My life as a chicken pedicurist

Tonight we treated our chickens for scaly leg mites.  The general procedure is to dip their legs in oil to smother the mites, but I had the bright thought that a solid oil, like coconut, would be even better because it would form a thick layer on their legs that would last for a while.  And while we're at it, why not throw in a little essential oil to soothe the scales and irritate the mites?

This is how I came to be massaging lavender/tea tree scented coconut oil into the feet of 15 nervous chickens.

It went pretty well.  We came by night, when the chickens were all asleep and docile, and manflesh pulled them down one by one.  It was interesting, because they all started off anxious and pulled their feet away from my touch, but as soon as I started really massaging the oil into their scales they all stopped fighting and even seemed to enjoy it.  I really felt like I was giving them a bit of a luxury treatment, which, maybe I was.  The mites live under their scales and make everything kind of inflamed and icky, so a gentle oil massage probably felt pretty good.

We'll need to do it a few more times, so I'm interested to see if they remember that it's a good thing and are a little more receptive when we do it again.  We'll also be dusting the whole coop with diatomaceous earth to knock the buggers out in the bedding and on the perches.

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Earlier today, one of our cats was super interested in a cardboard box near the front door.  I thought he was just being a weird cat until Babby said, "What's that on the ground?"  I looked closer, and a sad, hard done by alligator lizard was desperately trying to limp away from the cat.  He was already missing his tail and sporting some other wounds, but his drive to keep running away gave me hope that he might make it.  We threw him into a terrarium we had sitting vacant, filled with soil and leaves from the woods.  He sat really still for a while, but has now disappeared, so maybe that's a good sign?  Ooooor he's slunk off to die.  I suppose we'll find out soon.

We do like our little native lizards, so I'm hoping he makes it and goes on to eat bugs out of our garden for many years.

Lost Chicken

We've been missing one of the Rhode Island reds since we got home from an overnight visit almost two weeks ago.  After quite a bit of searching, we'd more or less given her up as a lost cause, assuming she jumped the fence and fell victim to one of the many predators out in the woods.

Yesterday, though, manflesh noticed one of the little ornamental trees twitching.  On further investigation, he found a chicken inside, with her clutch of 17 eggs.  Someone else must have been helping her by laying there as well, because she hasn't been gone long enough to lay 17 eggs by herself.

We've moved the fence to include her little nesting area in the general chicken enclosure, and the extra traffic seems to have cured her of her broodiness... at least for the moment.

We might be getting some cows!

Okay, so they wouldn't be ours, they would just come visit us for a while.

A guy showed up at the door today because our neighbor across the creek suggested that we might be willing to let some of his cows come graze our unloved pasture.  Apparently he's got 16 cows ready to calve, and not enough acreage at his house, so he's a little desperate.  We'd love to get all that manure and have some grazers down there getting the land into shape, so it would be a win-win.

No promises yet, but he seems motivated and we're definitely open to it, so my hopes are high. I'd love to have some cattle down there without having to put in the work myself.  Rest assured, if this pans out, cow pictures are in your future.

There's a chicken in my bathroom

Manflesh came in from his nightly chicken rounds with a friend.  One of the Barred Rocks had been hiding in a nest box instead of roosting with the rest of the flock.  When he opened it up to check on her, she stayed put instead of flapping away in usual chicken fashion, which was not a good sign.

Earlier, one of the Barreds had been very insistent on breaking out of the portable fence where the flock was supposed to be foraging to return to the permanent hen house, to the point that she spent most of the day out in the pouring rain rather than hanging out in the shelter.  Manflesh thought this might be the same chicken, and maybe she was just chilled from getting so wet.  He cuddled her on his lap for a while and offered a little lukewarm water and feed.  She perked up a bit, maybe, but her breathing was really labored, with her whole body rocking with each breath.

Frantic Googling was inconclusive, so we agreed to let her spend the night in the warm and dry and re-evaluate in the morning.  I fitted out a cardboard box with some cozy towels and little dishes of water and feed, and our invalid chicken took up residence in the bath tub.

The next morning, she was still with us, but didn't seem much improved.  Our chickens aren't very tame, so the very fact that she stayed in her box and didn't flutter when we walked around her seemed like a pretty bad sign.  Still, she was awake and alert, so we thought we'd just give her as much peace and quiet as we could muster and hope for recovery.

This went on for a couple of days, until this morning I woke up to the distinct sound of pecking on and around the bathroom door.  She was out of the box!

Our glamorous master bath.

Breathing was still a little labored, but we agreed that if she felt well enough to be up and about, she would probably be more comfortable with the rest of the flock rather than isolated in the house, so manflesh took her out.

So far, so good, but only time will tell.  It's so hard to know what to do in these situations, when the animal can't tell you what she needs, and there's not a lot you can do anyway beyond providing some comfort and hoping for the best.

EGG!!

We bought our chickens back in October as 3-4 month old pullets, which meant they'd come of laying age in January or February.  We had been wondering if they would actually start laying in winter, with the short daylight, or if they would just wait until spring.

Today, Manflesh found the answer:

Isn't it beautiful?

There were actually two more, once he started looking, but they were a little flimsy and cracked on the way in.  We'll be supplementing the girls' calcium now that we know they're going to be making a lot of use of it.

Now I'm excited for our easter eggers to start laying so that we'll have a whole egg rainbow.

Welcome to Bigleaf Hill, home of innovative real food cooking with occasional doses of country hijinks.

I work from home on our 15 acre homestead (it's a work in progress) with the Manflesh, a stay-at-home dad/farmhand/handyman, and our offspring, baby Tippytoe.

We've always preferred to eat healthy, whole foods, but adding Tippytoe to our family has strengthened our resolve to cut refined flours and sugars out of our diet.  We don't want to feed that stuff to him, and you can't really eat anything in front of a toddler that you don't want to share, so I've become a bit of an expert at revamping our favorite recipes to meet our dietary aspirations.

At the same time, as our homestead becomes more and more productive, I have a wealth of produce to work with.  We're starting to explore new methods of storing our bounty for use throughout the year.  So far, we mostly freeze things, but we're working on adding dehydrating and root cellaring to our bag of tricks, which will open up even more culinary options.

In the coming months, I'll be posting some of my tried and true recipes - all whole grain with no refined sugar, as well as experiments: both the successes and the failures.  I'll also be posting periodic glimpses into our country life, whenever it seems like there's something worth sharing.  If any of that sounds interesting to you, please subscribe, so you'll never miss a post.