An Adventure in Hennydom

I went to feed the hens this morning and through the discovery of something amiss, and my insane desire to get it straightened out by myself, I ended up in the backyard yelling for Russell to come help me, as blood dripped and ran from totally bloody left hand.

Holy cow does it hurt! My ring finger is sliced at least two-ways at the tip and side thereof. It happened when the metal roofing pieces collapsed while moving the pen. It’s my temporary movable pen, the one I’ve been using for a full year now 😉

What’s the big deal about it? Why did it get so crazy?

The story from the beginning goes like this (I’m having a hard time learning to type without that one finger …)

I went out to feed the hens, something I often ask Russell to do. I thought about asking him, but then figured “no, I’ll do it myself.”

I first fed the big pen, Leghorns and Wyandottes. I then checked both pens nests for egga. None in the big pen, and in the Australorps pen there was a hen in the nestbox.

So I filled up the bowl with feed, and fed them, and watched to see if the hen was in the box still or not. She wasn’t, four birds were at the feed, but not the fifth. In my looking the birds weren’t staying at the feed, but milling about. There she is! I thought. But then one bird ran over her. I looked closer and could see ants climing up her head. It was cocked back, looks like she was sort of scrunching herself under the bottom of the edge of the nest box. Poor thing.

Well that made me do the deeds which rendered my hand bloody and hurting.

I tried to move the pen myself, and get the live hens away from the dead hen ASAP.

Bad plan. Good motives. Should have gotten help though.

Russell was putting some plates and cups in the dishwasher for me, and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was blasting from my computer at the time, so no amount of my yelling was going to bring him out to help. I only yelled for him once I saw that three birds has flown free of the pen, and another one was about to and THAT is precisely when I noticed all the very red blood. Oops. I can’t get that bird. I can’t pick up the roof and re-align everything. I’M BLEEDING! So I stood there dripping, calling for Russell, and after many minutes, he finally got the hint and came out. I just wanted someone to come out and watch the hens that were loose while I went inside to figure out what needed to be done on my hand.

So I got it bandaged and back out I went. Russell said he couldn’t catch any. I caught one easily, he was impressed. I said he could do it too, they are easy (Australorps are SOO gentle!) Then Russell caught one, so proud of himself! The other two ran around some, not much, just out of reach. I convince each of them to stop for me, and got them all in.

The question remains: What happened to that hen?

The two facts are:

Firstly, since laying has begun for the Australorps, we have had 4 eggs a day from the lot of them .. never 5. Five birds, only four eggs at most.
So, it’s likely that one wasn’t laying yet.

Second fact is that yesterday, August 10, 2004 we got 3 eggs from the Australorps, and one of them was a giant egg, the double-egg type, like a goose egg.

Interpretations of the above facts could be that:

A. the first fact could mean that maybe one hen was not laying, and was egg bound and died from it, showing me no symptoms somehow.

B. the second fact could mean that whoever laid that egg lost her life from internal collapse of her innerds (very layman terms!)

C. Put both facts together and say that non-laying pullet died after finally laying her first egg, HUGE and too big for a first egg.

D. None of the fact above have anything to do with it. Disease? Defect? God only knows.

Consesus is that dog will eat her. I can’t bury her. Of course Frank is unavailable to help, work has him away. He says go ahead and give it to the dog, as he eats that kind of stuff and the LIKELYHOOD is that she’s safe to eat. If not, we’ll have a sick doggie on our hands too. But that’s what I have to do. Farm life.

The Australorps are gentle giants. They are very big birds. That poor hen (actually still just a pullet) is dead, no doubt, but besides having no life in her and the ants on her heads, she’s a hefty, glossy beauty.

I just would like to take this time to explain pain.

I have a high thresh-hold of pain, but am also very sensitive to things.

A cut is a powerful thing. It’s powerful because it can, all on it’s own, change back to flesh. But the cost is a high one. Great God that he is, our creator built renewable organs in us, and skin is miraculous, nearly. Deep gashes pull together all by themselves. We can aide the process by applying pressure and bandages.

That must be what is felt. The pain isn’t constant, and it’s deep varied and leveled anyhow. It’s incredible to feel it, it’s like vice has been applied and a giant man is pulling out with all his might, more pressure than pain. Another level is like a needle is being sewn through my finger, a big darning needle. And all the fingers around the injury join in to cry a bit in sorrow, and numbness overcomes so that the work can get down to the needful healing business in high styled timings.

It comes and goes in waves, the high waves are places of infantile wimpering, in an adult way. It’s just a very intense thing, having a nasty cut that’s healing. Fresh cuts are worse, of course. I’m looking forward to later and tomorrow, when it shouldn’t be so bad.

Of course, seeing as I was the only adult here when it happened, I was not thinking clearly and forgot entirely about using cayenne pepper in the cut. I surely should have. May do so later when I re-bandage it, if need be. Funny thing, if Frank was here I’d have been able to recall that needful info, I am sure of that.

So we are down one hen.

8 Leghorns
3 Wyandottes
1 AraucanaWyandotte Mix
4 Black Australorps

The Leghorns are producing off and on, but not ever full capacity in one day.

The Wyandottes are laying one egg every so often. But one isn’t laying at all, and the other isn’t either (She’s just coming out of being broody).

My greenie, she’s not laying the last week or so, and her production had been less each month since Spring, until now, nothing.

All in all, they all look great, bright red combs and wattles. LAY EGGS!

I haven’t been entering anything in my egg report. I’m thinking of what to do with it and where to put it and what-not.