The Honest Courtesan

It’s a good thing I don’t get emotionally attached to poultry, because we haven’t had a good year for them.  I’m guessing it’s bird flu; we lost one of the red hens in July, then the turkey on the 1st, then one of the young white hens on the 10th.  They always go the same way: they’re extremely sluggish and keeping to themselves one day, then the next day I find them dead, away from the others and facing into a corner.  I am guessing the behavior is an instinctive one, designed by evolution to keep the disease from spreading to other members of the flock.  Once I discover the dead bird, I put on gloves and remove it immediately.  I am guessing they’re getting it from wild birds that land in the coop; I recently found a dead Steller’s jay not far from there.  So far it looks like isolated cases of infection rather than a full-blown poultry epidemic, but I’m keeping my eyes on them, and I sincerely hope we’ve seen the last of it because I really don’t want to have to deal with figuring out how to vaccinate them when the vaccine isn’t readily available in the US.