Farewell Conchita, my Golden Girl

Conchita made a hasty departure. When I went out to feed the chickens that morning, she was still roosting. This was not a good sign, as she was the “jumping-est” hen I’ve ever had. She wasn’t the best at landing though, which is how she broke her leg last year. It cost her weight in gold to repair that leg, but here she was, still on her night perch, half way through the morning. I plucked her off the perch and set her on the ground. She collapsed, then struggled to stand up and hobbled off to sit in a mud puddle. I didn’t like the way things were going, so I set her up in the infirmary with food and water. When I checked on her a little later that afternoon, she had shockingly and suddenly passed.

Welcome to the Funny Farm! Adelita, front, Conchita behind, Bianca out of frame.

Conchita, Bianca, and Adelita were dumped hens found loitering outside a local feed store in December of 2015. A friend contacted me and brought them right over. I was delighted to see that they were Welsummers, and young healthy ones at that. I sequestered them in the infirmary while I set up the bully pen for them. Newcomers usually start out in the bully pen where they can get used to the Funny Farm flock without getting picked on.

Conchita checks out the bully pen. See her, in the back, other side of the fence?

I’m not projecting when I say that Dobby loved his hens. I was trying to take photos of them, but he was very excited about his new girls and posed with them behind him. I didn’t let him into the bully pen for fear of scaring the heck out of them their first day here. I liked to give them a day to learn he was benign, a big gentle doofus.

Not a safe roost, girls!

That night they decided to perch on the bully pen fence. Branches had once been piled loosely on top to discourage my Muscovy drake from jumping out and they were still a menacing barrier. The hens on top were very near the overhead wire roof, near enough for a raccoon to reach down or for an owl to crash into them. Plus they were in pole position to jump down on the not-bully-pen side of the fence at dawn.

Three hens in the infirmary, night watchman on duty.

One by one I snatched them off the wood pile and stashed them safely inside the infirmary. Dobby freshly marked the catch nets for me and then supervised the whole affair.

Primo roosting: Jello, Conchita, and Adelita, L-to-R. Conchita is trying to peek back at me, you can barely make out her beak underneath.

Eventually they got to know Dobby, the other hens, the goofy ducks, and settled in. Conchita selected a roosting perch near the middle of the barn, with Adelita next to her. That’s Jello on the right. In the photo above you can also see dear Lula, the handicapped hen, in the infirmary. Little Princess Blur is glowing back there, too. She kept Lula company and I set up a ramp so that she could come and go as she liked. Lula is the only hen Blur ever liked. Maybe her heart broke when Lula died, because after that she roosted alone, until very recently. She avoided all the other hens and spent her days out in the back yard with Dobby. With Conchita gone, teeny tiny Princess roosts next to Adelita, way at the teeny tiny left end of that roost in the photo above.

Musical Chairs, chicken style.

To mix things up, Conchita occasionally roosted on a different perch. That meant everyone had to move with her, and Bianca had to adjust. The Boss Hen does what she likes, even if it causes a ruckus.

My golden hen

She was a prolific layer, and true to her breed laid big chocolate brown eggs. She and Adelita laid more days than not, most of the year. Even at six years old, they were both contributing most of the eggs around here.

Pouffy about hens. Jello, Dobby, Conchita, Adelita, L-to-R.

When Jello died, Conchita became Dobby’s favorite hen. He loved to share birdseed with his hens who were responsible for most of Dobby’s snacktime pouffiness. He liked Conchita because she was naughty, too. Every morning, when I went out with lettuce and a plastic bag of kitchen scraps, as I struggled with the gate and Dobby and all the excitement of a new day, Conchita would leap at that bag of scraps and rip open the bottom, emptying enough out for an appetizer before I could properly distribute it. I still flinch at the gate though it is an orderly and eminently sober greeting these days.

One lucky hen

Then she broke her leg. That’s when she became golden. She had surgery to set and pin the leg.

After a month in my bathtub, I could recognize her cluck anywhere.

She moved inside to my big Jacuzzi tub, the indoor infirmary. Pain meds, antibiotics, and a cleanup twice a day. It was kinda fun to have her around and I was reluctant to move her back out.

 

The infirmary, in its intended use.

After the vet check-up when they took off her cast, I reluctantly moved her out to the infirmary so she could visit her flock. She appreciated the fresh air and conversation.

You’re not fat, Conchita. Don’t worry about it!

She went back to the vet for a second surgery, this time to take out the pin in her leg. Of course, the pain med and antibiotic routine began again.

She really liked the IKEA abacus.

This time, though, the surgical area around the stitches had to be cleaned and disinfected daily. Back indoors to the bathtub. This time I set her up with some toys. When she started perching up on the toy support at bedtime I knew she was going to be okay. She had broken her leg on August 19, 2017 and six veterinary visits later (including two surgeries), she finally had the stitches removed on October 12, 2017. She owed me some golden eggs.

 

Racing for the Garden Party treats. Conchita is the hen nearest to the camera. Her leg wasn’t quite straight, even after all that surgery.

She lived another year and regained her position as boss hen, gimpy leg and all. She took back her pole position on the night roosts. She laid another hundred eggs, minimum. And she kept jumping.

Conchita’s dust bowl.

When the swimming pool disappeared and the grass started to grow, she kept her favorite dust bath open for business. The eggs kept coming, but recently I noticed that some of the dark chocolate eggs had a subtle indentation in the shell. The eggs were groovy, but not in a good way. I didn’t even know if they were Adelita’s or Conchita’s until I saw my golden hen emerging from a nest with a newly laid, slightly dented egg.

Conchita’s eggs were dented like when you touch a hot chocolate chip cookie right out of the oven.

The day after I buried her, I noticed this egg in the infirmary. She had laid me one last “Thank You!” chocolate-but-not-golden dented egg before she checked out.

Angel’s fabulous blue egg, some dark brown Adelita eggs, tan eggs from Emmy Lou and Frieda, and a couple big old duck eggs underneath them all.

I have taken in three new hens in the past three months. One quickly became the new boss. Emmy Lou is friendly and smart and her takeover was uncontested. The two newer ones are mostly in the bully pen, gradually emerging. Coffee Bean and Angel are wreaking havoc with the roosting and the cackling at dusk is disconcerting. I need to ignore it and let them all work it out, but in fact I’m out there, dinner on the back burner, checking once or twice after they should all be settled for good. Then there is Samantha, who has been here for a year, died last week, but is recovering nicely. Dead as a doornail, I’m not kidding. Sounds like an upcoming daily drama to me.

Daily Drama 89 – About These Hens

Owning a home means I can have pet ducks. Any neighborhood that doesn’t allow chickens isn’t going to want me, either. I bought a couple used ducks right after I moved into my first little house in Seattle. Hens came soon after. Thirty-five years later I still have a yard full of poultry, but they’re rescues, now.

Welcome to Stacy’s Funny Farm!

Stacy’s Funny Farm is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization providing sanctuary for small homeless pets. We take in used pets and provide them with a home. We rarely adopt out because our pets are considered unadoptable. They have failed in previous placement or they are here by arrangement because the previous owners prefer to surrender to an organization where they can visit. In this way, we reduce the burden on other shelters by ensuring that the pets don’t end up there. We also work with other rescue organizations to take in their unadoptable pets when we have space.

Do we provide sanctuary for dogs and cats?

No and sometimes. We aren’t set up for dogs, and there are many other local organizations that specialize in dogs. Dogs are covered. There are also many local organizations that take in cats and re-home them. So, cats are pretty well covered, too. (I’ll tell you about my cats later.) Our specialty is pocket pets, rabbits, small cage birds, doves, pigeons, quail, hens, ducks, and the occasional turtle. Few sanctuaries accept the wide range of animals that we care for. We know our limits, though, and don’t take reptiles, parrots, or ferrets.

Yes, we do have working cats.

Our cats provide rat abatement in the aviary. They are feral stray cats from the Seattle Alley Cat Project. They are a non-profit TNR organization monitoring the feral cat population in the Seattle area. They place feral cats in homes, especially the kittens. Unfortunately, not all ferals adapt to the life of a house cat. Nor can they all be returned to feral colonies. I adopted my cats from their “Barn Kitty” program. Some are FIV+, others were returned to the organization after an unsuccessful adoption. They live outdoors in a secure area and the resident rats pack their bags and move along down the road

Where do the other pets come from?

We take unadoptable pets from other local agencies. We take surrenders from our veterinarian. We take old hens and ducks being offered up “for the soup pot.” We take hens from unsuccessful urban chicken projects. We take second-hand lab animals. We take in stray pets whose owners can’t be located. We inherit pets from cancer victims. We foster pets for people in transition who aren’t ready to surrender.

How many animals do we have?

We have between forty and fifty animals. This is a residential setting, and most of the animals are small. From the street, the sanctuary looks like an ordinary home. In fact, inside it looks like an ordinary home. The pets are housed generously and receive personal attention and occasional visitors. The neighbors are generally unaware of the animals.

Do we breed pets?

Most of the pets here in sanctuary are neutered. That is a fairly standard policy among pet shelters and is our way of ensuring that we don’t contribute to the homeless pet population. Having said that, birds are very sneaky and an occasional egg hatches. Those babies remain here unless a suitable home can be found for them.

What is an Ambassador animal?

The Founder has been taking in stray animals since 1975. After she acquired her pet capybara, Dobby, people started leaving donations. Dobby inspired her to organize as a tax exempt non-profit. The capybara was not a rescue animal, but his visitors and knack for publicity funded the upkeep for all of the sanctuary animals. Many rescues have ambassador animals to draw attention to the less flashy sanctuary pets. After we lost Dobby, we brought in Charlotte & Hamish, two rambunctious Shetland sheep, to serve as ambassadors. They came from a small hobby farm in Eastern Washington.

Are you hiring?

We are all volunteer, sorry. We do occasionally have volunteer positions open. We can accommodate high school students and offer community service credits toward graduation. Check with the community service coordinator at Shorecrest and Shorewood high schools. Or you can contact us here.

How else can I help?

Our primary fundraiser is our gift shop. We sell a variety of jewelry items including vintage pieces and some original designs. We also have wine charms and a few capybara themed items. 100% of the proceeds from the gift shop go to support the animals. You can support Stacy’s Funny Farm by shopping through Amazon Smile. Watch our videos on YouTube and google sends the ad revenue to us! There are DONATE buttons all over this website, too. Stacy’s Funny Farm is a §501(c)(3) organization. All donations are tax deductible.

Where are you located?

We are north of Seattle, Washington. We do not disclose our location because, unfortunately, people tend to drop off boxes of kittens if we do. Please feel free to contact us via email. We can answer many common care questions and have about thirty years experience securing chicken coops and designing aviaries and habitats. If you would like to visit, please contact us using the form on the visitor tab.

 

Daily Drama 76 – Snow at the Not-So-Funny Farm

Snow is beautiful, isn’t it? It was so fun to look out the front door and see bountiful snow: fluffy clean snow, looking like Crisco. It’s so quiet. I forgot about that part. You see, Seattle doesn’t get much snow. Not enough to justify snow plows or snow tires, so everybody takes the day off to enjoy the magnificence of it.

This was my front steps.

I got out my snow ruler: nine inches! (23cm) And started to watch the weather forecasts like a fiend. More snow? Freezing temperatures, too? Uh oh. I started to bring in the hummingbird feeders after dusk. Get up at dawn, throw on my flimsy robe, hang them back up, hummers buzzing at the empty hanger, as if to remind me where the feeder belongs.

My official snow ruler

The back yard wild mallards landed in the Crisco snow, rapidly sinking in up to their necks, trudging back up to the surface, flying back up to the roof. Over and over. So funny! I could be mean and toss their ration of cracked corn into the deep snow, but that would be wasteful.

View from the living room. You have to imagine the thunk! thunk! of the ducks landing on the roof.

They quickly learned that the wild bird buffet was being served on the deck, right outside the kitchen door, in dishes. They had the area trampled flat in no time. There are at least forty-two of them, after all. The original pair have been here daily for a dozen years, rain or shine.

Yes, in fact some of them do knock on the door.

Dobby would have been sequestered in the kitchen for two weeks by now. There’s still about six inches of snow on the ground. The bare patches are thawing and we’re supposed to have more rain before the temperatures drop again in a couple days and they start bragging about more snow. The Prince would have been perfectly miserable, cabin fever in spades. This is one of the many reasons why I am not considering getting another capybara. Our mild marine climate is no longer to be trusted.

The Graveyard at Stacy’s Funny Farm

The graveyard‘s colors are muted, and the sun can’t illuminate the gems hanging from the arbor. The snow is so pretty, even the Dove dome is a masterpiece. That snowball in the foreground is a “Dogloo” turned igloo. The pigeon loft is behind it, and this morning I decided to take the eggs away from Phoenix and Cor-ten. Birth control is so easy for birds, imagine if we could lay an egg and simply walk away from it! Today there was a tiny fuzzy face looking out at me. I was too late. So they have a baby and I guess congratulations are in order.

The dove cage has never looked prettier.

When the snow first falls, the cats test it. Curiosity satisfied, Kitty Hawk rejoins his smarter half in the barn. The hens are smart enough to hunker down in the barn until it goes away. The ducks and geese have fancy feet and don’t mind the cold.

Goose and cat. Kitty Hawk is some kind of fool.

Well, they don’t mind it too much. Norman isn’t looking particularly happy here. It complicates his job as flock manager.

Gentle Norman. He didn’t sign up for this.

Even when there is snow, the ducks and geese prefer to sleep under the stars. In the morning, I can see where each one slept by the thawed  dirt ovals they create with their downy blankets. They pull their feet up inside the feathers, tuck in their bills, and they’re good for the night. In the photo below, you can see two ducks sleeping on the ground, and to the left, two thawed ovals where their friends slept the night before.

Tony and Vinny, snoozing midday. They are in the middle of the photo.

In the photo below, you can see the aviary netting is starting to sag under the weight of the snow. Look at the top rail of the fence, straight and true. The roof netting should be uniformly higher than that top rail, but you can see a droop near the center of the photo.

Observing the aviary from the kitchen deck after the first onslaught of snow

From inside the aviary it looked like this. I tried to smack at the snow from below, to get it to drop off the netting, but it was so light and fluffy it wouldn’t fall through the big holes of the 2″ chicken wire. Seattle snow usually falls straight through to the ground. Only deep dry snow falling quickly onto the thin frozen wires will cause significant accumulation. Even so, our usual quick return to 40 degree weather melts it away.

Crisco everywhere: above, below, even on the vertical wire fence

We had deep fry dry snow, frozen temperatures, and frigid nights. Most of the hens sleep in the barn on heated pads. Adelita still prefers her roost, next to where Conchita and Jello used to sleep. The geese and ducks still preferred the frozen ground to the cozy barn.

Three fat hens, Eartha, Windy, and Frieda, have taken over the cat area, and I think they even snitch some cat food when I’m not looking.

Coffee Bean is a heavy old girl, and I lift her up to this cat carrier at night. Her friend, Angel, flies up to the top.

Samantha is in the infirmary (she has Lymphoma) but she is right next door to Angel, and I hear them chatting as I walk away.

Adelita dreams she is still roosting with her friends, but she’s all alone up there, now. In this old photo, Princess is still in the infirmary. She’s indoors in my bathroom now, of course.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we got a couple more inches of snow. The net is relaxing under the weight of it. The duck pond is frozen. Beyond the fence, wild mallards gather the troops, ready to beg for cracked corn as I pass by for inspection.

Beyond the pond and fence, wild mallards accumulate with the snow.

The heat lamps come out and the Muscovy ducks come in. They are a South American breed and not as hardy as my other domestics. Their feet and caruncle can get frostbite and they love the heat lamps. The shavings in the barn don’t seem to freeze as long as they are dry, but like a fool, I provide drinking water in the barn during freezing weather and the ducks take care of the “dry” problem. It’s still nicer than the pile-up of snow outside.

新年快樂

The perennial Chinese New Year’s decorations are suddenly timely. Last night the barn lights didn’t come on at dusk. D’oh! They are on a timer and we had a six hour power outage. They have probably been cycling on in the middle of the night for the past week.

Her drinking water never froze.

About a week before the storm, I brought this little dove into the barn. She wasn’t flying up to the perches, and so I fixed her up with a cage that has a perch on the ground. Usually a week or so of R&R perks them up, but I’m also glad she wasn’t in the big dome during the storm. She’s cooing to her buddies in the dome so they all know she’s okay.

We had more snow, and the sagging over the duck pond became more noticeable.

Then it rained and all the snow absorbed water like a sponge.

The seams in the netting ripped and it fell into the pond.

Then it froze into a bolus of twigs and ice.

After all the snow, everyone was excited to finally see rain. It is Seattle, after all. It rained all night. In the morning, I was surprised to see robins gaily hopping in and out of the aviary. They are too big to get through the aviary netting, so that meant they had found a hole. It turned out to be a hole the size of a Mack truck. Several of them, in fact.

Coffee Bean and Grover learned to share this heated carrier.

Meanwhile, everyone became used to moving into the barn every night. When I gave the signal, Norman would march everyone in. When the netting collapsed, I realized the cats would be able to walk right out, so I locked them into the smaller portion of the barn during the day. Norman’s non-flighted flock would be okay waddling around in the wrecked aviary during the day while we worked on repairs.

Doesn’t it kind of look like they are gathered around a campfire, telling ghost stories?

The Muscovies like to perch up high, and found the hen nest boxes. I think Bev is thinking about laying, because she has been getting in and knocking all the clean bedding out onto the ground.

Not only did the aviary netting seams rip open, each of the support posts poked a hole. The important central support was a tree that had died and was now rotten enough to splinter into several spongy logs. The central support cables tightly gripped the one remaining sound portion of the tree which was now dangling a few inches above the ground. We removed the other supports so that the netting would be easy to reach and repair.

It’s an eye test: can you see the pink flagging?

I built my first aviary in 1984 out of recycled fishing nets. Holes would rot out of it, unpredictably. The second one, in 1988, was smaller and I used Toprite aviary netting. Squirrels chewed it where it attached to the fence. I used sturdier Toprite for my third aviary, in 1991. It was an effective net, but the small holes clogged with snow quickly, necessitating hourly snow removal during the storms. A fallen fir tree once took the entire net out, ripping it to shreds. This 2001 aviary “roof” has a chew-proof stiff wire mesh edge with a 2″ chicken wire infill. For eighteen years, the snow has fallen through the netting, except where it is covered with twigs and autumn leaves. A yearly cleaning was all it took. Until Snowpocalypse.

No aviary repair kit is complete without a thousand zip ties.

I have a bartender on staff, and his job description is a moving target. I flagged all the holes with bright pink survey flagging. Where I could reach, we worked together to zip tie the holes. Then he went out the next day, like John Henry, and zipped the rest of those suckers right up. They didn’t have a chance.

Eye Test #2: Can you see the zip ties?

We put the supports back up, and Bob’s your uncle! Everything’s back to normal, and Norman can take a break. Sure, there’s still six inches of dirty ice encrusted compact snow on the ground, but I’m fairly certain it will go away. Someday.

Then I walked out to look at the still pretty clean snow in the front yard, and discovered that the core of my multi-trunked Flame Amur Maple had shattered. All of the branches have splayed out and collapsed to the ground as if a malevolent giant stomped on it. Oy vey, how is The Bartender going to fix that?

Miss Emmylou Harris, Those Memories of You

Miss Emmylou (Harris) came to us in June of 2018. She and Bonnie (Raitt) were the last remaining hens in a small, aging backyard flock. The night before Emmylou moved in, hen-sister Bonnie Raitt passed away. It was a good time to transition lonely Emmylou into a new home. The weather was pleasant, the aviary mud had dried into scratch-able dirt.

“Pecking order” is a very real activity in the henhouse, and introducing a new hen takes care and time. I isolated Emmylou in the “Bully Pen” where she could observe her new flock from the secure side of a sturdy fence. She had her own food, water, and shelter and adjusted quickly.

Emmylou was one of my prettiest hens. One of the most curious, too.

Her owner inquired after a couple days and I reported the following:

“Emmylou is very content. She’s enthusiastic about the treats and has found a nice place to roost in the barn*. She hasn’t yet had contact with my hens but they aren’t too concerned about her so I should be able to introduce them- supervised- soon. Usually, one of mine will take an interest in the newcomer and I’ll put them together so Emmylou will have an established friend. I’ll keep you posted. I’ll be writing a blog this week, and she’ll get a mention there. I’ll send a link when it’s published.”

*An isolated barn area, away from the main roosting area

While waiting for their turn at the treat dish, Conchita and Adelita check out the new hen on the far side of the bully pen fence.

Emmylou was an Orpington. My previous Orpingtons have been buff, a buttery yellow color, so I was surprised to welcome another “brown” hen to the flock. Still, she was a beautiful not-quite-brown hen, colors grading from yellow to gray. She had that friendly, confident Orpington personality, though, and was eager to explore the entire aviary.

Seven brown hens gather for treats. Emmylou was eager to join the club.

Emmylou was never intimidated by my flock. Norman is big and loud, but he is a sweet and gentle gander. He checked out the new hen and never challenged her entrance into his territory. My favorite introductory trick is to serve up the treats on both sides of the fence so they have to approach each other to eat as a flock. As I watch their interactions, I can usually spot a “friend” and will put the friend in the bully pen with the newcomer. Then when they enter the flock they have someone to show them around.

Emmylou pauses atop the bully pen as she jumps over.

Emmylou had her own idea. On about the third day, she hopped onto the fence and then over into the flock. Everyone ignored her, except for Conchita, my boss hen. Conchita had recovered from her broken leg and had reassumed her position at the top of the pecking order. They had a couple of quick tussles and Emmylou conceded. All the other hens were satisfied with Emmylou as Number Two hen. I have never seen a new hen adjust so quickly. She got along with everyone. It’s a good thing, because there was no way I could keep her from jumping over the bully pen fence.

Frieda shows Emmylou around the barn.

Emmylou checked out the food, water, and the best dust bath spots. She would hang out with one little group of hens, and then another. She was very active, one of my more athletic hens, for sure.

Every time I look at that ladder, now, I expect to see her on top of it. Maybe I could crochet a hen and put her up there for good.

Roosting is a prime indicator of pecking order. The boss hen takes the primo location and decides if she’ll share it. The three fat hens roost in a heap on top of an old cage, though Windy now prefers the ground. Conchita and her sister roosted on a branch hanging right smack dab in the middle of the barn. Newcomers Angel and Coffee Bean kicked out the cats and roost on/in their heated cat carrier. They’re not fools. Princess was “over there” until she came indoors. Samantha hunkers down on her heated pad, safely locked up in the infirmary. Miss Emmylou? She chose the tip top of the ladder above the three fat girls, a fantastic location overlooked by all. Emmylou was probably the only one able to get up there.

I didn’t accidentally write this post in the past tense. One day, Emmylou was dead. Not the “pretend dead” like Samantha, who was subsequently diagnosed with Lymphoma, but the final irreversible variety of dead. I was crushed, but there was nothing to be done. If there was something to see or do, I would have done it, but sometimes the Grim Reaper is swift and sure.

The Graveyard at Stacy’s Funny Farm