Last updated 05-07-2024
Mabel I
LInda’s and Noa’s landlord sells their rental in Eugene and their new rental doesn’t allow chickens. I offer to care for Mabel I until they have a future rental and can reclaim her. Mabel arrives in Portland at 10:30pm, late March 2017 with only a cage. We share people food for a few days because it is raining.
Needs feed, straw, and a companion so April 1, 2017 I walk to Dekum Street Backdoor for supplies and find a barred rock under a heat lamp. It had hatched February 24th, my birthday! Here we are, barred rock in box with straw and laying pellets back at my house.
Building coop – installing hardware cloth to a depth of 18″ below grade to foil potential digging under by raccoons.
Feasting on raspberries
Under the rosemary
Gertie and Mabel I June 2017, taken by a neighbor, used for my Reed College 50th reunion web page.
Feasting on tomatoes
9-10-2017, Mabel I was killed by a neighbor’s Husky that was not on a leash and that got over the 4′ fence on the north side of the free ranging area. That dog was subsequently rehomed with a rural relative of the owner outside Portland so no longer poses a threat.
With the loss of her companion, Gertie was too lonely to sleep on her perch in the coop so spent the winter sleeping nights in my bathroom sink.
Mabel II
Mabel II first meets Gertie, February 2018 – note Swiss chard planted for their enjoyment
First night with Mabel II – she rode on my shoulders from the coop to night inside house – definitely a person chicken, she had been hiding out indoors at Noa’s rental that didn’t allow chickens.
Then we watched a foreign film with Mabel II still on my shoulder and Gertie perched on my leg – no sibling rivalry!
Their favorite shady spot under the rosemary bush
Eating rosemary blossoms
Waiting to come in for the night
Perched on back porch railing
Gertie and the late Mabel queued up to lay eggs in the bathroom sink. They became indoor chickens during the winter.
The morning I left the gate between the bathroom and the kitchen ajar and they flew up on the counter to check out what I did with their eggs!
Raspberries for chickens and 48″ fence at west side of free ranging area
Sunday 6-10-2018 at 10:12 am, Mabel II lays an egg. She has become broody, but this particular morning she continues to breath through her mouth after she has laid her egg. At 12:12am she has a seizure and immediately becomes unresponsive. She had ingested RoundUp contaminated dirt at the back property line where the neighbor had oversprayed.
Gertie needs a new companion because this is her second loss and she doesn’t want me to be out of her sight for more than a few minutes fearing new losses.
New second fence at east side of free ranging area to protect against herbicide sprayed by neighbor along property line fence several days prior to Mabel II’s seizure.
5′ vertical bank and future retaining wall to protect chickens from dogs on north side of free ranging area. Also note garden dirt pile where I am blending in six, 3 cubic feet bags of Dekum Street Doorway soil amendment earlier this summer.
Fence at south boundary of free ranging area. Chestnut tree in bloom!
Lonely Gertie enjoying oats with raspberry treats with me
Marigold
Introduction of two new chickens to keep Gertie company Sunday, 6-24-2018
Dekum Street Doorway, where I had originally bought Gertie to keep my first Buff Orpington company April 1, 2017, is closing because gentrification has raised land prices and led to new development of housing leading to insecurity regarding being able to continue the lease of their current location. They had three chickens that needed to be rehomed. They had recently added a 6 year old barred rock to their 3 and 2 year olds. My barred rock, Gertie, had only had Buff Orpington companions and their Buff Orpington was familiar with the 6 year old barred rock, so there seemed a potential for a happy merging. I interviewed the chickens a day before picking them up to ascertain their pecking order because I was concerned about introducing two older chickens to my single one. As it turned out, the 6 year old was dominant, the Buff Orpington in the middle, and the little Mille Fleur d’Uccle bantam at the bottom of the order. The six year old was rehomed separately, and once that was taken care of, I picked up the other two.
Arriving home (that red in the straw is crushed raspberries that I had brought with me for them):
I opened the cage directly into the exercise yard and coop so this is Frenchie looking out at Gertie:
Gertie wonders why she doesn’t have access to HER own coop and exercise yard, but I wanted the new chickens to adjust first to their new coop and then later to adjust to Gertie.
Much later in the day I introduce Gertie to them inside the coop
Frenchie really likes the two levels and can both go up and down the ramp as well as fly up and down directly to the laying and perch area above. She was very active trying all combinations of ramp and flying, up, and down. Then she made herself a nest and in the morning there was her little bantam sized egg. Marigold had slept cuddled against her in the coop.
Frenchie’s passion for flying has continued outdoors. She quickly demonstrated that she can fly to the top rail of the 4 foot fencing of her exercise yard, fencing that clearly serves no purpose unless I added a roof.
Here is a low resolution picture of her from a movie late Monday afternoon where she is flying from branch to branch in the lilacs. The foliage is dense so this is quite an amazing feat to watch.
So far Gertie feels a little like the new girl in school trying to break into a clique of the established girls. There have been no fights, it is just that they spend their time together free ranging, tolerate Gertie joining them, but don’t bond with her yet.
Mabel III & Gertie II
April 30th, elderly Marigold died in the evening. She had been having seizures and falling off her perch when sleeping. Her life long younger companion, Frenchie, the Mille Fleur d’Uccle bantam has been grieving and following me around – now she has my attention!
May 10, 2021 I got Frenchie two new companions. They were 4-5 weeks old, so adapted to 70 degrees indoors and did not need a heat lamp. I chose one buff orpington and one barred rock and named them after their predecessors. When I was cleaning their cage, Mabel III flew out the top and landed on my shoulder. I pivoted to reach for my camera.
Mabel III and Gertie II are getting along well with each other and with me, but Gertie hasn’t warmed to them yet, first pretending they didn’t exist, then inspecting them and rejecting, then in another day of inspection showing them who was the boss. I need Frenchie to take a motherly interest in them before I can release them for free ranging. Then she can take them to safe places (coop or rosemary or lilac bushes) when crows warn of a hawk riding thermals above.
May 29, 2021, first day outdoors without a cage – will they fly over the fence? They seem to want to stick to something already familiar.
Next pictures are June 4, 2021.
Now they are grown. Mabel III laid her first egg September 12, 2021
Gertie II laid her first October 17, 2021.
Metal from a surplus Pong chair makes a quick sleeping perch above their sink. I have a plastic tray to catch their poop at night.
I’ve had to make the fence higher outdoors because they also like to perch on what was previously the top of their fence.
February 2024: After a new neighbor I haven’t met dispatched three police to do a welfare check because my back door was open, I decided to add a glass storm door with an obvious pet door. The chickens come in to lay their eggs and to eat.
Sometimes I have gotten other visitors, which will likely be less frequent with the smaller opening.
Frencie died late Saturday night 4-06-2024 at 12:33am – We buried her the next morning
Which is less stressful for the survivors: to have no explanation of what happened to a sibling and wonder if she will reappear at some later time, or to witness that she has died? The surviving chickens had never witnessed a death before. They were enjoying eating earth worms as I dug the hole. Then I brought the very lifeless Frenchie out to bury. Some nights still, Mabel III and Gertie lI look across from their evening perch over the bathroom sink to the the pipe over the shower that Frenchie used to perch on, so I know they have not forgotten her. She was the dominant chicken in spite of her bantam size. I raised Mabel III and Gertie II from 5 weeks old. They soon grew to many times her size without contesting her dominance.
Frenchie shared my home for the last 5 years, 9 months, and 2 weeks of her life – a little longer than any of my human partners (although I have known my first long term partner since January 1965 and we are still friends). Frenchie was an adult chicken before she was rehomed with me, perhaps already 5 years old. Introducing an adult chicken to an existing flock often precipitates violence that can be lethal. In this case I thought it was possible because she came with a buff orpington and had previously had a barred rock companion. My barred rock had just lost her buff orpington companion, so the introduction was successful. I am glad that Frenchie was able to spend all of her last years with me without having to adjust to a new home if I had died first.
I had notices some behavior changes back in February. First she stopped asserting her dominance. When I had installed a glass storm door with chicken door for them in late February, she, the previously most athletic chicken, seemed to have trouble using it.
3-26-2024, she left a little yellow poop in the bathroom sink. It looked like a thin paste of water and dry ground mustard.
The next day, 3-27-2024, she did not want to leave her perch over the shower. More yellow poop. I added a little vinegar to her water in case she had a bacterial infection 3-28-2024.
3-30-2024 was her last night over the shower where she had stood since the night of 3-26.
3-31-2024 I was concerned that she might fall, so I moved her to a tray on top of my washer in the kitchen.
4-01-2024 I noticed that she seemed blind when she sought to drink from a cup and missed the cup with her beak. Perhaps she had become blind some time in February which would explain her no longer asserting dominance and having difficult navigating the chicken door as well as not wanting to go outdoors where she would have been vulnerable to hawks she could not see.
4-02-2024 refusing food
4-03-2024 now refusing water too.
4-05-2024 she can no longer stand up. Before being too weak to stand, she developed an unusual posture of one leg in advance and one leg trailing instead of both legs together.
4-06-2024 clearly terminally ill since she was still pooping liquid yellow and neither eating, nor drinking. I spent the entire day and evening with her until she died a little after midnight in a spectacular seizure in which she spun around before becoming clearly deceased.
Besides appearing to have become blind, she never uttered a sound from 3-27-2024 when she started standing on her over the shower perch 24/7. She did appear to be aware of sound as she would turn towards me if I moved.
Before she became ill, she would not allow herself to be picked up. But when she needed my help, she would initiate interaction. In the next two pictures, she has an egg to lay. I am reading on my back steps and she needs my help to open the back door so she can go in to her egg laying nest. She has figured out how to get my attention! Chickens have very warm feet because they require good circulation for the nerves that allow them to balance on a tree limb at night while asleep.
June24-2019
Once ill and dependent on me she was totally cooperative. She did a good job of not standing in her poop, but with feathered feet, she twice let me pick her up and wash her feathered feet in the shower with a hose.
When she could no longer stand, she let me stroke her back – as much to comfort myself as to comfort her. She had not made out a medical directive, so I wondered if she would have liked assistance dying sooner once it was clear she would never recover. She did not appear to be conscious of pain, or was she just brave? I think she may have had a stroke leading to blindness followed by liver failure. No sign of lice, mites, or worms. Her yellow poop stopped having a strange smell after adding the vinegar to her water. Her two companions have remained healthy.