Abominable Snow Dog, Chicken Hospitals, and More

Sorry for the cliff-hanger, folks! Ever since the night of the missing bird, so much has happened. Where, oh where, to begin?!

Well, I can summarize the past several days with a cartoon. Imagine my livestock guardian-in-training Atlas as the Abominable Snow Man:

I know that he’s just a puppy, and I know that he just wants to play with them. However, his play results in serious chicken damage. Besides, “George” is a crummy name for a hen.

To catch you up, the prodigal hen DID return! Wednesday morning, when I went down to feed the critters, I was SO surprised to see her down in the lower part of the yard. Turns out she was INside the yard, but before I could get to her Atlas had started chasing her up the fence line. By the time I got back in the yard I couldn’t find her. Crazy.

After more searching, it turns out she had taken refuge in the doghouse. She looked like a mere shadow at the back corner. I woke Ryan up and had him come help me since he could actually climb in the dog house.

Got her out and separated her into a dog crate outside the yard to give her a chance to settle down and relax.

Whew!

Crisis averted. Or so I thought.

When we went out to check on the chickens at their bed time, I couldn’t find her. Finally, she was located under the dog house. (Jerry had let her back in while we were gone to my Mom’s in the afternoon thinking she looked ok.) We had to raise the dog house to get her out, and she was a mess! She had a good patch missing from her neck and her back feathers were seriously plucked.

I was in shock, and I had no idea what to do – in hindsight I should have been more prepared for chicken emergencies. So thankful for another “phone-a-friend”. Elaine talked me through it and I cleaned her up with some peroxide and got her into indoor hospital quarters in the garage. If she made it through the night, she would probably be ok.

That was a rough night. If I was struggling with my chicken-keeper credibility before, now I was really in a mess. I tried to run the next morning, but it just was a walk. I mentally couldn’t handle anything more. I had no idea whether I would go downstairs to a survivor or to having to figure out how to dispose of a dead chicken.

Well, she was alive! And when I cleaned her up I could see that she was truly healing like a champ. Amazing creatures, these!

Things get a little blurry after all the drama with Penelope (yes, in case you’re wondering, the way you get a name in this hen yard is to go through a major trauma and survive). Now we’re at Thursday I think. By the end of that day, I had one more in the infirmary – not as bad though. Just her back feathers plucked pretty good.

It turns out that Atlas was getting INTO the coop via the ramp door. We thought we had made it small enough, but clearly not. His curiosity seems to get the best of him when all of the new chickens are in there, and he goes in and drives them out. In the process of their clucking and fluttering to get away from him, his puppy play gene takes over the protector gene.

After another phone-a-friend to Heather, I decided to use the crate. When I couldn’t be down with a leash to directly supervise his time in the yard, Atlas was going to have to be in the crate. He was NOT happy about this, and when I put him in there Saturday morning he showed me that he can do an excellent imitation of a dog hung in a trap. Sorry dude, not working on me.

We are still crating for now, but he is getting some non-leash time when he can be supervised. Plus, Jerry measured his shoulders and reduced the coop door entry to the point that we are pretty sure he can’t get in now. The chickens did a double take when they got to the door, but they fit just fine.

I am looking very forward to his next little maturity spurt to match his physical growth. We are at 3 1/2 months and he is getting bigger every day!

This chicken thing is definitely turning out to be much more of a challenge than I ever dreamed. I imagine I got a little over-confident after Atlas was doing so well with the “old guard.” I underestimated the impact the new chickens would have on the dog. I was more worried about how they would interact with the other two.

As for that, imagine two cliques of high school girls that just tolerate being in the same general space. The red one from the old guard is pretty stingy about the feeder under the coop. If she is half way across the yard and notices one of the new hens eating there, she comes on a beeline up to the feeder and they run to some other place to scratch. Nothing violent, just asserting her place in the pecking order.

As we start a new week, I am hopeful that we will find a turning point so that Atlas can start having more freedom while the girls are out and about. I am grateful that the two hens seem to be well on the mend. They are very bedraggled, but they are alive. And perhaps someday they’ll give us eggs 🙂 With all of the chicken drama and a lot of extra curricular activities this past week, we struggled getting all of our school done. Grateful for the flexibility, but now it is time to start getting back on track. I am looking forward to a productive week!! Here are some more photos from the week’s adventures: