Rooster Problems

I keep most of my roosters in a separate coop.  This is partly because you can't have too many roosters in a group of hens, because they are a bit too ardent with their interest in the hens, and they pull all the feathers out of the hens' backs.  In addition, they tend to be more aggressive with each other when they are with hens.  When I keep the roosters separately, they don't fight much and the hens are happier.  Sometimes, though, the roosters don't want to be kept in the coop, and they insist on escaping and running around free ranging.  I have had a couple of roosters who free ranged for the past couple of years now - Cornflake and Fancy Pants.  

Cornflake

Fancy Pants

Cornflake liked roosting in our garage on a shelf mounted on the wall.  This was OK, although he made a mess, and he liked to hang out on our front step, where he also made a mess and which made it difficult for people to come in the house without stepping in chicken poop.  I put up with it though, because sometimes you just have to go with the flow.  Sadly, however, Cornflake met his end very recently as a result of a Northern goshawk.  That's a risk that accompanies being a free-ranging rooster.  He had a great life though, running around the yard, having treats from my garden, and always having a safe place to sleep.  

The Northern goshawk is a beautiful bird as well, and although I was sad about what happened to Cornflake, the goshawks have to eat too.  I'm not sure if the goshawk is going to keep on coming here for its meals....I hope not.  I think Cornflake might have been an easy catch because of his white colour against the dark of the driveway (which is where he was taken), but he was free ranging for a couple of years so he couldn't have been that easy!  

Northern goshawk

Meanwhile, I recently adopted a silkie rooster who needed a new home.  I didn't really need more roosters, but I have a bit of a soft spot for silkies.  This little guy was in need of a new home because he'd been purchased as a hen, but then started to crow, and he lived in town...where they aren't allowed to have roosters.  The owner wanted to find a local home so that her daughter can still visit from time to time, so I decided to offer him a home.  

It has been extremely wet for the past month and the chicken yard was absolutely horrible. The mud has been very thick and slippery, and I knew that would be bad for silkie feet, which are feathered, so I decided to keep the new roo inside for a few days.  I put him in a rabbit hutch that I had previously used for another chicken who was sick...but that was over a year ago.  I didn't really think about it when I put the new roo into that hutch, but the next day, his legs seemed to be paralyzed and he was not walking at all, which were the same symptoms in the sick chicken from before (who died within days).  I was absolutely horrified that he seemed to have gotten so sick so quickly, and that it might be my fault for putting him in the hutch where the other sick bird had been.  My fear was that he had contracted Marek's disease, which is a viral illness and which I have had before in my flock.  It does cause leg  paralysis.  However, in reading up on it, I learned that even if a chicken does contract the virus, it does not begin to show symptoms for 3 weeks, so there was no way that this new rooster had contracted Marek's overnight.  I was very worried about my new roo, and kept him warm and well fed (fortunately he was still eating and drinking even though he couldn't walk).  

Amazingly, over the course of 3 or 4 days, he made a recovery.  In addition, the temperatures dropped and we had some snow and the ground froze, so the mud problem was solved.  A few days ago, I was able to put him out in the main coop.

The new roo!

He's actually what they call a "naked neck" silkie, so it's normal that his neck doesn't have feathers.

He has lovely blue earlobes.  It was raining a bit today so these shots aren't the best, but you can see what he looks like anyway.

I still don't know what was wrong with him, but he's walking just fine now, and has no lingering symptoms that I can identify.  That's also not consistent with Marek's so I'm pretty sure it was something else entirely.  

Here's a shot of a hen (middle) who hatched a little one late in the fall.  Her 'baby' (not sure if it was her egg or not) is the barred one off to the right.  It's a cute little one - I hope it's a hen.  This hen somehow has managed to avoid being named so far.  I really must give her a name.  The one off to the left in this picture is named "Little Grey Hen" (a nod to the Little Grey Rabbit books by Alison Uttley, which you'll likely be familiar with if you're my age or older and if you have a UK background).  She's not little, but she is grey!

Little Grey Hen, Mama Chicken, and youngster

The new rooster was picked on a bit on the first day, as expected, but he seems to be blending in now and I don't notice him being pecked a lot by the hens, although he's still being chased out of the main flock most of the time, which is normal for a newly integrated bird.  Here he is with one of my newer ISA brown layer hens.

I was hoping he would become a friend for Whisp, one of my first chickens from my new flock here in NB.  She is a silkie who is at least 5 years old, and the only silkie in my flock now. Sure enough, last night, I caught him snuggled up to Whisp in the coop at bedtime.  So sweet!  I'm glad she has a new friend.  

I think he might be named Stormy, because I picked him up during a torrential rainstorm.  On the other hand, I called him Pickles today, because it just came to me out of the blue when I was talking to him. Sometimes it takes a while to get the right name.  I'll keep working on it.

Friday's Hunt v 4.25 and 4.26

I missed last week's Friday's Hunt due to being busy with preparing for the holidays, so I'm doing two in one to make up for it.

The prompts from last week were:  Starts with Y, Tree, and Shadows.

The prompts from this week are: Starts with Z, Reflection, and The End.

Starts with Y
Yard starts with y.  This is our front yard.  As you can see, we do have some snow, although not a lot, yet.  I like the setting of our house with all the trees around it, although I like it even more in the more pleasant seasons of the year.

Starts with Z
This is Whisp, one of our silkie hens.  She is sitting on some zygotes. 

A zygote is a biological term for a fertilized egg cell.  When I was away the week before last, the eggs didn't get collected and I came home to a broody silkie (i.e. a hen sitting on a clutch of eggs that she was incubating).  Not having the heart to separate her from the eggs and throw them out, I brought her inside with her eggs.  It appears that 4 of the 5 are fertile and showing signs of development.  She is really quite young - only about 8 months old at most, but she seems quite dedicated to her egg sitting duties and hopefully she will be a good mom to her little ones if they hatch successfully. 

Tree
The week before last, I was in Ottawa with another consultant to run a workshop for Agriculture Canada.  I took the train for that trip, giving myself some time to work on the train and avoiding the stress that flying causes for me.  At the Montreal train station, the holiday displays included this rather dazzling tree decorated in pink - not exactly traditional, but very effective in my opinion. 

Reflection
For my train trip, I booked a sleeper cabin for the portion of the journey from Moncton to Montreal.  It's about 18 hours long, through the night, so a good sleep is necessary when one needs to work the next day.  This is my little sleeper cabin window, with a reflection of me taking the picture in it.  You can see a pillow at the other end of the seat area on the left side of the reflection.  On the right side of the reflection, you can just see the door to the bathroom that is part of the cabin.  The seat folds down and becomes a bed for the night.  It was very comfortable and cozy.

Here's a slightly better picture with less reflection, showing the seating area and my ever-present knitting bag.

Shadows
At the conference location, which was one of the buildings of the Agricultural Museum in Ottawa, there were some interesting bee-themed decorations being installed in the hallway.  They look like stained glass, although they are actually a kind of plexiglass or similar substance.  I presume real stained glass would be too costly, too heavy, and too dangerous for a public space in case it broke.  It was tricky to get good pictures of the panels due to the shadows on the panels.  Here is an installed panel with shadow on it, and you can also see the shadow of the ladder. 

Here's a yet-to-be-installed panel to show more of the detail.

The End
I've enjoyed participating in Friday's Hunt for the past 3 rounds.  It helped me blog once a week in times when I didn't feel like blogging or didn't have anything to blog about.  Sometimes I feel that it is what kept  my blog going.  Since Friday's Hunt is coming to an end, I'm hoping that in 2018, I will try to make time to keep up with the blog in other ways. 

As the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens.  Maybe the end of Friday's Hunt will open the door for other blog opportunities.  I will try to keep writing.  Things are so busy for me these days.  Although I've tried to take some time off in the past week, work is breathing down my neck like a dragon with halitosis, and the first few weeks of January are already super booked and busy.  I'm hoping to learn to do a better job of balancing work and home life this coming year.  We'll see how well I manage with that.  I'm also trying to improve my fitness level this year.  My new sit-stand desk should arrive in early January, and I have plans to sign up for an online yoga site that will allow me to choose from various beginner level lessons that I can incorporate into my day.  I am also getting new orthotics soon, which will go into my shoes and hopefully alleviate some foot pain that I have been experiencing when walking.  So, perhaps I will have some things to write about, if I can just make myself take the time to do so.

To illustrate this concept of endings being beginnings, here is a pinecone in the snow.  It fell off the tree, and is thus the "end" of one phase of the tree's development, but the pinecone has seeds inside that will feed squirrels and possibly find their way into the soil and start a new tree.  For me, this also says that even when things are bleak and cold and kind of depressing, spring will return and with it, the joy of green leaves and sunshine.