Well, a week after the chicken vote and the city is in the process of pulling permits together.
If you’re interested in getting your chicken permit, call Nashville’s Environmental Health Division at (615) 340-5653. You can add your name to the list and they will call you when the paperwork is ready to go.
My ladies are so excited!
I have a sixth sense about my chickens. I knew I had trouble when Josie didn’t come running when I called her. After tromping through the honeysuckle, I found her hiding in the underbrush, a newly-minted cyclops. It’s morbidly interesting, I’ve never had this problem with a chicken. Her eyeball seems to be completely gone, just a bloody lump. There are no other apparent injuries, so my best guess is that she got extremely unlucky and was pecked. The area of injury does not have any suspicious items, like barbed wire. If it was a raptor, I’d expect to see talon injuries. A mammal would have just ripped her apart. So, we’ll blame her sisters (aren’t you glad your sisters don’t play so rough?)
Josie is sitting in a large tupperware box at my feet. I am going to flush her socket with saline and hope for the best. She seems a bit perkier this am, so I’m hoping she’ll recover soon. Photos seems a little much a this point. Ironically, our daughter suffered an eye injury in the corresponding eye, but a day before. Fortunately her eyeball is still intact, but it’s quite a a shiner.
Once or twice a year, my birds decide to drop all their feathers and grow new ones. It’s molting time, and it’s messy. There are feathers everywhere, and the girls look a bit haggard. They also stop laying eggs during the molt, bummer! One way to help them move through the process a bit faster is to up the protein. Scatter a few handfuls of cat kibble in with their regular feed to help.
Anyway, the molt reminded me of last year’s family vacation to Jersey Shore. We visited a small zoo. It was strapped for resources, but they obviously cared about their animals and were working hard to make a nice environment for them. The most memorable animal? Not the lion (although his roar was awesome!). The honor didn’t go to an mpressive wild animal, it went to Henry, the rooster. Check this guy out:
Apparently I was not the only one taken aback by poor Henry. They had this sign posted on the fence around his pen:
These days I am especially happy to have my own group of healthy hens. Their lives are much different, much healthier and happier, than their sisters in factory farms. Still, it’s not a bad idea to be on alert to avoid a bout of Salmonella and it’s suite of symptoms: fever, bloody diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.
First step. Check your eggs to make sure you don’t have a bad batch. Read this page on the FDA site to learn how to identify the source of your eggs! If you’re not sure, toss them. Visit your local farmers market and buy happy eggs instead.
Ongoing Salmonella avoidance is not rocket science. Keep your eggs refrigerated. Don’t eat broken eggs, especially if they are covered in chicken poop. And cook them well – no raw egg a-la-Rocky. Here are some good resources for additional reading.