It’s chilly, sweater-weather today. We’re not getting many eggs, only four to five a day from our thirteen hens. Some are molting, losing their old feathers and growing a thick feather coat for the winter. Others are simply older, less productive hens. I didn’t sell any eggs this week at the town’s farmers’ market. I’m keeping them all for myself.

Hens need about fourteen hours of light to lay. We’ll be several hours shy of that in a month or two. I’ve heard that they don’t need much light – a small 15 watt bulb will do. Put it on a timer and it’s not going to take much electricity. Anyone out there have success with this?

What isn’t as widely known is that hens also need to be warm to lay. Multiple days below freezing and scratching around in icy ground convinces them to put all their energy into staying warm. (Hens are finicky, though- they also stop laying if it gets too hot in the summer.) I keep my hens healthy by giving them draft-free shelter and plenty of food in the winter. I’m not willing to put a heater in the barn. This is partly because I see the winter as a time of rest for the girls. Besides, I worry about the safety of a heater in the barn. Not to mention the expense – my barns aren’t exactly insulated! I don’t mind keeping non-laying hens. But I do miss their eggs and hate buying a dozen at the market.

What do you do? Also, I’m curious – anyone reading this from the South? How long do your hens stop laying over the winter?

Here’s the latest in bunny humor:

At dusk when the chickens are milling in and out of the coop, settling down, then deciding to come out for one last scratch, then going back in, then fussing over who roosts where, Candy, with studied nonchalance, hops up the ramp to the coop and parks herself sideways in the little doorway. No chickens can come in. No chickens can come back out. The girls are flustered. What to do? They cluck, they complain, they peer at the obstacle. Candy doesn’t move but her twitching nose gives her away. She is enjoying herself immensely. She loves causing a commotion among the hens. Finally, the rabbit gets bored and hops away. The chickens all hustle in to bed.

This, is of course, a classic harbinger of Autumn:

Sunflowers, too, speak of the end of summer:

But, here at Little Pond Farm, the surest sign of Fall is a scruffy, shedding, messy bunny. Candy is losing her summer coat and growing in her warm winter one. Doesn’t she look awful? She teases the chickens so that they’ll peck her and help her shed. But, after one mouthful of fur, they won’t do it again!

By the way, don’t her ears look better? The lotion from my vet really worked.

I love going into fancy gourmet shops, where there are a world of cheeses. I have a weakness for jars of fruit preserves, especially for ones filled with combinations, like nectarines and apricots, or anything with rhubarb. Many of these shops are tiny and the best have edited their selections to the most unique and beautiful products. I get the best ideas! Next year I will grow brussel sprouts and kale to use in floral arrangements!

But sometimes the goods are too precious and too expensive. Silly, really. Look what I saw today:

Six eggs, mostly from bantams, in a berry box lined with fresh green hay. Cute idea. But, $8.95? To give you a comparative price, I sell a half dozen eggs, all large, for $2.00. I’d be happy to throw in a handful of hay, too for free.

Astonishment and joking aside, I don’t like what these eggs are telling the consumers in that wealthy corner of Cambridge. That good eggs are a rare treat to be served only on special occasions? I’m glad I’ve got hens in my backyard. I eat two eggs for breakfast every morning. I’m feeling rather posh – that’s $3.00 worth of eggs without the toast!

Not quite two weeks ago, I noticed that Eleanor, the Barred Rock, was limping. Sometimes hens sprain a muscle jumping off roosts. I didn’t worry about her. But the next day she was moving even more stiffly, so I picked her up and examined her. This is what I saw:

Her bottom was red, swollen, hot and had feather loss. I immediately put her in an isolation stall to keep the other hens from pecking at the red skin, and so that I could treat her. Also, a chicken’s droppings are the best way to diagnose what is wrong. Keeping her separate allowed me to check if she was passing anything and how healthy it looked.

Next, was to come up with a diagnosis. She didn’t have a mite or lice infestation, and although the skin was raw, she wasn’t pooping. I concluded that there was an internal problem. I slathered a lot of vaseline on a finger and felt inside her vent. I couldn’t find a stuck egg, however, my examination didn’t rule out an egg broken somewhere in the duct work. Luckily, Eleanor didn’t have maggots like poor Perrie (see the August 1 blog.)

Possibilities were an impaction, a broken egg, or something like cancer. The advice from knowledgeable chicken keepers was “cull her.” But, Eleanor’s eyes were bright. She didn’t look in pain. I decided to do what I could.

I soaked her in a warm epsom salt bath. The red skin stayed red, which confirmed to me that this was an internal problem.

I started her on a 10-day course of baytril, a powerful antibiotic (I had the pill form, which gives a more accurate dose than dissolving antibiotics in water and hoping that a sick hen is drinking enough.) Pry open the beak, place the pill as far back as possible and tickle the neck to make the hen swallow. Easy!

I used a plunger syringe that comes with infant medications to pour two tablespoons of my good, expensive extra virgin olive oil down her throat (I’m sure that cheap olive oil would work – but I don’t have any in my pantry!)  The oil is to help move things along, just in case she was egg bound or impacted.

The next day, Eleanor wasn’t eating and looked a tad worse. Perhaps she’d eaten something toxic? Or toxins were building up because her tract was blocked? Was she getting dehydrated from lack of water? I mixed a teaspoon of epsom salts (the cure-all for toxins) in a half cup of children’s pedialyte (electrolytes.) Unfortunately, the only pedialyte that I could find at the store was cherry-flavored. Which, it turns out, is very sticky and if it gets on your skin turns it bright red for a day. Next time, I’ll use latex gloves! Anyway, using that plunger syringe, I poured this mixture down her throat. Not as easy as the pill. What a mess. It was a beautiful day, so I let Eleanor out in the yard to free-range with the other hens. She was thankful for a dust bath and grass to eat (also good for internal upsets and the roughage helps to unblock impactions.)

All of this was effective! Later that day, Eleanor passed a huge, normal-looking poo. I fed her freeze-dried meal worms that I had on hand for the bluebird feeders. They are very high in protein, and easy for her to digest.

She missed her best friend, Edwina, so although Eleanor still limped and her skin was still pink (though not bright red) I put her back in with the other hens. Later that day, there was an egg in the nesting box that looked unlike any egg I’ve ever seen. It was dark brown (and I don’t have dark-brown egg layers) and had raised black specks on the shell. Was this Eleanor’s? Had she passed her stuck egg? Was this egg stuck behind a broken egg that had caused internal damage and an infection?

Eleanor continues to limp a bit, but I do think she’s going to live.  It’s so nice to have a happy ending to one of these stories.