Tillie at 16 Weeks

I’ve not had time to sit down and write. Our new labradoodle has kept me running. We have become “guardians” of a pretty little female Australian labradoodle named “Country Matilda Lil Miss Q” or “Tillie”. She’ll grow to be about 35 pounds. She’s already a great garden companion; content to be by my side wherever I go.

Someone told me not to get a “bird dog” like a Labrador retriever or pointer as they were “just too interested in chickens for their own good”. We looked into terriers but they are “diggers” I wasn’t sure our large garden would be compatible with a Norwich, Jack Russell, or Wheaten. Then I heard about an Australian labradoodle. The medium size multigen grows to 30-40 lbs and are calm (bred to be therapy and service dogs) and non-shedding. Yes, they come from bird dog descent so we’ll just have to see how that plays out.

Tillie is Curious; Hens are Cautious

Tillie is curious, suspicious, and more than a little interested in those “squawking” hens. When I hold our tamest girls, Tillie nuzzles them trying to determine if there is something edible under the fluffy feathers. When I let her into the run she follows them around using her senses to figure out what these strange creatures are. Gentle Daisy follows Tillie, carefully removing bits of straw from her coat.

Daisy Gently Picks Straw from Tillie's Coat

I’m not so unrealistic as to think I can trust this little birddog with my hens, but I hope that Tillie’s curiousity will blossom into some kind of tolerance for these beautiful birds.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Several of you have written me concerned about Daisy the hen who had an egg break inside of her. Click here. I have been hesitant to give you an update until I could really see some progress. It is hard to know whether she truly has something wrong inside her where the egg is formed, or whether her problem is dietary.

Vitamins and Electrolytes for Farm Animals

I got some really good advice on how to treat her. It is difficult to treat a chicken that has a chronic problem with forming eggs. If it were possible, I’d have an hysterectomhy done on Daisy and just have her as a pet. Forget the eggs. But alas, I don’t want to put her through that, and to be honest, I don’t think it can be done.

Treating a dietary problem is the best option. Electrolytes were recommended. They are relatively inexpensive and are made for poultry and farm animals. The packaged powder contains electrolytes and vitamins. When we put Daisy back in the run with the other hens we treated the water with electrolytes. That means all the hens drank the solution and all of them showed a change in their energy level. It was like I had put the camera on high speed. They dashed from place to place and when Don and I sat in the run, they hopped on and off our laps, never really settling down. They looked, like I feel, when I’ve drunk too many cappuccinos. After a week we discontinues the electrolytes.

Ultra Egg Omega Supplement-Looks Like Daisy on the Cover

We were advised to continue making oyster shell available to the hens and to dry their eggshells when we cook with eggs, pulverize them, and add the powdered shells to their feed. I also bought a powdered supplement call “Omega Ultra Egg”. A quarter of a cup is to be sprinkled into their food each day. Tulip, the Ameraucana, loved it. The first day it was added, she scooped it up in her beak and gulped it down, leaving nothing for the other hens. She promptly suffered diarrhea from the rich supplement.

Daisy's Deformed Egg Alongside Tulip's Normal Green Egg

Daisy has layed one egg every three days for the past two weeks. The first three broke as she pushed them out. Then she began laying eggs that were intact but had deformed shells. Each egg that she has layed in the past week has appeared more and more normal. Does this mean that she is cured? I am hesitant to be too optimistic. She is acting normal, however, and that is good news. She once again scratches in the dirt, dust bathes, enjoys sitting in the sun, and sits on my lap in the evening. We hope that she will continue to strengthen and be with us for many years!

.

Daisy is Soaking in the Laundry Tub

Daisy had an egg break inside her and it has made her sick. It is hard to know what exactly caused this. Something has gone wrong with her “egg-making machine”. She was always a good layer. She was the first of our flock to begin laying eggs at 5 months.

What’s Wrong With this Hen?

Last week I found her with her head drooping down facing the corner. She didn’t eat or drink but was able to join the others on the roost inside in the evening. This went on for another day. On the second day we turned her upside down. A piece of what looked liked plastic was sticking out of her vent. I pulled on it gently but it caused her discomfort. I took a picture of it (yes, folks, I did) and posted a question on the Backyard Chicken Forum, “First Emergency: What is this sticking out of my hen, and what do I do about it?” You can see the post with all the graphic pictures by going the Backyard Chickens forum and search the topic. You’ll see that it is a common problem and causes much illness and death in hens.

Backyard Chickens is a website with nearly 50,000 members (including me).

Members can post questions and answers. Everything I’ve learned about chickens, I learned on this site. Kind of like, “Chicken lovers helping chicken lovers”. They were quick to advise me and give me support.

Turned out that daisy had an unformed egg break inside her. What I saw was the membrane inside a broken egg that had dried and gotten stuck. We would need to soften the membrane and get it out. Daisy tolerated mineral oil being put in her vent (where the egg comes out). I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how we did that. She tolerated soaking in a laundry tub full of warm water. She tolerated have the membrane pulled from her body. She tolerated being dried with a hair dryer. And, finally, she rather enjoyed sitting in a cage in the laundry room, under a heat lamp, warming herself.

As the sun began to set, Daisy wanted to rejoin her flock. We put her in with her sisters and she went off to roost. Hopefully, she will recover. I’m hesitant to be too hopeful. When things go wrong with the “egg-maker” it is often a chronic condition. We’re keeping a close eye on her. Daisy is a sweet, sweet, hen. I would hate to lose her.

Brooke and Don at San Simeon Beach

We had visitors over the Fourth of July weekend. On our agenda was playing in the sand and water at San Simeon Beach, peeking over the bluffs at the elephant seals along Hwy. 1, watching the Cayucos parade, and of course, exclaiming over fireworks ignited over the ocean at the beachside Shamel Park in Cambria. We had what felt like a private viewing from our deck. Snuggling under blankets, our granddaughter never made it to the fireworks finale before her eyes closed and she fell sound asleep.

Parading in Cayucos

We were away from home much of the time over the holiday, but when we did come home, visiting the hens and gathering eggs was the thing granddaughter Brooke wanted to do the most.

The hens are used to children and, like dogs, follow them around hoping they will drop a crumb or two on the ground. The hens have never pecked a human but I remember as a child being chased by a hen or rooster. The more we ran from them, the more aggressive they became. My poor mother used to have to take a broom with her to hang out the laundry. She’d swing that old broom and the hens would take off running.

I’m glad our hens are tame. I made an agreement with them early on that they would have to be pets as well as egg layers or they’d end up in a soup pot. So far, so good.

.

.

.

.