R.I.P

No pictures for today's post - I'll spare you the gory evidence that goes along with the very sad news I'm about to relate.  I went out tonight to check on the chickens and found my beloved Henrietta's pen full of feathers but no Henrietta.  I called to her optimistically thinking she might be hiding under the RV or tractor, but she didn't return my call with her usual soft clucks.  No answer was a good sign that I had no reason for optimism.

 

I eventually found her behind her coop and lifeless.  It appears that either a possum or,  more likely, a raccoon, pulled her through the fence and tore out her neck.   For those of you that have never kept chickens: they're silly creatures and, when faced with a threat, they will head for the corners of their enclosure.  In Henrietta's case, if she had just gone into her coop, she would have been safe.  But she made the fatal decision to "hide" behind her coop and between it and the fence, where the raccoon reached in and grabbed her.

 

I feel responsible for her death and feel terrible.  Before we moved the chicken coops for the solar project, we had plastic hardware cloth all the way around her pen and it had kept her safe for several years.  After the move, we had a lot of work to do, so we didn't replace it although it was on the to-do list.  If I had only just done it.....

 

Poor Henrietta had endured a lot during her short 3 and a half years.  I think she laid maybe 10 eggs over the course of her life, yet we nursed her and even had her living in the basement for a short time after she was bullied by the other chickens.  'Etta, as we lovingly called her, had clucked her way into our hearts by having such a big personality.  I am going to miss her following me around the yard, wanting to jump up on my knee, and the way she always clucked back to us when we talked to her.  I know she was just a chicken, but I swear she knew her name.

 

Rest in Peace, 'Etta.

A Nasty Winter So Far

Heavens!  Well, we haven't gotten all that ice and nastiness here, but we did get a dusting of snow a couple of days ago.   This is day 3 of me having the stomach flu (yeaaa...) and, with the temps dipping down to the low teens for over a week, I had to run out and check today to make sure Henrietta was doing OK out there all by herself.  The cold air hit me like a chair in the face.  Wow, is it cold!

J. set her up with a new "furnace" in her coop and we had wrapped most of the chain link with tarps, so she seems to be nice and toasty so far despite the weather.  Now if we could just get her to actually go in the coop by herself rather than roosting on top of it!  Poor J. has been reduced to duck-walking under the roof of the pen, grabbing her, and stuffing her, amid much protest and squawking, into the coop.  She must agree that it's nice in there, because she doesn't come out until morning.

As if having a patient to take care of wasn't enough, J. also has had to deal with the fact that our on-demand hot water heater blew its control board and it's not under warranty.  So we've been without hot water upstairs since yesterday.  I couldn't stand it any more and washed my hair in the kitchen sink downstairs.  That's something I haven't done in a loooonnnngggg time.  The new board should be here tomorrow and, hopefully, I will be back at work and come home to a nice hot shower.  *sigh*

Also, hopefully, I'll feel much better tomorrow and can get back on track with posting because I've got a ton to share about what we've been up to.  In the meantime, I did come across a funny photo on ICanHazCheezburger that I thought I would share.  I couldn't help but giggle when I saw this.

 What do you think?  Photoshop or not?

Henrietta's Little Secret

It seems there's always something happenin' around here and today was no different. After giving the girls' coop a nice Spring cleaning, I was tidying up the yard and realized that I hadn't heard or seen hide nor hair of Henrietta (or is it feather?)  Normally, she's out in her pen telling me all about her day or the latest gossip but she was nowhere to be seen.

I'll confess, all manner of dark thoughts crept into my head as I got closer to her house.  Did a racoon or possum get in?  Is she dead?  Oh, please, don't let it be.  I can't lose two birds in one week.

I can't quite make it out.  What IS that?

So I crept even closer and found her sitting just inside the house under her roost.  She wouldn't budge or "talk" to me when I called to her, which is odd for Henrietta.  I think she's the most talkative bird I've ever known - second only to Kermit, the official spokes-hen for the flock.

I finally got Henrietta moving by giving everyone some mealworms.  And that's when I discovered her dirty little secret.

That little stinker has started laying eggs again!  We had given up on her, as she hasn't laid since she was badly pecked back on March 29, 2012.  I guess she is feeling comfortable in her new house, because that little chicken was sitting on 12 eggs.   

This calls for a celebration!  Anybody have a recipe for mealworm cake?

A New House for Henrietta

I swear...the things we do for our pets!  We spent a beautiful day today (70 degrees!) setting up some new digs for Henrietta the Hen-Pecked Chicken.  (Read about her story here.)

It was finally time to move her out of the ramshackle pen that we built for her last May.  As J. put it, "it's looking a little dogpatch."  And that it was.  Of course, the RV and the tractor sitting in the yard may have added to that redneck-ish ambience.

Here's where Henrietta has lived for almost a year:

Yep, that's a dog house on stilts, folks.  Nothing to see here.  Move along...

That would be the aforesaid Henrietta on the right hurling insults at the bully Barred Rock in the henyard.  We had removed part of the floor to the doghouse and added the ramp for her to access the area underneath.  During the winter, we covered the whole thing with a tarp and added a heater.  I suspect that may be the reason why our electrical bill was so darn high.

Poor thing!  She basically used the ramp as a chute.  You could almost here the "TA DA!!!" as she hopped down from the doghouse, slid down the ramp chute and popped out on the ground, narrowly missing a swim in the water bowl.  I give her a consistently solid 8.3 for the landing.  That's my girl.

I snagged a nicey-priced 4' x 4' dog kennel at an auction a couple of weekends ago and, using the existing hen pen as one side of the enclosure, we were able to reconfigure it into a 5' x 10' enclosure for 'Etta.  It came with a sunshade, which will be nice on the hot summer days here in Missouri.

The nice thing about this new enclosure is that she has more space, even with placing her house on the ground.  And no more acrobatics trying to get into or out of her house.  Inside, we added fresh straw and a roost for her.  Note the quality feeder in that picture (an old milk jug).  I'd say this ought to be more acceptable to both fowl and neighbors.

We still need to finish the top and get some chicken wire around the bottom just in case the friendly raccoons that live in the sewer decide that they'd like to have some chicken dinner instead of dumpster diving. 

That's right...no need to get your eyes checked.  We have a raccoon family that lives in the sewer.  We see them come out of the storm drain and go prowling around at dusk.  I have to confess...the first time I saw them, I thought I'd had one beer too many.  But I suppose that's just another oddity that comes with living in downtown KC.

Apparently, we're not the only ones that have this problem.

Ah, well...I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Til next time....tood-a-loo!

 

Shared with this week's Clever Chicks blog hop.