Community, Intentionality
Lina Menard
Choosing Community (Again)

It’s been a couple of weeks now since we moved next door to my best friend from both college and grad school and her husband. The benefits of community have already been lovely - and quite tasty! Having my fairy godfamily help us unload our stuff the day we arrived and then join us for take out on the living room floor was just the beginning of our participation in this lovely reciprocal community.

Choosing Community (Again)
ADU, Travel, Community
Lina Menard
Maui, Hawaii

After A Week Long Send Off, My Round the World Trip kicked off with eight days in Maui visiting my sister Sarah who has split her time between Hawaii and Alaska for many years. What an epic way to start this adventure! There was mist falling when my sister greeted me at the Kahului airport on Maui a week ago, so she teased me about bringing the rain from the mainland. We headed straight for Paia where she presented me with a young coconut and a lei, accompanied by the chant for the gifting-of-a-lei.

Maui, Hawaii
Tiny House, Travel, Planning
Lina Menard
Lucky Penny Moves to Walla Walla

A number of circumstances collided recently to compel me to move the Lucky Penny to my property in Walla Walla where I have a ground bound small house called Valencia Cottage. So on Tuesday trusted tiny house movers Linh and Stephanie Pham helped me move the Lucky Penny safely from Portland to my place in Walla Walla.

Lucky Penny Moves to Walla Walla
Minimalism, Workshop
Lina Menard
Downsizing Tune Up

As I packed up recently in preparation to travel cross country in my Honda Fit, I did some downsizing… It was harder than it had been during my last couple of moves because this time I had more stuff. I’d been living in a bigger space…My apartment was a studio, but it was still about 6 times bigger than the Lucky Penny! I talked with several people about the experience and a handful of them said “oh my goodness, I need to do more of that!” So I’ve decided to offer a 6-week Downsizing Tune Up…

Downsizing Tune Up

hen

Henpecked

Ella in solitary confinement All the backyard chicken forum posts I read about introducing day old chicks to a broody hen provided suggestions for how to successfully get chicks to imprint on their mama and visa-versa. We did everything they suggested: putting the peeping chicks in the box next to the mama hen for a couple hours, sneaking them under her in the evening one-by-one, and removing the eggs she'd been sitting on. We made sure that their food, water, and heat lamp were ready and available and we tended to them each morning and evening. We were successful in April Fooling My Hen and watching the chicks has been one of the best parts of Springtime in the Tiny House.

Everything has gone exactly as the chicken forums described. Ella literally tucked her babies under her wings to keep them warm. It was fun to see them follow her around and jump on her back for a ride. She taught them to forage and she clucked to her the little fuzz balls to show them worms and bugs.

But none of the posts that told us how to introduce chicks to a hen said anything about it being common for a hen to reject her chicks at four to eight weeks old. Five weeks from the time we gave Ella her chicks she started laying eggs again. Two days later she started acting really agitated and pecking at her babies. I separated them while I did some research.

Here's a post I found:

"We had our top hen a Black Australorp go broody this spring... We finally decided to slip three 1 day old chicks under her at night.  It was a success and Precious was an excellent mama!  She protected them, taught them how to forage, and integrated them into the flock of 6 other 1 year old hens.  Then when they turned 4 weeks almost to the day, she cut them loose.  She started laying eggs and roosting with the flock.  She didn't want anything to do with them and even chased and pecked them.  Poor babies didn't know what was happening!"

chick's head pecked horribly by mama hen

It was a relief to know we weren't alone in experiencing this. But knowing it was normal for a mama hen to reject her chicks didn't make it any easier to see it happen. Ella didn't like being separated so we tried letting them be together part of the time, too. Unfortunately, Ella pecked two of them so brutally that I've separated them indefinitely. Two or three times a day I've been putting ointment on the babies that were pecked. They aren't healing as quickly as I'd like to see, but they seem to be doing fine. Ella seems to be fine in solitary confinement in her little makeshift chicken tractor, though I think she'll be happier once I figure out a next box situation for her. So far it seems to be working well, but it's a bit of a pain to tend to the hen and chicks separately. Hopefully when the chicks are big enough to fight back we can reintroduce them. Meanwhile I hope I can keep everyone healthy and happy. Wish us luck!