The chickens have lost the plot; one is broody and appears once a day to eat, drink and emit strange clucking sounds (that drive the dog demented) before disappearing back into her hidy hole in the barn for the next 23 hours. The oldest and matriarchal ‘Thing One’ has now just about run out of eggs,
she has access to all the egg building foods she needs, but she has simply run out of shell (HRT for chickens?) occasionally she lays us a ‘wind egg’ an egg with out a shell; I have been trying to photo one of these strange eggs for a while, but rarely do I find one intact; in an incontinent, old bird sort of way, she is not fussed where she drops them. I found this one one the barn floor, an egg with out a shell, just a membrane, its soft, squishy and translucent.
I tried to get a very arty back lit photograph to show you but failed dismally, when I clumsily broke the ‘egg’
But I hope you can see how delicate it was.
The other chucks are going into their annual moult, they have been looking scruffy for some time, and a new set of feathers is much needed, even way back, when there was snow on the ground, one of the white leg horns was not as white as she like to think she is. (notice the pink hue around her neck, that’s another story, that is yet un-blogged)
If it ever stops raining, I’ll bring you photographs of these disheveled birds.
August 22, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Like all us old birds, things start to deteriorate as time creeps up on us! Perhaps calcium is the chickens HRT?
August 22, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I love the snow photo!
August 23, 2008 at 10:44 am
Well I learn new things all the time, poor old chicken.
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