Every year I know it’s going to happen. The change of seasons. The trees change color. You’d think that I’d become blasé. I’m not.
Every year I’m gobsmacked by how spectacular fall in New England is.
Isn’t it wonderful to have an excuse to use that word? The colors are really and truly just like this.
Three days ago there was a torrential downpour and the trees shed leaves. Last night was the first serious frost. We’re now past peak. But fields still look like this.
Yep, gobsmacked.
It’s pumpkin season. Bins of pumpkins are overflowing outside of supermarkets.
In order to compete, farmstands show off spectacular mountains of pumpkins.
The selection gets crazier every year. Bumps, warts, odd colors and strange shapes galore!
There are big pumpkins. If you buy one, they’ll help you load it into your car. But, how do you carry it out? I know about this dilemma. One year I bought such a pumpkin for a party game – guess the weight of the pumpkin – we did a lot of guessing trying to lug it to the front yard!
Some pumpkins require a moving company to carry to your home.
Every year, I buy pumpkins for the hens.
This year, I bought one for the goats. It was an experiment. You never know with goats. They are very fussy eaters. (Yes! Their reputation for eating anything is far from the truth.)
It turns out that the goat boys love the rind, but not the innards. Which is great, because it’s the gloppy stuff that the chickens like the most. I’ll be tossing this pumpkin in with the chickens tomorrow, and buying a new pumpkin for the goats.
You can contribute to the fall pumpkin festival here at LIttle Pond Farm. Click here to buy the goats a pumpkin (via PayPal). Your support is much appreciated and helps to keep the cams up and running.
Treat the goats to a pumpkin!
This past week I have fielded questions from two readers about clear fluid coming out of their hens’ beaks.
Chickens do not vomit. Unlike humans, they don’t have the ability to upchuck the contents of upset stomachs. So, when you see fluids come out of your hen’s beak, something is very, very wrong. It might be that the chicken has a tumor, or an impaction, or a dead section of the intestinal tract that is blocking the passage of material, so that the only way out is up through the throat and mouth. If that’s the case then what is ejected is dark and vaguely food-like. Your hen might have sour crop, which is when the crop isn’t doing it’s job, and yeasty, sour-smelling liquids accumulate there. Your hen might have peritonitis, which is often caused by internal laying and a subsequent infection. Dark fluids fill up the body cavity, and when there’s nowhere else for them to go, they come out the beak. It’s awful. I’ve seen it here.
If the fluids coming out of the mouth are clear, then it is likely a case of ascites. This is a disease seen across the animal world. Humans can get it. Hypertension and liver damage cause fluid to accumulate in the body cavity. Chickens also get ascites. It is an economic liability in the commercial broiler world. The meat birds grow so fast that their organs can’t keep up. There’s a genetic component to this disease, specific to industrial agriculture, but ascites is also being seen in backyard chickens. There are some possible causes.
Chickens have lungs, but unlike ours, they are fixed in the thoracic cavity and are small and can’t expand. When the hen has oxygen demands that it can’t meet, ascites can occur. Poor ventilation and damp conditions with ammonia in the air can reduce the lung’s ability to function. Too many backyard coops are small, dank, and not well-ventilated. That can add to the ascites risk.
Liver damage can cause ascites. Cancer and tumors in older birds can impair liver function. A necropsy on my elderly hen Edwina showed a diseased liver, with the concurrent clear liquid in the body cavity. This was understandable to find in a nine-year old bird. But if your young (under two-years of age) hen shows signs of ascites, it might be because what you are feeding is harming the liver. Excessive scratch corn can cause fatty liver disease and possibly contribute to ascites.
There is some research that shows that stress, including rapid changes of temperature, can increase the ascites cases in a flock. This makes sense, since the disease is linked to blood pressure and overworked hearts.
So, what to do if your hen “vomits” clear liquid? Unfortunately, that will likely be the first sign that something is amiss, and by then the situation is severe. Do not isolate and bring inside. Your chicken needs fresh air and sunshine. If she is so ill that others are bullying her, separate to her own pen. Do rethink what you are feeding. If your ill hen is eating and drinking, leave her be. She might rebound. However, if after three days she is lethargic, and is not eating, she could starve to death. Please consider euthanizing her. This is the hard part of chicken keeping. You can’t always fix the problem.
A healthy Black Star hen.
This week, autumn foliage is at it’s best. Here in New England, the leaf peepers are driving erratically down our roads, ogling the colors. I’m one of them. Each year it’s breath-taking. Each year when it comes, it feels like a surprise and a gift.
We’re at that sweet spot when the oak trees have yet to turn brown. They’re still a deep green, which shows off the maples’ colors to their full orange effect.
But, don’t just look up. Look down.
The oak leaves aren’t falling yet, but the trees are dropping acorns. Squirrels and chipmunks are gleefully filling their mouths and scurrying about with this bonanza. Many other animals rely on acorns for sustenance. Bears. Maybe they’ll be so full that they’ll leave the coops alone.
Pine needles are dropping, too. Crisp air. The smell of pine. It’s nothing, nothing, like a scented candle.
I was an artsy kid in high school and took two classes daily. This was the late 70s. One of my teachers was a fiber artist. She lived in Greenwich Village and commuted to the suburbs to work. We made things out of jute. I clearly remember her saying how much more real natural materials and colors were. In her mind the natural world was muted. I never understood that. I saw this,
and this:
What is colorful in your world? I have many readers in Australia and Brazil. Do you see wild parrots? Back in high school I made a fiber hanging based on feathes from our pet lovebird – vibrant greens and yellow and reds (actually, rather like the colors in these photos) which shocked my teacher!
