RIP Tiny Hen

RIP Tiny Hen :( 

She died in her sleep this morning :-(  She didn't look poorly last night, just a bit tired with the heat. I think she may have been trying to lay an egg and just died. She looked very peaceful.

I am making a new flower bed full of bee attracting flowers and she (her ashes) has been buried in the middle of it.

Tiny Hen, small but top hen in every way. She was still terrorising the cats and trying to get into the house yesterday

 This is what she looked like back in March 2012

Tiny Hen became a house hen  this time last year, she became very weak and was being bullied by the others to the point of terror and had stopped eating or drinking. I brought her inside and gave her food, water, love and cuddles. Gradually she recovered and grew her feathers back and became a very feisty, bold little hen:)

Tiny Hen was rescued from an "Barn" system, so she  lived crowded together with thousands of other hens, under artificial light, inside a huge shed. Never seeing daylight or going outside. "Colony"  or "Enriched"  eggs mean the hens are also shut  inside a small cage, inside the huge shed.

If you do buy free range eggs already  - Babs, Bunty, Titch, and Marjoram the ex battery hen thank you from the bottom of their hearts , as do I.

If you don't - please - for the sake of hens like Babs, Bunty, Titch and all their sister hens still in barns and cages - switch to buying free range eggs - it is the only way to make sure that the eggs you buy come from hens that have had a reasonable life. 

Tiny Hen was very sweet, I loved her a lot and I am very sad that she has died, but I am very happy to have given her 15 months of freedom, love, friendship and sunshine.

RIP little hen, fly high and free.

Thank you for reading :-)

Tiny Hen update

She is fine :-)

Leaving hentensive care

Tiny Hen tonight chose to go in with her fellow hens to sleep in the Mega Hen pen. Am pleased she feels well enough to do this, but am a bit sad she is no longer my "House hen"

She spent a lot of her day, today, outside in the barn, sheltering from the torrential rain but with free access to the garden  and was mixing with the other hens without any problem.

She looks SO MUCH better for the four days in hentensive care :-)

At shutting in time she ran back and forth between me and the other hens in the run  not sure where to go I suspect - but eventually settled on being with them, as is right and proper. Hens are social creatures and she needs to be with her feathery sisters :-) 

Fingers crossed she is healed ...I gave her a few herbs as  remedies to eat and some aromatherapy oils gently massaged in while she was in my care inside, also a lot of simply holding and stroking and cuddling and loving.

Not sure which helped the most but frankly do not care as what ever it was I did, it seems to have saved her for now. I really thought she was going to die on my lap in the first few hours after I got her out of the Mega Hen pen on Thurs :-(

She laid a HUGE soft shelled egg on Thurs - and has laid nothing since. She was looking like she would die AFTER laying the soft egg, which was odd as usually hens experience relief after laying. She did not have an elevated temp, so no infection and she has not laid since then but does not look egg bound and I am hoping she will just go into a natural moult and shed/regrow feather and stop laying while she does so -

For the last four days I have been feeding her high protein food, I have  increased calcium in her feed  and she has eaten loads - I have also upped her corn/oat feed and dropped the layers pellet right off to hopefully promote a moult.

I suspect she was just getting so bullied, not eating properly, she is still bald and still trying to lay and it all got too much for her. Hopefully she will pick up but I WILL hoick her out back into hentensive care tomorrow if I think she is not progressing properly again.

Ho hum ex batts are sent to test our resourcefulness to deal with a crisis!!

Day three of Tiny hen in hentensive care

For the third day running, Tiny Hen followed me around outside, joined in with the other hens for a feed, followed me as I put them all in the hen runs at night - and then turned around and went back to the barn and climbed into the cat carrier she slept in, inside the house.

She sat there, crooning, until I shut the door and carried her inside, Then she started purring when I put her in the downstairs cloakroom, again, for the night.

I think she likes being a house hen :-)

A day with not much rain! So lots done in the garden.

Those of you who live in the UK will understand my title!

It had been raining here a lot lately. Unseasonably so. Torrential downpours and daytime temps of 10 C are NOT the norm for June in the Midlands. Having the woodburner lit at night is also not normal.

But today, finally, after 6 days of non stop rain - it stopped raining at lunchtime  and eventually the sun even came out!

My faithful henny shadow, Titch. she is missing her friend Tiny I think

I got so fed up with not getting on with outdoor stuff that I donned waterproofs and got working even though it WAS raining.

I put Tiny Hen into the Broody Ark so she could get some fresh air, eat some grass and generally chill out - because she followed me out of the house and down to the Ark, bless her! She looked a lot better this morning :-)




Cassi Cat standing guard over Tiny Hen


It rained in the morning, so I didn't take "before" pictures of the stuff I was doing - but after the rain stopped I took some " during" photos

Here is the composting area, in need of a lot of work.

Here is the Eglu and Compostman built run - all needs cleaning out and putting back together

So at first in the rain and then later on in the sunshine I got to work.

 A bit tidier, with Titch helping me !

I emptied and refilled all five of the compost bins in the picture - and spread the finished compost I extracted out on various beds.

 Eglu hooked back up to the run, cleaned out and re furnished. the run is re stocked with clean feeder and drinker, ready for the hens later on.




 


 3 Hen houses and runs all clean, sanitised and with clean feeders and drinkers. I love the smell of a clean hen house!

I ached all over after today's efforts, but I must admit I do feel better  for getting all that work done :-)

And Tiny hen helped put all the other hens to bed, and then followed me back to the barn and hopped into the Cat carrier, again - she obviously likes sleeping inside it in the house :-)

Update on Tiny Hen

She survived the night and was pleased to get breakfast this morning :-) More cat meat, some meal worms and some pellet porrage

She followed me outside and wandered around with me in the garden, and then went into the Broody Ark, so I shut her in there, with food and water,  for safety from the other hens.
 
 

She stayed inside the shelter bit, out of the rain, and came out to sit in the sunshine (when it briefly shone). At the end of the day I let her out to wander around with me, she spotted the cat carrier which she has been sleeping in, inside the house,



so jumped up into it :-)

 

I took the hint! So I took her back inside the house and she settled down to go to sleep.



Such a sweet little hen :-) Want her as a House hen :-)

A poorly Tiny Hen

Tiny Hen in the house as she is poorly :-( Hoping that being in the warm, with no bullying, getting some food, vitamins and drink down her will help matters.

 Tiny Hen is one of the barn caged birds I rescued at the end of April, along with Titch, Babs, Bunty and Ginger (RIP - fox attack )

Tiny and Titch were very bald and Tiny was also the smallest hen I have EVER seen.

Although she was quite ok at first, and laid some eggs, she is now looking a bit " hunched" and is not feathering up or putting on weight.She has laid a few soft shelled monster strange eggs as well.

She is also being chased around by some of the other hens and I suspect is not getting a fair share of the food, despite me putting one feeding station per hen, spread around the hen run so all the girls can eat at the same time.

Yesterday when I went out in the morning to check on all the girls she was just stood in the run, not moving, eyes closed, shivering :-(

So I picked her up and brought her inside the house. She had a box in the kitchen with food and water until bed time, but then went into the downstairs cloakroom for the night.
.

 WHAT a messy eater! can you see how she has spattered cat meat all over the place :-) I am just glad to see that she has perked up and is eating something.

Fingers crossed that Tiny Hen gets better - am hoping rest, quiet, no bullying and lots of feeding will help her get better - oh and love and cuddles from me :-)