What a Day!

This morning, as I was making William's breakfast I happened to catch a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye - and lo and behold! What did I see? An escape artist!
Every morning, for the last several mornings, one of the California White's has been managing to get out of the chicken yard and have at it without competition with the cat's food. I can understand the motivation - but honestly, it can be a bit of a pain in the butt. Well, and then there's the fact that solo chicken running around the yard seems - well - more vulnerable.

So - I made oatmeal for the girls, and the minute I took it in to them - escapee wanted back in. Go figure! Yeah, I wasn't surprised, either.

So guess what! We had a GORGEOUS day today. It got up to nearly 60 degrees! Woo Hoo! SPRING WILL COME AGAIN! HALLELUJAH!

This is what Spring should look like:

And this...
and this...

and of course, this...

By the time the early afternoon rolled around, I decided it was time to let the girls out. Boy oh boy, where they happy to be out and about!

Caleb, hanging with the girls.

Pepper, running with her ball on a rope. She loves that toy!

And here's Angel. Looks fine - but well, seemed a little more skittish than normal today.

I'd been keeping an eye on the California Whites because for the last three mornings there have been some VERY large white eggs in the nest boxes - and they've had quite a bit of blood on them. Hmmm... I decided I had to get to the bottom of this!

As it happened, I noticed that Angel had a BLACK butt. Yes, my chicken pictured above - like she looked like someone had held her over an open flame and singed her fanny. So I determined that I needed to catch her and get a closer look.

Yeah. Right. Not so much.

Thankfully, not much time went by and Jessica arrived home from school. Have I mentioned that my daughter is chicken wrangle extraordinaire? If not - let me just say it here and now: the girl has a gift!

So Jess and I set out to corner and catch the not so interested in being handled AT ALL chicken. Amusing.

So - we finally did it! We caught Angel and I did a little exam. Once I got a closer look it seemed as if her butt were just CAKED - like seriously - with poo, mud, dust, and some blood. Yuck. I realized that this was going to take a concerted effort, so Jess and I worked as a team. She held Angel, I found a large bucket and filled it with nice warm water, and then we set to... yep, bathing the chicken.

It took about 20 minutes, but once I had her butt all cleaned up - it didn't take long for us to ascertain that something was more than just passingly not okay.

Warning: the pictures below are graphic! Like gross and ickey. Okay?


This, unfortunately, is a prolapsed vent. Darn it!

Poor Angel!

Anyway, eventually got her inito a second bath to make certain she was VERY clean (don't want any infection to set in!), I went ahead and attempted to gently push the vent back into it's appointed place! It stayed for about 10 minues, but then re-prolapsed. Darn it. I did get the Preparation H applied - and I'm hoping it helps her!

So - armed with excellent advice from older/wiser cihcken keepers, we're keeping Angel separated from the rest of the flock, we have her in a location where she can't hear the rest of life going on around her. It should be restful for her.

And we've also draped the crate she's in with blankets - to help keep her warm.

I think we've done all we can for her just now.

I'll keep you updated on Angel's progress.