Even chickens get the blues

Bianca just wasn’t herself. She spent a lot of time in the nest box, but still came out in the morning for scratch grains. Therefore, she was not apparently broody. Her eyes looked sunken and she often kept her head close to her body. We ruled out wry neck because she was able to straighten her neck when she felt like it. She just seemed depressed. I suspected that the Black Star hens were pestering her, although her feathers looked fine. Simone, on the other hand, had a huge bare spot on her back. I guessed that Bianca stayed in the nest boxes so much because she was hiding from the meanies. Perhaps she would perk up if she had some time to herself.

Terry helped me move the little red hen barn and the enclosure to the orchard. Bianca could see her little friends but would be safe from pecking. She seemed to perk up. She ate and drank more. When evening fell, she became frantic, pacing around the enclosure as her companions went to the coop for the night. I suspected she would calm down after I shut the coop and left. I snuck back later, and she had gone to bed in the little red barn.

Bianca stayed in safety two days. We thought she might be lonely. I wondered if she and Simone would get along. It would be nice for Simone to have an opportunity to grow her feathers back. When I tried to put Simone in the enclosure, however, Bianca hopped right out. So much for rest and recuperation.

Simone stayed a few days. She wasn’t clever enough to figure out how to hop out. Every time I opened the enclosure to give her food or water, she cowered in the farthest corner. Her friends came to visit or perhaps to torment her. They certainly did poop on the top of the cage.

We briefly put Simone in confinement to try to let the feathers on her back grow back.

Hilda decided that Simone was lonesome all by herself, so we let her back with the rest. Maybe her feathers will grow back when the Black Stars go to freezer heaven in a few weeks.

Chicken psychoanalysis aside, we have been enjoying the bounty of summer. Jane and I have been getting boxes of peaches from the truck that brings them from Georgia. It’s a lot of peaches for a few people, but there are worse fates than eating juicy-ripe fresh peaches until you explode. I made peach cobbler with cream scones. Mmm, mmm.

Fresh peach cobbler with cream scones

Now that we’re in the harvest, we can begin the gallery of odd vegetable with this fine specimen, a carrot with four legs:

 

The four-legged carrot