This is Dodo, you’ve met him before, he’s in a close-up today because he has been img_0306recovering from frostbite for a number of weeks now. We’re quite worried about him because he seems to get better and then take a turn for the worse.  He does best in warmer weather, but our weather is still quite variable. The other night it got down to 26° and he was just miserable. According to the books we have, frostbite on the chicken’s comb is terribly painful for them. Frostbite can affect three main areas: feet, wattles and comb; the comb is the area most often suffering from frostbite.  This can happen from wind-chill and Roosters seem to succumb the most. They are often out patrolling the run, keeping an eye out for predators, and stay out even in the cold and wind. In this photo above, you can see Dodo is still showing some of the effects of frostbite: the black dots on his comb are spots of dead skin cells and you can see his once proud comb has flopped over.  His color is getting better, but he just can’t stand the cold at all at the moment. He is also quite listless and not eating well.fullsizerenderThe morning of the cold night, we found him on the floor, in the hay, not moving, with his head tucked under his wing just trying to keep his comb warm. When we picked him up, he was so light and cold; we could tell he hadn’t been eating much the day before.  We decided to bring him in the house and keep him in the cat carrier for observation. He perked up a bit and ate some, but just slept most of the day and said nothing. In an effort to help keep him warm and give him some company – we brought in his favorite lady, Maeve. We’ve read that chickens in isolation can get very depressed and then just give up. We don’t want to lose Dodo, so we’re trying to keep him warm and happy. The next morning, we set up the dog crate and moved Dodo and Maeve into that so they can have some more room. These are both small chickens, so they have quite a bit of room and we’re given them a variety of foods along with their regular crumble and grit. On Sunday, we were pretty sure Dodo wasn’t going to make it, but today it looks like he’s turned a corner in his recovery process and may be able to pull through. I took the photo above tonight, just prior to beginning to write this entry. Maeve is in the front giving me the “what are you doing?” look… Dodo is sleeping. We’re going to keep them inside until the weather warms up enough for him to survive the night in the coop.  If we get some nice warm days, we may put them outside for brief periods.  We’ll just have to play it by ear.  Until then…
As always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: Windy, windy, windy. Today was supposed to be the calm day, and the windy day is supposed to be tomorrow. Right. So the high was 61°, but with the windchill it felt much colder. Low tonight is supposed to be 45°.

Egg Report: We’ve been getting 4 to 5 eggs a day. Maeve has even given us an egg each day she’s been in the house! We get one green Easter Egg every other day. Waiting for the others to join whichever lady is ahead of her time.