Help from the chicken board

Well, I posted this on my backyard chicken board...

Unfortunately there's not much good news in the saga of my sick chick. I've been giving her vitamins for about 4 days and there has been no improvement; in fact, she seems worse and is having the seizures more often. Yesterday I started giving her tetracycline (in her water) as well to see if that helps. I've decided that if I see no improvement by Sunday I will be sending her to the Great Henhouse in the Sky. My neighbor, who is a vet, said he could do it humanely for me for free... It has become somewhat of a burden, especially with the visiting parents, toddler, etc. etc. Lately she has taken to knocking over her water in the middle of the night so every morning I have to clean her cage before I go to work. (If some kinder soul would like to adopt her and see what they could do, I'd be grateful... but I really think it's pretty hopeless at this point).

In the event that I do send her on to a higher plane, I will be looking for an older chick or young hen to replace her - preferably a buff Orpington or a barred rock. Anyone have an older chick available? Thanks for everyone's support and advice during this ordeal!

...And I got a reply right away from someone who is actually going to trade me a healthy, four-week old barred rock for my sick, four-week old barred rock. She's willing to take on the hard cases, and she has chicks to spare. Yay! Gotta love the internet.

A sick chick

I have a sick chicken. She keeps tucking her head up under her body and running around backward, which is a pretty pathetic thing to see. Apparently she may be suffering from wry neck, which is a vitamin deficiency; it means I have to feed her children's vitamins with an eyedropper twice a day. I just started this routine today, so I'm hoping there will be some improvement. (I got this information from the Portland Backyard Chickens board, of which I am a member). I called a vet to see if they could help me out over the phone, but of course they said there could be many causes of this problem and I should bring her in for a $45 exam. This brings me to the ethical/moral dilemma of how much I want to spend on a $1.89 chicken. I mean, she IS a pet, but she's also... a chicken, and a very young one who I haven't really bonded with yet. While I was pondering this with my coworkers today I realized that I was standing there eating chicken biryani without a second thought. Are some chickens worth more than others? How would a farmer deal with this situation? (It probably depends on the type of farmer, but I suspect most of them would cull out a sick chicken in their flock). Since my flock is only three chickens, does this mean I'm more responsible for each one? Who knows. Cluck, cluck, cluck.

...And so it begins

So last night Melina threw a bowl of rice on the kitchen floor and the bowl broke. I said no, not a good thing to do. (I've been wondering how to get the message across lately when she does something "wrong." I don't want to be too forceful or too lax. She's a little young for things like time-outs, and I don't know if I believe they're the best thing anyway. It's hard.) I said I was very sad about the broken bowl, and looked despondent, at which point she started crying alligator tears.

Later, Jeff comes home and Melina tells him, "bowl broken." I said, "Yes, someone broke a bowl." I was curious how she would respond if I asked her who broke it. "Did mommy break the bowl? Did Mina break the bowl? Did daddy break the bowl? Did kitty break the bowl?"

Melina looked very uncomfortable and squirmed around a bit. Finally she said "Nora broke bowl!"

Nora, our old nanny's daughter who hasn't been around in weeks. I just burst out laughing. I can see I'm going to have my hands full!

General update

I've been sick for the last three days with the same virus that gave Melina the croup and Jeff bronchitis... ugh. But I'm feeling better today and went to work, though a little late. Jeff is well and Melina is on the mend, so at least I know there's an end in sight. The chickens are over at our house now (all five of them, including Sue's two). They are living in two boxes in our laundry room, where they peep and peck around most of the day. I let one stand on Melina's hand this morning and she did a great job of remaining gentle and calm. I think it will be a lot of fun for her when they grow up. Meanwhile, they are incredibly messy, never failing to turn over their feed cup within one minute of me filling it up. I clean their boxes once a day but probably should do it twice. I'm looking forward to when they have all their feathers and are ready to face the world! Which reminds me, I need to paint the henhouse...

Croup!

For the last 48 hours Melina has had croup, which is characterized by a seal-like barking sound when she coughs. I think she has a pretty mild case (she hasn't been coughing much) but that didn't prevent her (and I) from having an almost completely sleepless night on Tuesday. Yesterday she wouldn't nap at all (too restless) so I ended up driving her around southwest Washington for two hours. She slept the whole time. I have to say I was appalled by Vancouver's land use practices, which seem to be: more than one acre of farmland? Build a housing development! Or a Borders (out in the middle of nowhere) or a Starbucks or a hobby farm. It was really depressing.

Today I'm at work for three hours. At this point it's easier being here than being at home. Melina was asleep when I left her with Analia; I expect she will spend most of the day in bed, catching up. Meanwhile, I feel myself developing a cough. I look forward to the day when NONE of us are sick.

Another fatality

We've had another fatality among the baby chicks. This time it was the new buff Orpington that I bought with Brenda, Maisy II. It's strange that it was the same breed as the other chick that died. Sue, who has been hosting the chicks for the past three weeks, thinks it's her fault that the chicks are dying, but since neither was pasted up and we've been changing the water and litter every day (or more) I think it was just a random Act of God. The other chicks are all doing fine. This week I will move them over to our house and keep them for the last few weeks before they can go outside. That should be an adventure. I'm not sure where to put them, exactly.

Not pooping

Melina is pretty funny about diapers. Usually when I ask her if she needs to be changed she says "no" in a sort of indignant, annoyed way. Lately she's started saying "no poopy" whenever she poops. Like, "hey, mom, I'm NOT pooping now, just wanted to let you know."

New additions

Yesterday my friend Brenda and I headed out to Gresham to pick up a replacement for Maisy and an "extra" chick in case another one dies or one turns out to be a rooster. I got another buff Orpington (like Maisy) and a silver-laced Wyandotte. They were both extremely cute chicks, but I wasn't organized enough to take photos this time. It's going to be hard to decide which chicken to get rid of (the city only allows you to have three, and now we have seven for the both of us). I guess we'll pick the unfriendliest or least productive (or the rooster). Luckily there is high demand for grown chickens, so it shouldn't be a problem to find her a home.

Speaking of homes, my mail-order coop from Coops4You arrived a few days ago. I had it sent to work so someone would be around to sign for it. It's REALLY heavy. I haven't brought it home yet - I'm waiting for more people to be around next week (they're all at a meeting now) so they can help me move it to my car.

Sad news

Our chick Maisy died of unknown causes the day before yesterday. She seemed kind of listless when I went to visit her that day, and later in the day Sue called me with the news. We don't know what happened. Sue buried her in the backyard next to her cat Dave. On a more cheerful note, I bought two new chickens earlier that day - a barred Plymouth rock and a golden-laced Wyandotte. I haven't named them yet. I will be getting a third chicken next week - Maisy II.