# A nice early gift from one of my girls



## Charmed (Aug 4, 2014)

Very pretty! Sometimes when the hens are having a hard molt, you might try giving them a small can of cat food to share once a day. The higher protein helps them feather back up quicker. Also, it is a great way to train them to come. Just like cats, when they hear the pop of that lid, they come running to you. Our hens used to jump up and down so much to try and get the cat food that we said they looked like popcorn.


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## Johanna (Jun 21, 2017)

What a pretty egg!

I hope to start over with chickens in the coming year. This time I'll hotwire the garden to keep out bears. It just never occurred to me that a bear would go after the chickens - we prepared for coyotes, bobcats, snakes, raccoons, etc. For the time being I'm having to buy eggs.

The hen who survived is doing well. The future vet student has done a miracle getting Henrietta's neck healed. She was missing 4-5 square inches of skin. How she got away from the bear is a mystery.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Charmed, not quite cat food, but I've been making them oatmeal laced with mealworms. Feather dropping has almost completely stopped and the two ameracaunas who seemed to do the heaviest drop have lovely new feathers already pretty well covering the formerly sparse spots (yes that heavy). I will keep the cat food idea in mind for the future when I want to get extra protein into them. They do come running on the sound of hearing me shake the bag of dried mealworms though.

Johanna I still am so sad with you over your birds, but glad to hear that Henrietta is a tough girl. I do hope you will be able to bear proof a nice new coop and run and get some nice youngsters. Would you get hatchlings and raise them up? It does make it easy to handle them when they imprint on you. My birds are all cold hardy breeds. I am really liking the personalities on the new breeds (blue splash marans and lavender orpingtons) and I also love my buff orpingtons. I was surprised that it wasn't the older of the orpingtons to lay the first egg. That older set of three is about 6 1/2 months old now. My first buff orpington started laying when she was about 5 1/2 months old.


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## galofpink (Mar 14, 2017)

That is a really pretty egg; love the colour and the speckles!


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## Charmed (Aug 4, 2014)

Our sizzles (silkie/frizzle cross) used to have such hard molts that they looked like black skinned versions of a plucked chicken. We felt so sorry for one, that we made her a sweater out of a cut up sock. And talk about cranky! Poor thing was miserable. She is the hen that we successfully "gave" chicks. I remember being so scared that we would find a chick massacre in the morning, but, nope, all three chicks were nestled under the tiny hen. Chickens bring such delight to a backyard "farm."


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Thankfully neither of the heavy molters ever had absolutely bald heads or the like since it has been chilly here. They are very entertaining and have been much more pet like than I anticipated they would be.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

*My first 2018 egg!*

One of the orpingtons (probably the older buff) laid an egg for the first time today. It is a bit on the small side for an orpington egg, but I was happy to get it nonetheless. Here it is in comparison to a maran egg (also small, but darker brown).


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