Two posts in a month, what is this 2018?

Just popping it- have more to write but we’ll leave it to a chicken post for now.

As a recap- our previous chickens were boring brown chickens, and while they all had names the chickens themselves were so identical that you couldn’t tell them apart to actually use said names… and so we can’t even remember what all the names are at this point. (There was a Rusty, and I think a Cookie. Mine was called Credenza because they were as dumb as furniture)

They laid eggs well but they don’t last long, production chickens, so as we were coming to the end of their peak laying year from 1-2 and we also were facing one having thin shells and another started egg eating- so off to the feed store to be traded in they went. We, surprisingly, got $37 for them when I was expecting $15. And like… 3 doesn’t cleanly divide into $37, but I wasn’t arguing.

As I was tired of boring chickens (and forgot allll the lessons of what a pain in the ass bigger chickens with actual personalities can be) I decided I wanted pretty chickens and so bought 4 Speckled Orpingtons off of Craigslist- you know, the bastion of the up and up.

The breed look like this:

Grey chickens- yay!

So, I drove an hour away and had to catch my own pullets out of a big pen that had small chickens and adults and pheasants all mixed up together and now we have four 2 month old pullets.

They… have brought along challenges.

One- they came with colds- one of them got really sickly soon after we got them and I had to manually express her sinuses so she could breath-don’t ask… ah I’ll tell you anyway. Chicken sinuses are on the roof of their beaks and express through their fucking eyes and it’s the grossest thing ever.The chicken is fine but I may never recover.

To cure the cold, I have been giving them infant cold medicine with a decongestant in it. I was hesitant but it was the recommendation of someone who has had chickens way longer than I have and worked so well. But again… something about prying open a beak to squirt in medicine just feels weird. They are now, a week later, on the very tail end of all this.

And it wouldn’t be so bad but dosing medicine means you have to handle them and they smell AWFUL. Like… death. I gave them a wormer and deloused them when they got here. I have them on medicated feed for now. And I have some thyme in their water and am dosing with plenty of herbs and fresh fruit and veggies to get their gut bacteria balances as that HAS to be the issue. Also I’ve bathed them- which involved blow drying them as it was overcast and cool that day. Surprising fact for you- ALL chickens love being blown dry- it’s hilarious. It is getting better, but it isn’t all the way there yet. I feel like singing the Smelly Cat song from Friends to them on the daily.

And then they gave us the cold- which is just PARTICULARLY gross to be able to identify the exact disease vector that made you sick. IT ISN’T AVIAN FLU- I want to be very clear on that, that’s pretty identifiable and isn’t this. I should have named mine Vector though, now that I’m thinking on it. Oh well.

I was the only one to go down and pick out chickens, and I got an all black one, two light greyish white ones, and a half black, half white chicken (that was the one that got the sickest, fyi)

My oldest wanted a black chicken so that one is her’s- named Salem. My youngest wanted the biggest light colored one, so that one is her’s- named Sugar. And my middle one really wanted the black and white chicken, so that is her’s and her name is Peep.

I let them pick and took the leftover one (the smallest, light grey and white one) and I I named her Ricotta. I was going to reuse the name Credenza because I never much got to use the name, but she’s way to smart and is turning out to be the alpha chicken. Show em what for, Ricotta!

Peep, though she is my middle daughter’s chicken, seems to have imprinted on me from all the handling and bathing and blow drying and so runs up to me when I open their coop in the morning, and tries to follow me out of the run every day. She either loves me or is addicted to cold medicine- not sure which.

Gots to run- have to pick up my youngest from a birthday party and plant some snapdragons- more next time!