This morning I picked Eleanor’s lifeless body up off the floor of the coop. There should have been heft as she was a large Barred Rock, but it was as light as if I had plucked up a page of a newspaper blown in the wind. There was still a bit of warmth to her. She hadn’t been dead long.

Her death was not unexpected. Actually, I’d expected her to die several years ago when I noticed her limping, and saw that her bottom was hot, red and featherless. Eleanor recovered from that mysterious disease (although the skin near her vent remained rough and red forever after.) For the last couple of years, I’ve said, “Eleanor isn’t going to last the winter,” but I was wrong, until this past week when I knew that she was done.

Eleanor was seven and a half years old and I have had her since she was a chick. She came here with Edwina, they were two Barred Rocks bought from a neighbor who had extra chicks in a Murray McMurray order. For years I didn’t like her much. Often, when Barred Rocks are in a mixed flock they are at the top of the pecking order, and these two were true to type. It’s very difficult to integrate new pullets into an established flock with Barred Rocks, and Eleanor and Edwina were ruthlessly aggressive. Nor were they particularly interested in people. I kept them around, even after their egg-laying days were done, because I didn’t have it in me to cull them. They were lucky that I had the room to leave them in the flock of older hens and ignore them.

But, they aged. They slowed down. They mellowed out. Eleanor became a peaceful, sunbathing, undemanding old lady. Her skin and scales on her legs sagged with age. I had to trim her toenails because she could no longer wear them down by scratching in the earth. I became fond of her. She had a steady gaze and a sensible manner. Every morning when I tossed the old hens a handful of hulled sunflower seeds, I watched to make sure that Eleanor was still eating. And she was, but as her light dead body tells me, not enough.

Eleanor did not suffer. At least I don’t think so (although I have no doubt that her body was riddled with tumors.) She was out and about until the end and although very, very slow, was still part of the flock.  She still roosted. She could still heft herself out of the coop’s pop door in the morning and go up the ramp at night. In the last two weeks I’d noticed her dozing in the sun, seemingly as if she had stopped mid-step. She hunched her body in a way that I’ve come to recognize is done by a hen at the end of her days. She was too old to baby, too old to extend her time by a week or a month. She looked content enough and she wouldn’t have liked the fuss. I left her alone. I’m sorry to see her go, but I am relieved. I’ve seen enough old hens suffer and I’ve had to make the difficult decision to euthanize too many times. Eleanor saved herself and me from that. She went on her own terms. Rather like how she lived her life.

Hen have about 8,500 feathers. After a year of hard use – dust baths, pecking, roosting, getting sun-baked and rained on – the feathers wear out and so chickens molt. Old feathers fall off and new ones grow in. Age, breed, health and laying history all determine how each hen experiences the molt. My very old hens, Twinkydink, Eleanor and Edwina, who between all of them laid one egg in the last two years, have yet to look unkempt. I know that they’re molting, as I see feathers on the coop floor, They will molt slowly and ever more slowly grow in a new coat. On the other hand, Betsy, who is five years old, looks rather like a dinosaur. Her glaring red eye completes what would be an excellent Halloween costume.

Young Garnet is experiencing her first molt, and it is the classic one that the books describe, what with the feathers on the wings going first. She’s a good layer and she’s young. Her entire coat of feathers looks loose. You can see bare spots and quills coming in.

The Speckled Sussex are also going through quick and easy molts. Agatha is already regrowing feathers on her head. They come in as short quills. I imagine it’s quite itchy.

But alas for Onyx! She’s lost her tail.

She is literally rudderless. Poor Onyx has lost all self-confidence and has been scurrying about, avoiding the other girls.

Jasper, too, has lost her butt feathers. Of course, she’s the one who hasn’t had much of a tail to start with, because the other hens pluck the long feathers out. (She lets them, and no blood is drawn.) I recently sprayed her with Blu-Kote to darken the skin purple. This reduces pecking. So, right now, she has a purple, bald bottom. Unlike Onyx, Jasper is not at all self-conscious.

Her rear end is all spiky, violet quills. I haven’t seen her being pecked at in ages, and It looks like Jasper is going to grow in a fully feathered tail. She’s going to be beautiful without a naked tail stump. Than again, that Blu-Kote doesn’t wear off. But, if any hen can handle the fashion-forward purple-plumed look, it’s Jasper!

Yesterday the foliage was at its best. This is what peak color looks like.

I did not use photoshop to enhance the color. Did I mention the cloudless perfectly blue sky? Stand under a maple tree and the sunlight streams in like stained glass.

Not all trees are blazing orange. Some are yellow.

The colors are so outrageous that a tree this red, with green highlights, looks subtle!

Trees aren’t the only plants changing color. Poison ivy is so prettily red that I worry that people who don’t  know better will pick it. Ferns are a subdued, soft ochre. Where once roses bloomed pink, there are now red rose hips.

The foliage fireworks aren’t going to last. Thunderstorms, rain and wind are predicted tonight. But the rose hips will remain for awhile longer. I’ve never made rose hip tea, have you? What about jelly? I’ve read about it, but never even tasted any. I’d like to try. Leave a comment and let me know what you do with rose hips.

The outside water got turned off two days ago. Around here if you think, “Oh, it’s lovely weather, there’s plenty of time to leave the convenient spigots on” what you’ll have are frozen and broken pipes and a very big repair bill. When the crew comes and blows out the lines, I know it’s time to prepare the coops for winter.

We do take a risk and leave the outside spigot next to the back door on until it’s freezing during the daytime. So, for now, I have a hose stretched out to the barn. That will be turned off by November, and all through the winter water has to be hauled from inside of the house to the coops. After years of doing that daily, it finally dawned on me that I could have a heated water tub in the barn. Now instead of carrying water daily (and getting sloshed in all sorts of weather) I fill it up once a week, and I pick a day when it’s not freezing rain or snowing! Yesterday I got the big tub and the goat’s heated water bucket down from the loft and gave them a good scrubbing.

Yesterday’s nice weather also prompted me to do another important pre-winter chore: wash the windows. Sunlight in the coop is essential for the hens’ health. It also encourages them to lay winter eggs. The windows were coated with barn dust and the light coming in was dull. I have to say that I don’t like washing windows. It’s a pain of a job. I didn’t worry about streaks, but I did what was necessary.

Now the hens will be able to sunbathe even during the worst that winter throws at us. I also took a broom to the cobwebs. Dust and cobwebs are reservoirs of disease. When chickens stay inside, their respiration and manure causes dampness in the coop. Cobwebs hold onto that, and the germs. A clean sweep before the bad weather hits is preventative medicine.

I also swept the storage area and cleaned up and corners that mice might want to hole up in. Mice eat chicken food and are also intermediary hosts of parasites. They’re cute, but I don’t want them sharing space with my hens.

The goats are ready for winter, too. They’ve grown their furry coats. They say that they need a layer of fat to stay warm and to please feed us animal crackers.

Don’t believe them! However, I will be giving them more hay at bedtime. For goats, digesting food acts as an internal heater, so going to sleep with full bellies keeps them toasty during cold winter nights.

If you are in the area, stop by the Chelmsford, MA Agway on Saturday at 11 am. I’ll be talking more about Preparing Your Flock For The Winter.