Fowl NOT Foul - December 1999

By the start of December most of the chickens had got over their colds, apart from poor Uniross. Interestingly enough, the geese didn't seem to catch the cold which had spread around the flock of hens like wildfire. Poor little Uniross wasn't coping with her cold at all well. She'd had it for just over a week now, and she was more badly affected by it than any of the ther hens had been. Thoroughly miserable, she would sit hunched and fluffed in a sheltered place in the garden. She completely lost her appetite, and was thouroughly pathetic-looking and miserable. At some points, she had to breathe through her mouth, because both her nostrils were clogged up, and she couldn't unblock them no matter how hard she tried.

So Uniross was admitted to 'Hen Hospital', a cage in the bathroom, where I thought that the warmth and steaminess of the room would help poor Uniross breathe more easily. Occaisionally I'd give her steam inhalations of Eucalyptus Oil to open her airways more. The poor little bird was having a full heavy moult to cope with, as well as her bad cold. She was showing no interest in food at all, and was drinking only a little water. The only nutrition she was getting was from force-fed food and force-fed water with vitamin and probiotic supplements.

Little Uniross' weight had plummeted to only 1400 grammes on December 5th, where she was at a healthy 1775 grammes two weeks ago on 23rd November. She still wasn't interested in food, and was too weak to stand for more than a few minutes. Most of the time she would just lie on her side on the floor of the cage. She looked as though she was just waiting to die, and her eyes told me that, too. So we put Uniross out of her misery and gave her a diginified burial near her old friend Varta.

On 8th December I made an astonishing discovery in the garden. Behind the henhouse, hidden underneath an old piece of corrugated iron was a large nest filled with no less than twenty (20) eggs! Some of the hens had made a secret nest, and had been hiding and laying their eggs there.

Unfortunately, on 13th December another hen died. This time I was devastated to discover that it was Prunella, and her death was accidental. I discovered her drowned in the goosebath at chickens' bedtime. I was very upset, as Pruie had been around for a long time, and had built up a relationship with me. She had learnt her name, and would walk up to me and crouch to be picked up when called - she would even come and crouch to be lifted up when she hadn't been called. Once she had been picked up, she would completely relax, knowing that she was being held safely. When she was fed up of being held, she would look at me and cluck quietly, asking to be put back on the ground. She liked being taken on little tours, and especially enjoyed her trips to the Stroud LETS Allotment and the Post Box around the corner. I think she liked to be lifted up because she could see more of the world from higher up, so I buried her on the Common, where she had a good view of the surrounding area, and the places she enjoyed being taken on visits to.

On Tuesday 19th December we woke up to a white world - it was the first few inches of snow of winter. This was the first snow which the Professors Mendel, Darwin, Helm, Hawking and Freud, and the youngsters Ashley, Summer, Roaster, Flathead and Little Wing had experienced in their lives. The fowl didn't like it at all. When I let the chickens out, they refused to walk on the snow, preferring to stick to the band of brown sheltered earth running around their house. They wandered about on the bare earth for some time, clucking and crooning concernedly, and staring at the snow with blank looks of complete confusion on their faces. While they decided what to do, I went to let the geese out. When I opened their door they reacted in a similar way, but much more vocally. The geese expressed their concern by shouting as loudly as they could at the snow, so much so that Pseudo-Swan the gander seemed to be screaming at it - maybe he thought he could make it all go away if he made enough noise !


Above: The fowl nervously coming out of their house.	Above: The hens didn't want to walk on the snow at all. The boldest of the flock, at the top of the pecking order were the ones who ventured furthest first - Roadkill and Ever-Ready can just about be seen walking next to the fence which runs along the centre of the picture, with White Tara following.

The fowl hated the snow, and soon hunger helped them muster the courage to step on it. Even so, they kept to the more sheltered areas running along fences and the like, so that they could avoid treading on the cold deep snow as much as possible. They obviously hated the weather, as they acted sluggishly, standing fluffed under the shelters in their enclosure.The whole day was very cold, and the snow did not melt. Evening brought bitterly hard frosts, fixing the snow with a layer of ice like iron. On the following morning I discovered that one of the hens had laid an egg outside in the open during the day - which was now frozen solid, with a cracked shell caused by the expansion of the frozen yolk and white !

Left: The frozen egg, with a pile of snow frozen solidly to it.

As you can see, several inches of snow had fallen on it during the night.

When I let the fowl out, they seemed disappointed that the snow was still around, and continued to avoid it as much as they could. I was shocked to discover that Mendel and Hawking had discoloured and bleeding combs, and Duracell's comb had darkened at the tips. I was worried that they could be frostbitten, as during the night the temperature had fallen to minus 7 degrees Celsius. Immediately I brought them into the house, and consulted the newsgroup (sci.agriculture.poultry) for assistance. Luckily, the combs weren't frostbitten, but had come extremely close to it. To protect them, I covered their combs with Vaseline whenever a temperature was predicted to fall below 0 at night.

The extremely cold weather lasted for about a week, and before long the fowl woke up to a snow and ice free day. I let the geese out first, and they waddled out of their house as quickly as they could. As soon as they noticed the clear, thawed ground, they flapped their wings and honked loudly. While honking and flapping they jumped forwards repeatedly, bouncing down the slope in leaps and bounds - obviously so pleased that the snow had gone that they had to jump for joy!

The hens behaved in exactly the same way when I let them out, only much more quietly than the geese had. Even the normally sedate and prim Michael Caine Alan Partridge Brahma indulged in a bit of gleeful leaping into the air, flapping and running about..