Overall, things are going well with our chickens. The eggs have been plentiful and yummy and on a day-to-day basis, they only require anywhere between 10-15 minutes of effort and their antics keep us laughing.
Occasionally, there’s a little more effort required. Such as cleaning out the coop every six months or so and other maintenance projects. Then there are those activities that fall under the category of “things, I never dreamed I’d do”.
The birds had red bums for a while and we just couldn’t figure out why. Becky another one of the chicken mom’s had the opportunity to pick the brain of an expert. She suggested patting them with tape. If there were flecks on the tape that looked like salt and pepper, the birds had lice & mites. Since the flecks were small, I let Becky handle the taping. Sure enough, the tape had salt & pepper. Oh joy. The same expert suggested dust baths in diatomaceous earth (a.k.a. DE). DE is a substance similar in consistency to powdered sugar, but much more bitter tasting. Go ahead, ask me how I know.
The Expert said she left DE out for her birds in a kiddie pool and her birds voluntarily hopped in and took dust baths in it. We filled a cheap kiddie pool with about an inch of DE and left it for the ladies to enjoy at their leisure. Yeah, um no. Our birds had ZERO interest in this fine dusty substance in the pale pink plastic thing. They avoided the pool like it was toxic waste. Ok then, onto plan B, mandatory dust baths for everyone.
We collected the birds in the pen and I captured them one at time Becky stood by the pool of doom and scooped up handfuls of DE. I held tight to a squirming squawking fowl while she covered them. Then I let go and we ran like hell to avoid being totally covered in DE. Yeah, that worked, sometimes. I dressed for the occasion including old clothes, a scarf to cover my mouth, a hat and protective eyewear. Didn’t matter, I still had DE in every crack and crevasse. Let’s just say blowing my nose was interesting for the next few days and we’re running low on Q-Tips.
These are the times that I am SO glad we are raising these birds as part of a cooperative, because dusting birds is only funny when you are doing it with someone else. If it was just A-man & I, there would have been less laughter and more “what the hell were we thinking!?”. Not that Becky & I didn’t shriek that a lot, but it was definitely more along the vein of I Love Lucy adventure.
A week or so later, we involved our third Mother Hen, Jen and subjected the birds to yet ANOTHER dust bath. Oh the indignity I tell ya! This time they were wise to us, so they were a tad harder to catch. One in particular got her feathers REALLY ruffled and got away from me before my cohorts could get even a speck of DE on her. She also REFUSED to come back in that night when it was time to round up the flock. I think it took 3 separate trips to the coop to finally corral her. Her antics have continued on and off ever since. It’s been almost 3 weeks at this point.
At first we were in a bit of a tizzy because the dogs can’t go out until the birds go in. So we’d make multiple trips over to the coop and enlist the assistance of anyone available. Finally, I just threw up my hands and said forget this sistah! You wanna stay out, stay out.
The funny part is that she paces around the outside of the run, but when you go to guide her in, not even pick her up, just guide her towards the door so you can let her in with out releasing the others, she freaks out. We’ve taken to referring to her as DB for Dumb Bird. I’ve also taken to letting the dogs out if the majority of the birds are in. We had a close call last week, but Fish was nearby and called Dory off. STILL the bird refused to be caught.
Later that night A-man went over to look for her.
He found her. On TOP of the run.
She let him catch her and put her in. Yay!! She learned her lesson!
Meh, not so much, no, she’s been “out” two of the last three nights.
Dumb bird! I fully expect we’ll be down to 18 birds within the next few weeks. This sounds cold, and I assure you we continue to try and do what we can to coax this bird in as often as possible, but at the same time, she has to do her part.
It’s a good thing the eggs are so yummy 🙂
Live Fearless Lee 