Life with Chickens

After a cold, dark winter our 10 hens are out free-ranging again.  Unfortunately so are the predators.  Heidi took the dogs for a walk Monday (June 10) and came home to find feathers in the driveway and most of the hens missing.  Nine of them were under the house, leaving Buffy (the Buff Orpington) missing.  Back to the attack site, which was a mess of white and gray feathers, and just a few of Buffy's yellow ones.
Buffy was about 50 feet away under a tree, with fairly large open wound near the base of her neck.  It was off to the vet in a hurry!  Dr. Neville gave her some antibiotics and an optimistic outlook.  Back at home she could still walk, eat some bugs, and drink a little, she just looked pretty gory.
The next day, however, she was no longer eating, seemed to have trouble holding up her head, and was just getting more lethargic.  As she continued to decline, she got more trips to the vet, for subcutaneous fluid injections.  After coming home Thursday, she really seems like her neck is broken.  She's only drinking when water is placed in her beak with a syringe, and hasn't eaten at all since Monday.  The doctor thinks she has a sinus infection, so now she's getting a different antibiotic every 12 hours, injected into the breast muscle.  I start force-feeding her with a syringe, basically injecting food down the esophagus, as well as water.
Friday, she seems a tad stronger.  Her head is still hanging off to the side.  One eye is still always closed.  An important difference though, is that she will make an initial move herself to drink when presented with a capful of water.  She's not good at it (no real neck control) but the desire is finally back.  I feed her and water her a lot more.
Saturday morning - today.  She's more feisty at fighting back when I try to feed her or open her beak to take a little water.  I measured out how much water she's supposed to get according to the vet - about 5 ounces for the day.  That's about 50 syringes.  Yikes.  Thankfully that's just a goal; even 2/3 that would just about make up for normal fluid usage by the bird.  So it's about noon, she's had some water, a couple syringes of mashed wet food, and lots of sleep.  The snot seems to be clearing out of her nostrils.  Her head is still floppy, but she's making more efforts to stand up, stretch out her neck, and then getting scared because her head flops around, and she has no balance.

Hopefully she starts to show more marked improvement.  We've already done more for her than 99.9% of the population would.  I've been the butt of chicken jokes at work, and honestly I've been surprised that she's alive each morning since Tuesday.  If it weren't for my other half, this girl would have been culled and in the freezer Monday.  I'm not heartless or cruel, but the hen has been so close to death for most of the week, I still don't know if she'll pull through, and wonder at what point would it be kinder to end her suffering.  The increase in strength last night is giving me hope though.

Managing rental property from afar

This post is probably going to be something different from the normal posts to come. 

Anchorage, Alaska has around 300,000 people, living within a bowl surrounded by the Chugach mountains and Cook Inlet.  These natural features make it beautiful, but limit the living space.  I own a rental property in Anchorage. It's the house I lived in before moving to Fairbanks.

My house is small.  By today's standards, very small.  However, it is a single-family house, not an apartment, not a duplex, not a townhouse-style attached home, but a real, honest-to-goodness house, with a nice fenced backyard.  Thus, it commands a pretty nice rent for a two bedroom.  I allow pets on approval, so advertising on Craigslist has netted me around 12 responses during the first 24 hours.

All this is well and good, except that I don't live in Anchorage, and I don't care to pay 10% of my rental income (it would negate any "income" from renting) to a property management company.  So far, all of my tenants have been good, and have shown the house to prospective new tenants when they move out.  This time, however, I'm starting to feel the pressure of living 7 hours away, and trying to manage applications. I feel bad having the tenant schedule and perform viewings.  When the last couple moved out, I made a long-weekend trip down to clean, touch-up paint, etc.  I even managed to mow the lawn one last time in October, and snow was beginning as I finished up.  This time, it's March.  I don't want to drive down there in March.

I'd be interested to hear in the comments about other people's feelings on this.  Is landlording from 400 miles away reasonable?  At the moment I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it.

The Beginnings

The beginning... of the blog, that is.

I have been living, with my significant other, in a place we consider "just out of town."  Some folks say we're out in the boonies.  We moved here in 2008, and have carved out a little space in the forests north of Fairbanks, Alaska.  Granted, it's already 2012, but I'm finally going to attempt chronicling the adventures, successes, mishaps and experiments that take place on our 200 acres.

We originally attempted a website but continued to lose interest as other matters were far more important. Matters such as cutting firewood, insulating, shoveling, and working on the "road." While the projects were sometimes exciting then, now I feel I have more time to write about our activities.  This blog isn't intended to serve as a Facebook.  You're not going to see me writing every day, or posting an hourly status.

Prequel:
We've been living in a 16x20 cabin (stick frame, not log), about 17 miles north of Fairbanks, on 40 acres, that we recently expanded to 200 acres by acquiring an uninhabited homestead adjacent to us.  We moved here as our permanent home in September 2008.  Access is by trail, although we call it a road.  It's 4-wheel-drive friendly... ...usually.
There's the 16x20 cabin, a 12x20 firewood shed, a 10x8 storage shed, and now, a 32x48' below-grade heated garage.  I commute most weekdays.
Water is brought in a couple times per week in 6-gallon jugs.  You want running water?  Tip the tea kettle!
Lavatory facilities are a simple marine-style composting toilet.  Outhouses are cold and inconvenient in the middle of the night.
Power is by solar panels, battery bank, and generator.

So, come along as we try branching out.  I have a lot of projects that will be slow in happening, but should be fun, none-the-less.  There could be some chickens, wood gasification (convert wood to an engine fuel), wind power, and other experiments.

Where we are (link):
Fairbanks, Alaska