Years ago, a movie came out called "The Perfect Storm". I haven't seen it. Not my kind of movie. Most of the main characters die, apparently. But I guess the idea was that 3 weather systems came together in such a way as to generate a truly horrific storm, which did BAD things to ships out at sea.
Ok, so we are in the middle of a perfect chicken storm. Poor chickens. They were uprooted from their homes. They are sick. They are being fed weird food, in weird containers, and therefore haven't been eating well.
Yesterday we lost a 5th chicken. We are down to 19 chickens, 4 of which are a bit younger. The 15 that are almost a year old SHOULD be laying, but are not.
I guess it has been educational. Our previous 2 batches of chickens just ... laid eggs. The ladies we have are so stressed and messed up that they mostly are not laying. We got one egg today and had one a couple of days ago.
I thought that chickens that were the right age would just do their business, but this has been too much for them. We have taken steps to help them out. We're giving them antibiotics and vitamins in their water. We bought a tub that sits on the floor of the coop, and bought them some scratch food (a different kind of food) yesterday. So we are hoping that we won't lose more chickens, and that the ones that are alive will grow healthy and strong.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn't the end of the world. But it is frustrating...lots of extra work and care, five dead chickens, and very few eggs. Next time we're in the same situation, we'll wait until spring to get new chickens. I guess the weather changes and shorter days are another part of the "perfect storm."
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