chicken tales (and a name change)...

i gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a chicken today.


see this little ball o' fluff? i believe bagel is it's name, though this one may actually be cream cheese. only lucy knows for sure. poor little thing had quite a morning. lucy ran around with her this morning and evidently passed her off to hudson in search of another chick. bad idea. it's not that hudson can't hold the chicks, for the most part he's gentle. but 18-month old babies don't generally have very long attention spans, and i suppose after a minute or so he got bored and rushed off to do something else. with chicken in hand, of course. death grip around the neck grip, probably. i mean, he didn't want to drop her all together. just take her to the new and exciting activity he had planned.

i arrived on scene shortly after jeremy pried the unconscious chick out of hudson's hand. it's not good, said jeremy. clearly. poor thing was completely limp and not breathing. i had sincere doubts that anything could be done. but you know, it's always worth a shot and so that's how i found myself this morning, in the middle of my kitchen, administering teeny tiny breaths to cream cheese. or bagel. i didn't think of doing itty bitty chest compressions, but in walked my brother through the front door and he jumped right into the whole thing. talk about good timing.

really and truly, this happened. and wouldn't you know, that chick sprung (kind of slowly) back to life and is now fine. only time will tell about brain damage from lack of oxygen, but if you want my expert opinion, chickens aren't the brightest creatures on the farm.

i'm thinking that a name change is in order. sorry lucy, but from today on, the chicken formerly called bagel (or was it cream cheese?) shall very proudly carry the well-fitted name:

lucky.

little feathery things...

hello there. i'm digging out from beneath a downy pile of chick fuzz to report that easter happened. the bunny was good to lucy and hudson (who have been extra good themseleves) and brought 2 baby chicks for easter day. they were such a hit, this mama decided to add three more to the mix. which brings the new total up to a whopping thirteen: 5 babies (muffin, easter, bagel, cream cheese and chocolate chip), 5 old friends (peach, prudence, penny, pippen and foghorn), and 3 wild tree chickens (music, freddie and flyer). wow. i'm impressed that i can keep all of that straight--especially with a three year old on the naming committee.

the chicks are well and they are definitely what one might call handraised. the term lap chickens might be more appropriate. we are hoping that the two easter chickens are not roosters, since the easter bunny waited until the last minute and had to settle for chickens not checked for sex. i have got sincere doubts about the blondie in the second photo. only time will tell.





came home from a camping trip to find that two of the tree chickens have been hiding eggs in hopes of hatching them. without a rooster this is impossible, so with lucy's delight we collected a grand total of 22 eggs between two birds. these are small bantam birds that lay tiny little eggs which are mostly yolk. very fun for teeny tiny egg breakfasts. now if we could only convince the birds to come to the (safe) coop to sleep, instead of the trees.

peep, peep!