That's how life has been at our house this past week. It started out good, on Tuesday I went with John to his first PTO meeting. When we got home, I realized when I got home that the reluctance I was feeling might have a different reason. Hubby was putting the birds to bed when we got home, but he couldn't find one of our first and oldest hens, Thomasina. He was furious with some of the roosters because they had her so frightened aand harassed that she was hiding from them. So, since he could not find her, he left the three of them out of the pen for the night. The next morning one of the roosters could not be found and Thomasina was also still missing.
Hubby's 56th birthday was on Friday. On Wednesday, we drove to Cameron, Texas to pick up an order of Delaware chicks. They joined our week old "Rainbow Pullet" group from Meyer Hatchery. Because we had so many roosters, the plan was to buy more girls to keep the boys happy and also to sell farm fresh eggs. They are all adorable. That night, Hubby found evidence of the demise of Thomasina and Salvador Dali (formerly Dahlia, until he underwent a sex change).
Saturday, we celebrated Hubby's birthday and had a really good time. When it came time to put the chickens to bed, we couldn't find Willie (a gold laced Wyandotte, aka Rockstar). Hubby found him a few minutes later. He'd been killed and it was still light outside. It made us rethink what had happened with Thomasina. Maybe she was actually attacked instead of hiding from the boys.
This morning, we patrolled the area to see if there was any evidence of problems from the night before. As I was rounding the corner, I found Mr. French (Buff Orpington). It was a terrible sight. I won't go into what it looked like. I let the birds out, then couldn't find one of the ducks. So I looked for her, and finally found her. But, about 30 minutes later, Hubby found the body of one of my favorite girls, Lacy (gold laced wyandotte). Lacy was low girl on the totem pole. She was just starting to finish feathering out, it had taken a long time. She also like to ride the backs of the sheep and spent a lot of time in and around our garage. She will be sorely missed.
Well, the day just got worse and worse. John woke up feeling bad, so it was an at home day for him. I still don't know what was really bothering him. Around 12:00 noon, it started raining and rained off and on for hours. The ducks have a new pond behind the barn that they can actually swim in, pools of water everywhere and mud like quicksand. To top it off, the pen that we've been keeping the chickens in (a large dog kennel with tarp) is collapsing under the weight of the water on the tarp. If we have any more rain tonight, it might be totally collapsed tomorrow. Because of this, we spent over an hour running around in the rain, through the pools and quicksand rounding up chickens to put them in the barn overnight. Most of that time was with just about 3 or 4 chickens. Have you ever tried to run or walk with mud over the top of your shoes chasing a wet chicken. We're lucky that neither of us fell in the mud.
So, this was our week and our day. I sure hope it drys out some tomorrow.
Have a good week!
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