Turkey Tracks:  February 5, 2014

Snow Day and Diva Update

 

It’s snowing today.  Hard.

I’m glad and am enjoying a “snow day.”

The old  snow was grey and dirty, so it’s good to have a fresh, white coating of snow.

Diva Queenie has become very tame and very vocal.  Whenever she hears me coming, she sets up squawking at the top of her lungs as she tries to tell me things.

When Linda McKinney was here on Monday, Queenie “talked” at the top of her lungs the entire time.  Linda:  “That chicken has cabin fever.”

And she does…

She adores getting OUT of her box.

She is especially interested in the straw basket at the back door where I pile newspapers and my boots and gloves.  She gets in it and turns all around before hopping out.  She is also interested in some bowls and bits of pottery I have in an open set of shelves at the end of the counter.  She pecks them until she has them all ringing/singing/rattling and until I stop her.

Can you see what she has done to the INSIDE of the box?  And WHY?

This shredding of everything began about five days ago.   And, the constant turning over of her water and food dishes.

One answer is hidden in the layers of newspaper she has shredded and lies up next to the back, right-hand side of the box.

Here’s a better picture:

 

And here’s a picture against the other hens’ eggs–all but Rosie’s egg which is a BIG, dark brown egg:

 

This little white egg is Queenie’s first since…November?…I think.

She has now laid two more, each bigger than the last.

All the hens are laying again as the days are increasingly longer–up to 45 minutes more daylight now.

I thought long and hard about putting Queenie outside over the past few days when our temps were in the 30s and the other chickens were outside the coop.

But, our temps over the next few nights will dip to sub zero numbers, and Queenie will not be able to take more cold.  I don’t know if she will ever grow feathers on parts of her neck again.

Plus, the other chickens have not seen her in weeks, which means she will have to endure some pecking and meanness from them–which will not be good for her.  She still has one place on her neck that has a large, deep scab.  Best to let it heal fully before putting her out again.

If we get more days with warmer temps, I will let her get out in the yard, but will try to retrieve her at night.

Otherwise, Queenie and I will just have to cope with the fact that she is feeling so much better and wants OUT.