Meanwhile in chook town

Last week I took a chook to the vet. It was the first time I have done that and I felt a bit silly. In the past, our birds have only had conditions that they recovered from in time with a bit of rest and relaxation or minor treatment. Either that, or they have dropped dead for no apparent reason or been taken by birds of prey. When I called to book an appointment, the vet assistant asked if the chicken has a name. "Um, no," I said, so her vet record reads "Chicken Moore".

This hen has an injured leg. David spotted her hobbling badly while I was away for work and isolated her in the broody box in the shed. Sebastian the rooster was, shall we say, taking advantage of her relative immobility. In fact he may have been the cause of the injury in the first place. Apart from her leg, she was fine - eating, drinking, even laying eggs for the first few days we had her separated. And she is perhaps only nine months old, one of last year's batch of chicks. So I couldn't fix it and couldn't justify euthanasia, so decided to take her to the vet. At least we were able to rule out a broken leg. There is some kind of inflammation or calcification of the bone in her upper leg. I am now giving her some anti-inflammatory stuff and continued rest in the isolation box. We'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, we have locked Sebastian up in the chook yard to give the girls a break for while. One particularly stupid young brown hen is missing a lot of feathers on her back from... no easy way to say this... over-shagging. She falls for Sebastian's wily cockerel dance every time.

Our last bit of chicken news is that I have put 21 eggs in the incubator. While our little flock is a good size now, we thought hatching one batch of chicks this season might insure against future losses.