The puppies & momma dog all went to homes three days before Christmas. Yeah! I had some help from a school friend. Ronda stood out in the cold with me and worked magic in helping them find homes.
Christmas was quiet compared to last year and bitter sweet. We were supposed to spend two weeks in England with Paul's family but his company wouldn't let him have off without forcing him to quit and rehire. He hasn't spent a Christmas with his family in 7 years. The good news was that he actually made it home for Christmas Eve. They were going to try to just have him home for about 12 hours Christmas Day but he put his foot down.
The winter routine is settling in and I'm having my typical winter bla's. When it is dark out my body says it is time for sleep. So it isn't too weird to find me having a cat nap at . Only problem with that is that I wake up at and don't always get back to sleep on time. What I really need is exercise!
Life with the chickens is funny as usual. Every time I think I've "done it all" I am proven wrong. Last week I had a poorly hen. At first I thought she might be egg bound because she stopped laying and was generally acting sick. She even stopped eating & drinking. I thought for sure she was a goner! I brought her inside and started reading what to do if she was egg bound.
Then it was suggested that I don a glove, lube up and "examine" her to see if I could feel an egg trapped. Well what type of lube should I use? Plain or warming?
She didn't complain when I preformed the examination bless her heart! It turns out that I couldn't feel anything so I guess she wasn't egg bound. I decided to force feed her some olive oil and then managed to get some water down her.
The next day she seemed to perk up a bit so I thought I would reintroduce her back to the flock. That did NOT go over well. The instant she was outside Jonesey jumped her and the other hens attacked her. Chickens are the bullies of the barnyard. They are just plain mean when they sense something is off. Or... maybe they were jealous over her days at the Keeley Hen Spa??
Fergus shared a kennel with her for a couple of evenings and he had no problem with her at all. Lastnight I had her stay out all night in the big pen with her siblings. It seemed to go ok though she clearly doesn't want to hang out with them anymore.
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