Bye Bye Birdies

 As part of our preparations for relocating to England, we had to find a new home for our hens. It's bittersweet, we will miss them so, but luckily a chicken-savvy friend offered to take them and integrate them into her own small flock and give them a forever-home. It definitely helps knowing that they're in good hands and will have good lives without us.

Ada really stepped up and became a good alpha hen after we lost Rosie and then Ruth to predation. She always looked out for Marie.

It was nice seeing them pal around the yard together after each had lost her best flockmate. Marie had been close with Rosie, and Ada with Ruth.

We spent their last day here hanging out with them in the sunshine.

June enjoyed watching the silly chickens scratching and pecking around in the grass.

We had most of the day with them, but then it was time for last goodbyes.

It might seem overly sentimental to some, being so attached to chickens, but they were our pets and we love them. Next week we'll be saying goodbye to our rabbit, Butters. This new adventure we're about to begin is exciting, but there is a lot we have to sacrifice to get there.

525,600 Minutes

A lot has changed in the past year. On October 15th, 2012, our four hens hatched! Happy Birthday, girls!

We continue to miss Rosie, and Sally and Hennie, the other two RIRs who were taken from us by the same predator after having them for only a few weeks. I never even got the chance to introduce them on the blog.

October 15th was also the day we conceived Juniper, though we didn't know it. Last year on November 2nd, I performed in a Halloween Show with my burlesque troop, unaware that I was already pregnant!

 There's an Iron Baby in there!

This show was exhausting to prepare for, now I know why!

We found out we were expecting two days later, but didn't announce it until Thanksgiving.

In the months that followed we prepped the nursery...

Made jokes about shotgun weddings...

I had fun dressing my growing belly.

And grow it did!

We spent our last few months as a childless couple enjoying our friends.

Mr. Bear stood up as the Best Man at the wedding of the friends who introduced us, while I played the processional.

In my toast, I thanked them for helping me create my family, and for being a part of it.

Then we celebrated with a Burlesque Show!

Because that's how we roll.

For our anniversary, we took one last weekend to really indulge ourselves and relax.

Ponyo got a bath in preparation for meeting the baby.

And on July 4th, we enjoyed the summer sun with friends.

Juniper must have been excited by the boat ride and fireworks, because I went in to labor in the wee hours of the morning, and she made her debut on July 5th!

So here we are, one year on, prepping for another show, but with our lives completely and wonderfully changed forever.
Good family, good friends, a good life.

Little Red Hen

I don't really know how best to begin this post, so I'll jump right into it.

Last week, something(probably a raccoon) killed our Rosie.

We've been setting an animal trap every night since, and have yet to catch anything. Our other three girls are okay, with Ruth being the worst off, having lost quite a few feathers. Ruth has been laying since the attack, though. Marie has laid a couple times, too, while Ada hasn't.

We're pretty devastated. Mr. Bear found Rosie, and had a hard time telling me. I don't know the specifics, as he was keen to spare me the details, and he took care of the aftermath, even though I think that was really hard for him to deal with.

My little flock of three looks so strange.

Neither of us can bring ourselves to finish off Rosie's eggs now that she's gone, but some lovely friends of mine have offered to decorate them with pysanky(the Ukrainian egg-dyeing) and make them into keepsakes, which I think is a lovely idea.

I wrote about Rosie's visit to the vet here, and her subsequent recovery and reintroduction to the flock following her prolapse here.

I know that part of having chickens(or any small livestock, really) is losing them, to disease or predation or accidents, but losing our first girl from our first flock we raised from chicks has been hard on us. We miss her a lot, and we feel guilty for not doing a better job of protecting her.

In the end I have to keep reminding myself that she had a better life with us than most chickens in the world get to experience. 

She was a good hen who gave us good eggs and had a good life and one bad day.

Field Report

Chicken Prolapse Success Story

 Rosie is officially reintegrated into the flock. We removed her prolapse sutures Saturday night and kept her inside for observation until Sunday. Her vent is looking very good, and the prolapse has not recurred, much to my relief. She hasn't started laying again, but I'm not worried.

Although she has lost her status as the alpha hen, she is still trying to assert her dominance against Ruth. Ruth is proving to be an excellent leader, protecting the other hens from Rosie and putting Rosie in her place without injuring her.

Ponyo is becoming quite hen-pecked by the girls. She'll come outside with us when we go check on the chickens, but she stays very close since the hens will chase her around the yard and peck at her. I feel bad for her, but she did mercilessly harass them the entire time they were growing up in their brooder. I'm hoping she'll be able to assert herself enough to reach something of a truce with the chickens. Otherwise we'll probably fence off the back half of the yard for the chickens, so Ponyo has some space to herself.

Marie has been laying somewhat steadily for us. Her egg size fluctuates, but her body seems to be dialing it in. Soon I'll have pictures of a lovely bowl full of blue eggs to share with you.

She is by far our most sociable chicken. Anytime we come outside, she immediately runs up to us and follows us around the entire time we're there. Today, I perched on the edge of the raised beds and she hopped right up. Ponyo helpfully inspected her vent to make sure she's not having any prolapse issues.

 "Nope, this one's butt is fine."

 She did figure out she can hop in to the raised bed, and began scratching around for bugs and scraps. I think it's the first time she's done that, she seemed quite surprised. Mr. Bear will be building a greenhouse around the beds, so I'm not so worried about them figuring out how to hop up there.

 At four months, Ada has become quite a flashy hen. I love her feathers! She seems to have given up her quest to be the alpha hen, and is content to run around the yard and stalk Ponyo when she's out. Neither she nor Ruth have shown any signs of laying yet. Mr. Bear and I regularly check the yard for wayward eggs, though I hope since Marie took to laying in the nest box immediately that the others will, too.

 Oh, the fluffy chicken butts...

 Marie showed Ruth how to get into the raised bed.

 After researching vent prolapses like Rosie's, I had become very very fearful, since so many of the stories ended in tragedy. I am so very happy that things have worked out well for Rosie, I would have been so sad to have lost her after only having her for a few short months.

Things I have learned from Rosie's prolapse:

1. Have a chicken first-aid kit on hand. Ours is stocked with hemostats, small snipping scissors, Vetericyn, Preparation H, bandages, epsom salt, electrolytes and gloves.
2. Chickens are both more delicate and tougher than we think. We could have removed that troubling tissue on our own, but having never done something like that before, we were too wary to do so. Should something like that happen again, we now know that it's okay to attempt to remove the tissue ourselves. The Chicken Chick has a great post on how to treat a prolapse. I followed her advice, but since Rosie's prolapse looked so different, I opted to take her to a vet just in case.
3. Know where the nearest vet who will treat chickens is to you. I feel so much better knowing that we have a good vet who knows his chickens near enough that we can get the girls to him without too much hassle.
4. Enjoy your chickens everyday! They won't be with you forever.