Happenings on the Homestead

Tags

backyard chickens, chickens, gardening, homestead, homesteading, old farm yard, outhouse

Awesome things are happening lately.

My Dad bought us a tractor.

And the tractor made a garden.

I’ve planted the garden with four rows of potatoes already:  Seed potatoes from our old garden, Russian Blue, Marilyn Fingerling, and Yukon Gold.

Will cut a large hole in the side of the new coop and installed an excellent window for the girls.

I made a nipple waterer for the girls, but alas, I cannot train them to use it.  I’ve tried showing them how it works, smearing yogurt on it, smearing peanut butter on it, putting scratch underneath it, and nothing works.  They refuse to use it.  If you have any ideas on how to train a chicken to use a nipple waterer, please let me know.

I found the old door to the outhouses in pieces, and put it back together like a puzzle.  It says, “The Rose Bowl.”

The seedlings are all looking amazing.  I predict an epic garden this year.  As long as wildlife doesn’t decimate it.

I leave you with this awesome picture of one of my chickens.  I call it “Chicken with a Shovel.”

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Year in Review – Part II

Tags

acreage, actor's life, backyard chickens, canning, foster parenting, garden, year in review

July

July started off quite lovely.  The weather was beautiful, the gardens were thriving, and fruit had started to arrive at the Farmers’ Market.  I canned sweet cherries (cherry pie filling) and apricots.  We opened Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan.  We had told our social worker to put our home “on hold” until mid-July, but after the shows opened, we were still feeling pretty frazzled from June, and decided to take a couple of more weeks off from fostering.  The very next day, placement called looking for a foster home for a seven-month old baby boy named Liam.  He had been in care since birth, and had spent the past two months in a group home, and really, a group home isn’t ideal for a baby – would we be willing to take him?  I called Will.  All I had to say was “So, placement phoned today . . . ”  We took him.  Best decision ever.

On a much sadder note, we said goodbye to Kingsley.  After initially responding to chiro and pain meds, he starts to rapidly decline.  One morning, he can’t stand up he’s in so much pain.  The next day, I took him to the vet to be euthanized and say goodbye.  It was a rainy, cold day.  When we got home, Liam and I napped on the couch all afternoon.  I miss that dog something fierce.

August

August was full of shows, veggies, and cloth diapers.

Finally took the plunge and switched to cloth diapers.  Wish I had done it with the first baby.  I have a theory – I think there’s been a deliberate campaign created by disposable diaper manufacturers against cloth diapers to convince us that it’s messy and time consuming and disposables are so much easier and convenient.  Now maybe if I didn’t have a washing machine, I wouldn’t think they’re so easy.  But seriously – easy.  Just as easy as disposables.  I don’t know what I was so afraid of!

We had a really, really good summer for gardening.  Everything thrived.  Even bell peppers, which usually don’t fair so well in my garden.  Carrots, beets, zucchini, and pumpkins are the superstars though.

One of my chickens starts laying the weirdest eggs I’ve ever seen.  I haven’t a clue what’s wrong with her.

The sour cherries and raspberries are out of control this summer.  I think having four beehives in the backyard really helped.  I can barely keep up with harvest and canning.  I abandon the raspberries at a certain point to move on to sour cherries and let the birds eat their fill.

We finally give in and pay someone to have our backyard landscaped and sodded at the end of the month.  What a relief!  We went all summer with a giant tree stump and dirt, and it was bloody depressing.

September

After Shakespeare closes, I start working as an Assistant Director on a show at Persephone.  But we have daycare woes, and I have to cut my hours way back from what I originally planned.  Which is actually fine with me.  I’d kinda rather be home with Liam anyway.

I can peaches and pears, and make huge batches of spaghetti sauce from the tomato harvest.  And to mark the end of summer, I make pesto.

October

October brings unseasonable warm weather.  Will was very lucky in the hunting draw this year and pulled a moose tag and a mule deer tag.  Liam and I tag along on the hunt, and Will does us proud.  (I admit, I cried when he shot the moose.  But I’m also thankful to the moose for providing us meat all winter long).

Starting mid-October, I pack up and go to Regina to do the Christmas show at the Globe Theatre.  It’s the first time I’ve worked out of town in four years, and the first time I’ve worked out of town since becoming a parent.  It was hard.  Very hard.  I don’t think I’ll do it anymore (except for the gig I’ve got in May/June that’s also out of town.  Damn it.)

November

Show after show after show after show. That’s what November is to me.  Ziggy had come to Regina with me, and we fall into a routine of sleeping in, going to the dog park, show, Netflix, bed.  Ugh.  I just want to be at home.  The show is fun, the cast and crew are lovely, but I want to be with my family.  Will does a stellar job of single parenting.  Yay Will!

I play Gerda, an elf.  I love having pointy ears 🙂

After the show opens in mid-November, I have two days off.  I come home to Saskatoon, we go look at an acreage, and by the time I head back to Regina, our offer is accepted.  WE OWN AN ACREAGE!  Ten acres, twenty minutes east of the city.  We’re still waiting on the subdivision to be completed but possession date is expected to be mid-January 2016.

Being the sentimental fools that we are, we cannot bear to part with our little homestead in the city, so we decide to keep it as a rental property.  Still trying to decide whether or not to hire a property manager . . .

December

Shows, shows, and more shows.  The show closes after Christmas.  I get Christmas Day off, and Will and Liam join me in Regina.  We have a late Christmas celebration with the Brooks family on the 27th, and an even later Christmas celebration with the Shebelski family on the 30th.  For the first time EVER in my life, I miss having Christmas Eve dinner with the Shebelski side.  It makes me sad.  I don’t think I’ll do another show at Christmas time.  It’s too difficult to be away.

And now here we are on New Year’s Eve.  We went to Beaver Creek today and walked one of the trails (it was a beautiful day despite being -20C).  Clear skies, beautiful views.  I love this land so much, it makes my little heart swell.  I even love the ridiculously harsh winters.

2016 will bring us our own little plot of land under that vast, comforting prairie sky.  We’ve been in our city house for ten years, and it feels like it’s time to move on.  I can’t wait to see what the next ten years will bring!  (Personally, I’m hoping for more foster babies, goats, chickens, pigs, and a bloody huge garden).

Happy New Year, and all the best in 2016!

Year in Review – Part I

Tags

backyard chickens, gardening, year in review

I’ve always thought it a lovely tradition to send a Christmas “newsletter” to your friends and family.  Sending cards and letters this time of the year is so quaint and old-fashioned.  It appeals to my inner Victorian/Pioneer.  However, the actual practicality of making such a thing happen (writing a letter, editing a letter, adding photos, printing up copies, addressing envelopes, buying stamps, getting to the post office) is just one more bloody thing to add to my already crammed full Christmas “to-do” list, so it inevitably gets pushed to the end and never done. But.  My iPad and my blog are both things that appeal to my inner 21st century, I-love-modern-conveniences self, and thus I present to you – MY YEAR IN REVIEW (Part I)

January

We ring in the New Year with a celebration at the home of our friends, Josh and Angela.  At around 9 p.m., we attempt to get our eighteen month old foster daughter, Angel, and their eighteen-month old son, Beau, to bed, so that the Mommys and Daddys can raise a cup of cheer. Sleep proves elusive for the two tots, as Angel loudly protests being put to sleep in her playpen, and Beau has not yet finished cramming every single popcorn twist into his mouth.  Eventually, they give into their exhaustion and fall asleep, while we welcome the New Year with a toast, only to have Beau wake up a few minutes after midnight, having vomited his popcorn twists up in his crib.  At this point, I realize just  how much my life has changed over the past year.  Last New Year’s, it may have been me that was puking shortly after midnight.  Now, it’s our babies.

Other January highlights include performing in The Clockmaker.   

The first show I’ve done since becoming a foster mama.  Not easy.  In fact, fucking difficult.  How?  How do other actor-mamas do this?  I start to get very worried about how the summer is going to go . . .

I also start a new part-time job as Volunteer Coordinator for Saskatoon Summer Players, a community theatre not-for-profit.  Previous to that, I was offered a full-time job with the police, entry level, in the typing pool, that I turned down.  It would have led to a very well-paying, secure job with benefits and a pension.  Thank god I narrowly escaped that nightmare.  (Seriously, what is wrong with me?)

February

For the life of me, I have no memory of February, and looking back on the blog isn’t helping either since in February I decided to do a blog-every-day type of challenge that lasted about a month or so (I was supposed to commit to a blog post every day for the rest of the year.  Ha!  Hahahahaha.)

I think I was in “Go to work, come home, take care of toddler, go to bed, repeat the next day” mode.  For a typical day spent with Angel, please refer to this post from the end of February.

March

In March we celebrated one year of being foster parents.  We are no longer “intern” foster parents, but full-fledged, experienced foster parents.  After a very painful one-year assessment, we say goodbye to the social worker who was the bane of my existence for the past nine months, and look ahead to sunnier days.  We plan the garden, create pysanka, and continue to trudge through snow and ice all month long.  I have a couple of kick-ass auditions that totally pay off later in the year – hurrah!  But March is also that month that brings me the worst news of the year – Kingsley is diagnosed with a terminal auto-immune disease.  My heart breaks.

April

We plant the first two beds in the garden on April 10th!  A new record.  And despite THIS happening at the end of the month –

– the seedlings grow and thrive.  There will be an early harvest!  Hurrah!

Angel is supposed to move to her new home at the end of the month, but it is delayed two weeks, and we are happy we get a little more time with her.

The chickens are doing well, but mid-month, egg production suddenly drops drastically.  Just when I thought I finally knew all there was to know about keeping chickens, the girls get VENT GLEET.  It’s disgusting, but easily cured with some Germe-Zone and yogurt (thank gawd).

May

The beginning of May sees a lot of hot and heavy gardening action.  Many exciting things are planted and eaten in the first couple weeks of May (ASPARAGUS!)

Will tries his hand at dry cure salami (guess what?  We haven’t died from botulism yet, so I think it worked).

The bees gets lots of attention and a prediction of a fantastic honey flow this summer.

On May 13th, Angel is moved to her new home.  That night (and few more to follow), I have whiskey for supper. But I throw myself into renovations (that end in angry tantrums) and work.  We decide not to take another foster baby until after we open Shakespeare this summer (and that was a wise decision because we were crazy busy/stressed for the entire month of June).

June

The first week of June is calm, and I’m starting to enjoy myself again, gardening and working on the house, and then rehearsals start, and I have no idea what else I did for the rest of the month since I didn’t blog a word for the entire month after June 1.

I remember a lot of rehearsing, learning choreo, learning lines, riding my bike, gardening, walking the dogs, and taking care of the chickens.  But it’s all very hazy.  June was crazy/busy/stressful and still filled with grief over Angel leaving.  Although, I’m somewhat thankful I don’t have a child because it would be totally neglected during this rehearsal process.

Will and I conclude that we can never work together again AND have a child.  One of us needs to be free from the madness that is a theatre rehearsal schedule.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

Finally Catching Up

Tags

Apples, backyard chickens, beets, canning, foster parenting, garden, sour cherries

I’m still alive, albeit buried under a mound of laundry, household chores, work, shows, and garden produce.

Garden Update

Yowza.  I don’t even know where to begin with my garden updates.  One garden is totally thriving in its neglect.  That’s the one that is planted at my friend’s rental property.  We’ve been enjoying zucchini, beets (Cylindra, Golden, and Chioggia) and green beans from that garden, and the corn, carrots, and tomatoes are well on their way.

I used a few beet leaves to make Beetniks.  When I was a child, I loved beetniks, but one night, I ate too many and threw up.  I haven’t eaten them since.  This time around, I showed some restraint, eating only five or six at a time.  They are so rich and delicious.  Finally, a Ukrainian food that I’m really good at making!  Still working on my perogie skills.

I got the recipe from this fantastic book called Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens by Amy Jo Ehman.  It’s a fascinating book and totally fuels my fantasies of being a pioneer.

As for the garden that’s in my backyard, it’s literally a jungle of squash vines, and there is about five different types of squash growing like mad.  I wanted to keep all the squash in our backyard so that I could pollinate the blooms by hand.  Well, with four hives in the backyard, that really wasn’t necessary this summer, and now I will have a ridiculous amount of squash to put away for the winter.

Surprisingly, the bell peppers have done well this summer, too.  They’re nice and big, and ripening to a beautiful red.  (I’ve been patiently waiting for them to turn red; I don’t like green peppers)

Chicken Update

Warning:  Graphic weird image of “egg” below

I don’t know what is going on with my girls.  No one is laying right now.  At least, no one is laying a normal egg right now.  Ginger just finished molting, and one of the little girls just started molting (Short Comb, I think), and the other little girl (Floppy Comb, I think) is laying such gross monstrosities that in four years of keeping chickens, I never seen anything like them.

What the hell!?  She’s laid three of these “eggs” in the past two weeks.  Before they started appearing, I was finding some funny shaped eggs in the nesting box, and some soft shelled eggs being dropped from the roost.  I have no idea what is causing her to lay these yolk filled water balloons.  I’ve tried giving them yogurt, restricting treats, adding vitamins to their water, adding apple cider vinegar to the water.  Nothing worked.  She continues to lay these weirdos.  I’m convinced there’s something wrong with her internally, since I’ve tried every diet adjustment I can find.  Thing is, I’m not 100% sure which chicken is laying them.  I can’t catch her in the act.  Once I know who it is, it’s the chopping block for her.  She must be on to me . . .

Canning Update

Holy moly, I couldn’t keep up with the raspberries this summer.  There’s still some on the bushes that could be picked, but I’m done now.  I’ve put three large freezer bags of raspberries away to make jam later, and my friend Jen took about four cups of berries off one day.  All from my little raspberry patch in the garden.  Thank you bees!

The sour cherries across the street were unbelievable this year.  I put some up as preserves, and then made some jam.  The berries are so heavy on the tree that they’re weighing down the branches, taunting me to come pick more.  But I must move on to strawberries and apples now.

My friend Melanie let me come pick from her apple tree last Saturday, and the apples are lovely (and ripe so early this year!).  I juiced them in the steam juicer (which was so worth the $200 + that I spent on it; I expect it to last at least 100 years), and then I turned the mush into apple sauce, and put up 12 pints of sauce.  That’s just round one.  I need a lot of apple sauce this year.  I finished all the apple sauce and apple butter last winter.

I think that about catches me up.  As for foster baby update, we have made a successful transition to cloth diapers (yay!) and he is growing (and gaining weight) like a little weed.  Nothing better than a happy, healthy baby.

It’s Been a Month

Tags

backyard chickens, canning, Cherries, gardening, soft shelled eggs

An entire month since I posted anything.  Time bloody flies when you’re so busy you barely have time to eat and sleep.  

Well, to be fair, I did want to be super busy after Foster Toddler left to keep myself occupied.  So, in that respect, this “busyness” has been great.  On the other hand, I haven’t had a day off since Foster Toddler left.  I don’t feel like I’ve really had a break yet.  We had discussed taking another placement once the shows opened in mid-July, but I haven’t even caught up on my sleep yet.  I need to sleep for a few weeks before caring for another child.  

Unfortunately, our schedules aren’t really going to calm down all that much once the show open anyway.  Once the shows are open, there are three other projects on the go that require my attention.  At this point, it feels like we won’t have any down time until perhaps Christmas.  

It’s been much too long since I did a Garden Diary entry, so long in fact, that I now need to start Canning Season diary entries as fruits are starting to ripen.  Make hay while the sun shines!

Garden first:  

I had to pull the second batch of radishes that we planted as they got maggots.  Unfortunately, the onions and hardneck garlic look like they may have been affected too.  I pulled a few onions and only found one infested with maggots, but the leaves are turning yellow and dying, so I think the whole crop is done for.  

The peas are almost ready to harvest.  The potatoes in a barrel are doing REALLY WELL!  I’m loving having cucumbers and tomatoes in pots on the patio.  Squash is getting there – it’s just starting to vine out.  I think I may already have powdery mildew on some squash.  I’ll treat it tonight.  Damn that powdery mildew.  

The other garden is doing well too, and the weeds are mostly under control.  Corn is up to my waist, and the carrots are coming in strong. 

Canning Season:

Sweet BC Cherries!  I bought 10 pounds for $25 from the fruit truck at the Farmers’ Market last Saturday.  I canned seven pounds into cherry pie filling, and I’m eating the last three pounds fresh.  Next up will be apricots.  The cherry pitter I spent waaaaay too much on last year came in handy.  What a great little time saver, not to mention “mess” saver.  I pitted seven pounds of cherries, yet my kitchen did not resemble a grisly crime scene by the time I was done!  Hurrah! 

 

Tried something new this year with the pits:  cherry pit vinegar.  Put the pits in a mason jar and fill with white vinegar.  Leave it three or four days.  Strain the pits. Thought it might make good salad dressing? 

  

Chicken News:

Ginger is going through a hard molt, and one of the other ladies is laying softshelled eggs.  I say “laying” – what I really mean is “dropping them from the roost.”  I couldn’t figure it out until I read an article on Fresh Eggs Daily that said if they eat too much spinach or beet greens or kale, the oxalic acid in the greens binds with calcium in their bodies.  Four years later, and I still don’t know how to take care of chickens.  I’ve been giving them fresh greens almost every day.  I thought I was doing a good thing by giving them LOTS of spinach and kale for calcium.  Turns out, you just need to add a little acid to their stomachs, so I put some apple cider vinegar in their water.  That should do the trick.  Fingers crossed.  

Phewww!  I think I’m caught up now.  Hopefully, I have a bit more time on my hands by next week, but I make no promises.  

 

Oh Yeah . . . Now I Remember

Tags

backyard chickens, Beekeeping, bees, French Breakfast radishes, gardening

I’m not feeling so bored or depressed about not having a toddler/baby in the house anymore.  In fact, I’m starting to remember how much I enjoyed my life pre-children.  It was pretty good.  Sleep as much as I want.  Read a book all day if I want (hell, just read a book without constant interruptions every couple of sentences).  Long walks with the dogs (not so long anymore; senior dogs can’t go very far these days).  Pole dancing.  Gardening.  Theatre.  Writing.  Biking.  Taking forty-five minutes to drink my coffee and read on a Saturday morning.  Wandering through the Farmers’ Market with no time constraints or threats of public tantrums.  

Children are great, but life without children is also great.  

Garden update:

Radishes and asparugus are going strong. I’ve been eating a huge amount of French Breakfast radishes.  I’ve waited all winter for these radishes, and they are just as wonderful as I remember them.  I eat the radishes, and the chooks eat the greens – they love radish greens so much that they start jumping up trying to snag them as soon as I open the coop door.  

  

Rhubarb is ready to be harvested.  I still have a bag of frozen rhubarb in the deep freeze from last summer, so I think I’ll make a batch of rhubarb slushies this weekend, and harvest some fresh stuff for preserving (once strawberries are ready to go in July).  

  

Planted tomatoes, cucumbers, and herbs in pots (since we ran out of room in the gardens). We actually got a bit of frost last Thursday evening, and it killed a couple of our tomatoes, and made the cucumbers really droopy.  The cucumbers perked up, but the tomatoes didn’t recover.  Have to grab some more seedlings this week.  

.    

   

 

Hardneck garlic, softneck garlic, onions, and peas are looking really good.   

 

And the hives are all hopping.  There are starting to store honey already!

  

Garden Diary, Bees, and Chickens

Tags

backyard chickens, bees, Chicken coop, gardening, planting, splitting hives

May long weekend!  Time to plant the rest of the garden (plus garden number two).

In our yard, we planted:

• Radishes
• Pumpkins (Sugar Pie)
• Butternut Squash
• Spaghetti Squash
• Golden Summer Squash
• More pumpkins (Jack B Little)
• Tomatoes (bought seedlings; planted some in pots)
• Cucumbers (in pots)
• Peppers (bought seedlings; not in garden yet)
• Melons (bought seedlings; not in garden yet)

In Garden Number Two, we planted:

• Carrots (Danvers, Nantes, Paris Market)
• Beets (Chiggio, Golden, Cylindra)
• Sunflowers
• Onions

Will split the hives.  It was a bit scary, but they were so full, the bees would’ve swarmed anyway.

I finally – FINALLY – cleaned the coop.  Even though Ginger had already laid her egg today, she insisted on breaking in the fresh straw in her nesting box.

On another note, I’ve now napped three days in a row.  I feel as though I’m catching up on six months of sleep deprivation.

Busy Day Off

Tags

backyard chickens, gardening, seeds, vent gleet treatment

Mondays are usually my day off from my regular, part-time job.  Monday is the day I work at my other jobs:  self-employed actor/urban homesteader/homemaker.  My day off was so busy yesterday that I didn’t even have time to blog.

Things that happened here in the past four days:

Well, to start, THIS.

Yes, that’s 20 plus centimetres of snow dumped on the city in about eight hours.  Wet, heavy snow that knocked out power lines and brought down trees.  Our power went out for only a few hours, thankfully, and we only have one broken branch on a tree in the back yard.  (This fir tree that has doubled in size in the past ten years, and is waaaaaay too close to our house and our neighbour’s house and has to be removed anyway.  I feel awful removing a healthy living tree, but I’d feel even worse if it went through my roof).  Gratefully, four days later, it is +18 C again and all of the snow is gone.  Surprisingly, everything in the garden survived – garlic, chives, radishes, spinach, kale and beets.  Hardy little plants.

Animal health update #1 – Kingsley.  He’s almost back to his old self again.  The Metacam did wonders, and he’s eating lots and gaining back his weight.  He’s jumping on the furniture and pulling on his leash.  I can tell that he’s no longer in constant pain.  His breath has even improved from the antibiotics working on the infections in his teeth.  I feel so relieved.  I’m positive that he can live through his golden years in comfort.  Always get a second opinion.

Animal health update #2 – Chickens.  I continue to give the girls yogurt every morning, and instead of apple cider vinegar in the water, I switched to GermeZone in their water for five days in a row.  Today I opened the nesting box and saw this –  

Hurrah!  I also built them a new feeder, and they have yet to fling their food around the run.   The treatment is working, but until I see THREE eggs in the nesting box, they will continue to receive their yogurt breakfast and GermeZone in the water every other day.

The new feeder –   

Enjoying their yogurt –

And finally, another monthly installment of my Seeds of the Month Club arrived.  So exciting!  Will also started the Armenian cucumbers and melons this weekend.

Vent Gleet Day Three

Tags

backyard chickens, vent gleet

All three chickens have clean, fluffy butt feathers again.  Barbra’s swollen abdomen looked a bit better today, but Judy’s is still pretty big.  Ginger’s isn’t swollen at all, but I still washed her butt feathers.  They were a bit dirty, but I think she’s quite healthy and doesn’t have vent gleet like the other two.  In fact, she’s laid two days in a row now.  

I took away their Breakfast of Champion layers mix, and returned to plain old layer ration.  I guess I should know better by now than to mess with their food.  I’m also wondering if perhaps they’re eating too much grass.  Since it has been so nice out, I’ve been letting them out in the yard to forage quite a bit, and maybe they’ve gorged on green things after not having anything during the winter, and their digestive system can’t handle all the freshness.  Who knows?  Chickens are a big mystery to me most of the time.  

Tomorrow, they will get another tablespoon of yogurt each, as well as apple cider vinegar in their water.  I’ve been scraping up any food that they toss on the ground so that they aren’t pecking at poop and food at the same time.  Tonight, I bought supplies to make a “No Spill Chicken Feeder.”   I’m hoping it lives up to its internet hype.  It’s made out of PVC pipe and is supposed to make it nearly impossible for the girls to fling and toss their food all over the place.  We’ll see about that.  

Have a lovely weekend!

Silly Me

Tags

backyard chickens

Just when I thought it was safe to go back to the hen house, a whole new chicken problem slaps me in the face.

Apparently, trimming a chicken’s toenails with a Dremel or sticking my finger up a chicken’s butt just wasn’t enough.  Now I’m dealing with a condition called Vent Gleet.  Yes, it’s as disgusting as it sounds.  But I’m actually relieved that it’s Vent Gleet and not Egg Peritonitis.

The girls have been laying really well, but this past week, egg production suddenly dropped.  We went from getting two or three eggs a day, to one egg every other day.  The last three-egg day I can remember was a week ago today.

This evening, while we were playing outside after supper, I grabbed Barbra (or Judy, I can’t tell them apart anymore) and realized that she had a soft, swollen abdomen.  Also, they’ve both got dirty butts.  I immediately consulted Doctor Google who told me it was Egg Peritonitis and there was no cure and great suffering and death were imminent.  Egg Peritonitis, from what I understand, is internal laying.  The chicken ovulates, but instead of the yolk going through the proper process all the way to the shell, it gets deposited somewhere in the abdomen, where it usually causes a great infection, and the hen dies.  The end.

There is a reason I am not a vet.  I cannot emotionally handle a sick animal.  It sends me into a tizzy.

Well, I thought, if they’re going to die no matter what, the least I can do is give them a warm bath to clean their butts and maybe soothe their muscles and help them to absorb all those unlaid yolks deposited in their abdomens.

I got Barbra (or Judy) inside and into a warm bath.  She didn’t put up too much fuss, but at one point she tried to jump out of the tub, and must’ve broke off her toe nail too close to the quick.  I noticed she was bleeding after I put her back in the coop.  Sigh.  I just want happy, healthy animals.  I treated the broken nail with some antiseptic and put her back to bed.

I returned to Doctor Google to see if there was anything else I could possibly do.  Then I remembered my favourite chicken website – Fresh Eggs Daily.  Maybe Lisa had some advice for treating this condition.  That’s when I read her description of Vent Gleet – soft, swollen abdomen, dirty butts, diarrhea, whitish discharge – usually caused by an imbalance of bad bacteria in a chicken’s digestive tract.  Although not contagious, it can, obviously, show up in multiple flock members since they have experienced the same conditions.  A flood of relief washed over me.  This is what I could not understand about Doctor Google’s original diagnosis – how could two of my hens have Egg Peritonitis at the same time?  It seemed really improbable.  But Vent Gleet makes total sense.  This I can treat.  Vent Gleet is not a death sentence.

I think I know what may have caused it as well.  I recently made up a batch of Breakfast of Champion layers for them, and they love to pick through it and fling their food all over the ground.  Then poop on it.  Then eat it.  Hmmmmm . . . bad bacteria in a chicken’s digestive track, you say?

Solution?  First, scrape out the run and fill with new dirt/sand mixture.  Second, offer chickens a “molasses flush” (1/2 cup of molasses per gallon of water) for several hours, then water with Apple Cider Vinegar in it, and one tablespoon of yogurt per chicken per day.  Also, add probiotic powder to their feed.

Honestly, I’m going into my fourth year of keeping chickens, and every time I think, “This is it.  I now know everything about keeping chickens,” a new problem arises and knocks me upside the head.  Silly me.  I’ll never know everything about raising chickens.  Homesteading is not for the faint of heart.