hand fed) her oatmeal, and treated her with epsom salt and cider vinegar (at different times - for different symptoms).



Our diagnosis at the time was that she might be internal laying. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what exactly a hen is sick with. All external symptoms (lethargy, diarrhea, not eating, etc.) apply across the board to almost all chicken illnesses.

We were going to put her down at that time, because she still wasn't eating well and wasn't her normal perky self. We had a break in the weather, though, and decided to give her one last day with her sisters outside. She instantly perked up, started scratching around for bugs and worms, and started eating and drinking again - not with her normal appetite, but enough to give us some hope. We decided that as long as she was eating, we would let her be outside with her girls.

In the back of my mind I knew that we were just buying time. Sweetums was never 100%, eating - but not well, and not quite as active or talkative as she usually was.

Last night I got home from work and decided to let all the girls out to free-range for an hour or so before it got dark. Sweetums was laying on her side in the run. I picked her up and she felt like skin and bones. We put her in the grass and she walked and tried to eat a little, but you could tell she wasn't right. Her wings were droopy, and she was all puffed up. She didn't have the strength to walk up the ramp at dusk and we knew it was time.

We decided to euthanize her. Neither J nor I have ever had to cull a chicken and we were both worried that our lack of experience would do more harm than good for our dear little Sweetums.

It is heartbreaking to lose something that you have cared for, who has given you joy and smiles (and eggs!). Every decision we made was what we thought would be in her best interest, but you can't help to second guess yourself. I hope that we made Sweetums more comfortable and happy in her final days with us.

We'll miss you...

Summer Pics

Catching Up on 2013 Posts

Statler and Waldorf all grown up!

Overall Garden

Grape Arbor

Tomatoes

Tomatoes roasting for delicious Roasted Roma and Garlic.

A day's worth of hard work

Tomato Puree.

Canned tomatoes and peach salsa.

Delicious Salsa Verde - We are almost all the way through it already (even though I made a double recipe), I guess we'll have to triple the recipe next year!

Apples, Onions, and Cinnamon for the Onion Marmalade.

Chick Days Are Here!

I'm so excited for Spring!

We have decided we need to expand the flock. Sweetums, Shelly, Rizzo, and Dr. Teeth have been keeping us in eggs for two years now, but they are definitely starting to slow down. That's actually OK. When they were just starting to lay - we were overwhelmed with eggs!!

So, we are going to slowly expand the flock. I'm going to the feed store today to place an order for 2 chicks. We are going to get an Araucana (Easter Egger)



and a Barred Rock


We are debating the names. They will either be Statler and Waldorf or Camilla and Gonzo (both pairs keeping in our Muppets theme)

I can't wait to pick up the peeps in a few weeks!!!

Homebrewing happenings

Brewed my first high gravity beer back in August, a partial-mash Russian Imperial Stout, so that it will be ready by Christmas time.  That style is big and bold, and good for winter drinking.  It will be about 10% abv.   I brewed a 3 gallon batch that was left in primary fermentation for a month.   I used the yeast cake from a previous amber ale to ferment the beer, since high gravity beer needs lots of yeast to be able to ferment, as yeast can struggle with such a sugar-rich wort. 

 I then racked it into a smaller 3 gallon carboy for secondary fermentation.  It was in secondary for 2 months, and bottled in the middle of November.  I added some additional yeast when bottling, in case the original yeast was too tired to keep going to carbonate the bottles.  Hopefully it's carbonated and ready to go in a month.

 The hop harvest of the Cascade and Nugget hops turned out decent for the 1st year, which isn't supposed to be real great.

 You can see the lupulin powder inside the hop cones, which is what gives off the hop aroma and oils that flavor and acts as a preservative in beer.

 I had enough hops to use as the flavor/aroma addition in a batch.  So I decided to brew a Black IPA, which is basically a hoppy Indian Pale Ale, but has a little dark malt, so the beer ends up black.  But it doesn't have the strong roasted coffee and chocolate flavors that porters and stouts have.

I also dry hopped the beer with the homegrown hops, as the hops were ready for harvest in two batches.  Hop cones are ready to pick when they are crunchy and papery feeling.  Dry hopping refers to adding the hops directly into the secondary fermentation carboy, which adds a huge hop aroma to the beer. 

 

I have been feeding my spent grains to the chickens, which they seem to love. 

Chickens = Mini-pigs

So I noted in the last garden post about how our Romaine lettuce bloomed while we were away on vacation, and therefore is now inedible (extremely bitter).  Inedible only for us humans though, as the chickens loved it!  The next morning, not a scrap of green leaf was left.  Most of our food that goes south, especially produce, usually goes to the chickens.  They are basically miniature pigs, they'll eat most food scraps.  Last year before we put bird netting on our tomatoes, we had a lot of tomatoes that were missing big chunks from the birds.  They went crazy over those.   Unfortunately for the chickens, this year we are going to have bird netting from the start, hence the PVC frame "house" over the tomato bed.

Rizzo and Sweetums dig in.

Happy Animals

The dog and chickens love the beautiful weather we've been having. 

Chickens enjoying the weather

With the weather fairly nice today, no snow or rain, they got to enjoy some time outside of their run.  They love scratching up the leaves to hunt for worms and bugs.

 Shelly and Dr. Teeth in the foreground, Sweetums and Rizzo in the back