Chicken Update for Courtney and Kelsey

In October HIZ students Courtney and Kelsey became the caregivers for the three orphan chicks that Cruella abandoned. They named them Harold, Larry, and Autumn and gave them lots of TLC. The photo shows them with Harold just before they left to go home. The chicks came back to us, and we gradually integrated them back into the coop with the others. For the first week, we kept them in their small pen at night and let them out in the yard during the day. These chicks were used to human company, and we had a challenge keeping them out of the house. They would just wander in the back door and make themselves at home.

After a week the chicks went into the big pen. At first the three of them huddled together away from the others, but gradually Autumn ventured away on her own part of the time. Larry also began spending more time with the other chickens. Harold semed to have the hardest time socializing and tended to stay with Larry or be on his own. Harold would always let me get close to him, and would even come over to the side of the pen and let me pet his head.

Sadly, a couple of weeks ago Autumn got sick and died suddenly, as did two other chickens in the pen. We quickly gave the rest of the flock some antibiotics to stop the spread of the disease.

Then last week Harold developed an eye problem. He has a severe infection in one eye and has probably lost his sight in that eye. He seems to be healthy otherwise, but we have him isolated in the small pen on the back porch so we can watch him carefully.

That leaves Larry as the only one still in the big pen. As you can from the photo above, Larry has grown quickly and seems to be doing great. And we think a name change is in order, because it sure looks like Larry is a Laura. We'll keep you posted.

So Courtney and Kelsey, I'm so sorry about losing Autumn and Harold's eye infection, but we're doing what we can. Thanks for being such good chicken farmers during your time here!