Chicken State of the State 2013

Chuck Up-Date ( vastly better than Date Up-Chuck).

Chuck, Cowfeathers Farm Blog faithful will recall is the little "chicken-duck" hatched out by a duck this fall. Which, yes, makes the duck Chuck's mother. Biological mom was evidently an Ameraucauna chicken judging by Chuck's physique, but Duck is definitely his Mom. He has learned how to preen like a duck from her, and we have had to teach him how to roost, as ducks do not. We are out of the woods as far as letting him out with duck unsupervised, because he's too big to drown now if duck decides to take him for a swim. And, as you may have surmised by now, Chuck the Chicken-Duck is a rooster! He has started to crow in a "my voice is changing" kind of way. Not really a cock-a-doodle-doo, it is more of a "Er Er Roooooooo!"
He and Duck still spend all their time together, and even though he is a little thing, the geese are curiously cautious of Chuck. Perhaps they are unsure of the chicken/duck status. Looks like a chicken, acts like a duck?
He is getting very pretty, mostly black with streaks of tawny red/brown feathering. In the past, our more hand-raised roosters have turned out to be terribly aggressive. I have discussed this with Chuck, and advised him to remain faithfully kind to his humans.

We have also gained a new hen. Victoria is her name. She is a deep black Australorp hen, and named after the famously black-clad Queen. She is the remaining hen from one of our graduated 4-H'ers who has gone to college, and her flock has been slowly reduced until Victoria was alone. Hens don't thrive alone. So, she has come to live at Cowfeathers. She is very sweet, enjoys being held when we go to the barn, and is an accomplished singer. She chortles and coos happily.

And, we lost Margaret last week. Margs was 9 years old, one of our senior hens. An Ameraucauna, she was an unassuming member of the flock. I noticed her listing to one side, and picked her up. She had an enormous baseball sized crop, as hard as a baseball too! I couldn't massage it into softness atall, atall. So, I put her in Chicken ICU, and slated her for crop surgery the next day. She went to work with me, and I could tell from her odor, she was very unwell. It turned out the enormous crop was all just a very dry abcess. I won't describe it further for those who are disinclined to hear about truly nasty medical conditions. In any case, I decided it was kindest to euthanize her, and she died quickly and peacefully. We are now reduced to Junior, Ebony, Imelda and Poppy from our original flock born in 2004.

The Chicken State of the State, end of 2013.