Clementine is the most beloved of the nursing home hens. So, when I got a call from Life Care telling me that she wasn’t looking well, I hurried over.

When I arrived late in the afternoon, Clementine was in an upright “penguin stance.” She was incapable of walking up the ramp and putting herself to bed. It was obvious that she was in distress. When a hen stands like that, she has something very, very wrong going on inside of her. I put her in a dog crate and brought her home. I set Clem down in my dark and warm laundry room. I didn’t fuss with her. Honestly, I thought that she was a goner. Usually, with a hen this ill, it is not a kindness to extend her life. I hoped that Clementine would pass peacefully overnight.

But the next morning, despite her extreme posture, Clementine was alive!

She was so upright that she was balancing using her tail feathers. I palpated her abdomen. As I expected, I could feel a large mass. Without actually looking inside (via autopsy after death) I couldn’t be 100% certain, – but I suspected that Clem was an internal layer, and that eggs had been dropping into her abdominal cavity, where they solidified. (Sometimes they remain liquid and become infected, but that feels like a water balloon, and Clem’s abdomen was hard.) I’ve have found such masses, doing autopsies, and know that the birds had lived with the solidified eggs for months if not years. Then again, Clem’s mass could be cancer. That I can’t treat, but if it was internal laying she had a slight chance of survival. This hen was very special to some special people. I set to it.

I laced her water with Duramycin, an antibiotic approved for poultry. If a hen is too weak to eat or drink on her own, I do not feed with a dropper. Not eating or drinking is a sure sign that the bird be allowed to die. Clementine showed that there was still life in her. She drank.

Sometimes hens take on that penguin stance because they have a diseased or blocked intestinal tract. They won’t (and shouldn’t) eat, and they can’t produce manure. Clem, however, was pooping. Another good sign was that there were bits of solids in the manure, and it wasn’t bright green or yellow (those colors indicate an active infection.)

Clementine’s keel bone stuck out sharply, which is another sign of an ill hen that hasn’t been eating or digesting food properly. I fed her scrambled egg and gave her rolled oats for treats. She ate with the appetite of a healthy hen. She was particularly delighted with spaghetti coated with olive oil.

Next, I gave Clementine a long, warm soak in epsom salts. If there were any impacted eggs in her reproductive tract, this would help to move them out. Epsom salts are also a revitalizing tonic. She didn’t excrete lash, but she did like the spa treatment.

Clem also liked the blow dry. She waddled up and sat on my lap. I believe that one reason that she was reviving was because this is a friendly hen. That’s why she is such a good therapy hen. Clem is calm and trusting.

Still, she was a very sick bird.

I don’t usually bring sick hens inside for any length of time. However, Clementine wasn’t part of my flock, and she was ill, so I didn’t want her in my coop. Also, temperatures were well below freezing. Not only did she need to be warm, but I didn’t want to go outside numerous times during the day! She stayed in my laundry room.

Over the next few days, I continued to give Clementine antibiotics in her water. I kept her calm. I monitored her manure production and food consumption – both improved, as did her stance.

Each day saw an improvement.

I trimmed off her tail feathers ruined by her penguin stance, but she no longer needed them to balance! Clementine was now walking in a more chicken-like way. She was able to peck. She started scratching the ground. She was even able to preen.

But, a hen kept indoors, and one that has been too weak to dust bathe does see an increase in the numbers of poultry lice crawling on her. She needed a dusting with louse powder.

It is not good to keep an ill, listless hen alive. One that can’t do normal chicken behavior, or eventually live in the coop as a full member of the flock, should not be kept going. I observed Clementine carefully. This was a hen on the rebound. I had never before been able to bring a hen back from such a severe case of (what I believe is) internal laying. Clementine continued to earn her stripes as a very special chicken, indeed.

I picked her up from the nursing home on a Thursday night, and a week later, on a Friday, I returned her to the flock. More about that in the next post.

This time of year I always have hard-cooked eggs in the fridge. I also often have a jar of Pickled Beets and Eggs at the ready in the refrigerator (recipe here.)

I came home from the supermarket with pecan-cranberry wheat rolls. I was hungry. In two minutes I made Pickled Beets and Eggs Egg Salad and had a gorgeous and yummy lunch.

This is how to make it: Mash up hard-cooked eggs and beet pickled eggs. Season with salt – I used my Citrus Seasoned Salt (recipe in The Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook.)  Stir in just enough mayonnaise to hold it all together. Absolutely beautiful Easy. Wholesome. My type of quick lunch.

It’s an epidemic. Every day I field email queries about it. People are resorting to pinning peepers on their birds, protecting them with aprons, isolating the culprits, and busting their food budgets by buying bags of leaf greens. But, nothing stops it. Few flocks have escaped this scourge of the winter doldrums. The hens are feather picking.

I’ve written about Feather Pecking before. If your hens have feather loss, read this FAQ. When hens lose their feathers due to one of their flock mates plucking them out, I call that feather picking. I’ve written about that here. What I’m going to write about today is when this behavior becomes the social norm.

Sometimes feather loss is due to a nutritional deficiency. The birds need roughage and calcium. Provide grit and oyster shell. There have been studies in industrial flocks that link aggression with lack of protein. If you’re overdoing the corn and bread treats, and your hens are filling up on kale and cabbage, this might be the case, but for most backyard flocks added protein doesn’t resolve the pecking. I’ve tried adding meat-based cat food and shelled sunflower seeds. The pecking continues.

Sometimes feather loss is due to one aggressive hen attacking another The feather pecking occurs along with other dramatic gestures, like pinning down the hapless lower status bird, and sometimes drawing blood. When this happens, isolating the aggressor can take care of the behavior.

But, sometimes feather picking is a learned social behavior. It starts in the fall when the hens molt. Loose feathers are a tease for hens, they like the flutter and movement. They pluck one out, eat it and like it. It doesn’t hurt the hen that has just been plucked. Preening and dust bathing are social behaviors, and this sort of feather picking fits right in with their hard-wired sociability. In the winter, when the ground is too hard to dust bathe, and there’s not a comfy warm and sunny place to do it in, the hens look for other ways to interact. Some hens seem to like to be the picked at hen, others like to do the pecking. Here you see Jasper offering her neck to Etheldred.

About a quarter of my hens have naked strips on their necks due to this sort of feather picking. Owly is practically bare, while Veronica’s throat is patchy.

None of them object to the behavior.

Some hens seem to truly enjoy having others pull at their feathers. Jasper has always, since her days as a chick, let the others pull out her tail feathers. I honestly don’t know why.

So, what to do? Often, with animals, you have to look not at your ideal (in this case the fluffy, fully-feathered flock) but what is healthy and normal for the birds. Jasper is not getting harmed. I see no blood or wounds. They are all eating, drinking, and busily going about their days. No one is hiding in a corner. I don’t see stressed hens, in fact, everyone is laying. Yesterday, each of the six Ladies laid eggs, as did six of the ten Gems.  I’m observant. If it escalates, I’l know. If a hen is harmed, I’ll know. But, I doubt it. It’s a bad habit that doesn’t seem to bother anyone but me.

I’ve made peace with the feather picking. I don’t think it will ever fully stop, bad habits rarely do. But, I’m ever hopeful that when the snow finally melts away and the hens have dirt to scratch and wallow it, bugs to find, and sunshine to bask in, that the feather picking will subside to a subtle quirk of just a few hens.

If you want to learn more about chicken keeping, and to see this feather picking in person, there are still a few spots in my workshop on April 5! Sign up here.

Today I get to announce the last stop on the Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook blog tour – at Lisa Steele’s Fresh Eggs Daily. Hop on over and enter for a chance to win my book.

Happy Springtime, everyone! Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox. Not that the official transition of the seasons meant much here. Snow is in the forecast for tonight. *Sigh* Please leave a cheerful, sunny, “the daffodils are up” sort of message for me here. Together we’ll loosen this long, long winter’s grip, at least in our imaginations!

My friends at Root Simple have are running a giveaway for The Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook. If you haven’t checked out Root Simple, do. They have a small yard in Los Angles, and make the most of it. Erik is a master baker, Kelly knows herbs, and they both have very interesting takes on life and how to live it.

They’ve posted my Zucchini and Mint Frittata recipe, so go take a look!