Pa in His Kerchief and I in My Cat

Hey, to those of you who have told me privately how much you like my blogs, Thank You!  I've been waiting for the next blog topic to come to me, but nothing other than the above title and a few other random thoughts are in my head lately.  The title comes from our current situation with mother cats, kittens and our master bedroom.  We have Trifle and her two kittens, Laverne and Shirley, and Cassie's Thanksgiving Litter of four.  Trifle is a bit stand-offish, but an incredible mother.  The kittens from her first litter with Bugger all turned out with very gregarious personalities, not at all like their mother's, so the breeding was repeated.  I trust that Laverne and Shirley will also be fearless, affectionate kitties.  I've blogged a few times before about Cassie, how she's my favorite and why.  Well, when I am sharing a room with Cassie, I love her so much that she is allowed to get away with things the other cats don't. 

Me with Cassie

Leaving the care of her kittens in the bathroom with Trifle, Cassie's nightly ritual is to curl herself around my head on my pillow.  After my turn is over, she does the same for Jay.  Jay is less enamored with this behavior than I am, even after I remind him that back in the olden days the bedrooms were so cold people had to wear night caps to bed for warmth, so perhaps Cassie thinks she's doing us a favor in keeping our heads warm.  Jay's hair is much thinner than mine so I'd think he'd appreciate the kitty cap more. 

Trifle and Cassie's Litters at 6 and 4 weeks old

Another habit Cassie has that is common in Maine Coons; curling up to sleep in the cool bathroom sink.  The sink contains her perfectly and gives her a mommy break from her demanding kittens.  Cassie seems to need a lot more breaks than Trifle does, but I've seen both mothers nursing all six kittens equally.  I've had water-obsessed cats before and they are frankly a pain when I am trying to brush my teeth and the cat gets in the way by trying to get water coming out of the faucet.  I usually lose patience with these cats and push them aside so I can brush and spit in peace.  With Cassie, however, I can't bring myself to get her out of the sink when she looks so pretty and peaceful sleeping there so I brush less often.   I should take charge, rouse her up and out of my way.  Instead, I think I'll put a toothbrush in the downstairs bathroom.

My Holiday Newletter

I emailed my annual newsletter to everyone who has a cat or kitten from me.  If you were supposed to get this and did not, please let me know so I can correct your email address in my contacts lists.  

Happy Holidays to the Dracoonfly Family!

As I resorted to last year, I’m emailing rather than snail mailing out my annual holiday card and newsletter to save on postage. I hope everyone and their cat family members have had another wonderful year. This is normally the time of year when I receive lots of photo updates from you all. It’s always a major feat if I get to post adult pictures of an entire litter. I try to be organized enough to get them up on the Pictures pages of the website under the names of your kitten’s mother, along with their baby picture so be sure to check there to see your cat. If you sent in a picture and I didn’t get your cat up, please remind me as I lose track of my emails more easily this time of year.

If you haven’t been reading my blog or stalking my site regularly, then you may not know how Dracoonfly has made the news this past year. I took Bugger and one of his son’s, Copper John (formerly known as “Boston”) to NECN this summer for an interview I did about Maine Coon cats. Here’s a link if you’d like to watch on your PC. Plus, Bugger’s modeling debut is finally out in print in the new Arm & Hammer Cat Litter ad as their new spokes cat “Spike”. So far, his ad has been sighted on the back cover of Cat Fancy, and in Health, Country Living and Family Circle magazines. Get your autographs now as Bugger will be retiring from breeding later in 2011 and become a regular pet, as soon as our new young studs, Downy and Bates, prove themselves. Bugger’s lion-like look will continue on with his many breeding offspring.

As a reminder, please be careful to cat and kitten-proof your house, especially during the holidays. One of our kitten buyers had a close call recently with her cat Ceilidh (pronounced “Kay-lay”, formerly Jennyanydots). Ceilidh swallowed a plastic fastener, like those used to attached price tags to clothing. The fastener cut through her intestinal wall, requiring major surgery and the removal of part of the intestine. Thank goodness her owners had pet insurance to help with the tremendous expense of Ceilidh’s surgery and she is recovering nicely. That being said, don’t be afraid to put up a tree if you celebrate Christmas. We cut our own every year and have only had it come down once (not the cats’ fault; it had a twisted trunk). Our breakable ornaments are hung at the top. Unlike in the attached Simon video, most Maine Coons aren’t really into climbing the tree, just knocking down ornaments and drinking the tree’s water.

Rather than my own photos, this year I’m attaching a couple of the Christmas pictures I’ve received recently from my kitten buyers.

Lady Antebellum



Killian

Have a wonderful holiday season and please give your kitties a hug from me.

Sharon

Thanksgiving Day Kittens

I knew Cassie could have kittens any day last week, with Day 63 of gestation falling on November 24th, Thanksgiving Eve. Historically, Cassie has been my least reliable breeder so the fact that she was even pregnant was momentous for me.  She is a cat that never seemed to cycle, but managed to go into heat when I sent her out to a friend's stud just to see if anything happened.  In the beginning, I would room her with Bugger, in case she was having silent heats, figuring he would be able to detect what I couldn't see or hear from a normal cat in heat.  Not all cats howl when in heat, but an experienced eye notices behaviors like increased vocalization, affection, and the tell-tale sign of her rear in the air, tail to the side (did you notice I used three different spellings of the same word in that sentence?).  If unsure, normally stroking her near the base of the tail brings forth the posturing known as lordosis behavior in which her back becomes concave.  This is kind of like the effect that high heels have on an upright mammal trying to look sexy.  A woman wears her FMP's*, looks good, her rear sticks out, she can't walk very fast and her feet hurt, but the men come a running just like a tom cat.

But I digress.  Normally I wouldn't keep a cat like Cassie in my breeding  program, but her personality and type (meaning a good physical example of the Maine Coon standard) are something I'd like to reproduce, especially her personality.  I've blogged before about Cassie and have declared from the time I got her that she would always stay with us, if not as a breeder, then as a pet.  She has only had one viable litter and Cassie is three-years-old.  In order to keep my numbers down, all other females who retire from breeding are placed in pet homes after being spayed.  Cassie is so demonstrative with her affection that she will jump from the floor into the arms of strangers, she reaches up to be picked up like a small child, she is just....special.   Her only fault is that she gets terribly carsick so her show career got cut short after I spent an hour cleaning poop out of her fur at a show.  Her other fault is that she has had a hard time conceiving kittens. 

This Thanksgiving, the kids were at their dad's house so Jay and I had invited friends over to celebrate.  We couldn't go anywhere because of Cassie's expected delivery.  I slept little the night before Thanksgiving, waking up every couple of hours to make sure Cassie wasn't in labor.  That morning, she acted like she was content to stay pregnant forever, ate breakfast and tried to sneak out of our bedroom several times.  Jay and I got busy cleaning and cooking.  An hour or so later, I came into our room to find Cassie and her newly delivered kitten on the rug. 

I yelled out the door to Jay, "We're having kittens!" so he'd know why I suddenly disappeared.  Of course I should thank Cassie for getting me out of the bulk of the cleaning as Jay finished it.  That's right ladies, my husband finished cleaning the house, changed the litter boxes and cooked the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes while I sat on the floor and waited for kittens. 

The first three kittens arrived quickly then labor seemed to stop.  She had looked like she was carrying five so I expected more.  I palpated Cassie's sides and felt at least one head.  After an hour, I suspected we may have a stillborn as a dead kitten doesn't release the natural oxytocin to stimulate contractions.  I gave Cassie a shot of oxytocin to help things along, something I'd never do unless a cat had already delivered a kitten so I knew her cervix was fully dilated.  Some breeders think that when it takes a kitten a long time to deliver and the result is a dead kitten that it was killed by the delay in the birth canal.  My vet explains it differently.  The birth canal is very short, shorter than the length of the kitten. The delay in birth is more likely caused by the lack of enough oxytocin necessary to produce strong contractions.  Obviously, all the kittens need to come out or the mother could develop an infection.  Sure enough, the fourth kitten was stillborn, its cause of death was gastroschism, an unfortunately occasional birth defect we see when the abdominal wall doesn't completely close up before birth. 

I still felt another hard head yet to be delivered and Cassie's contractions were sporadic and unproductive.  Fearing the worst, I gave her another shot of oxytocin after waiting 30 minutes.  Nothing.  Contractions every 5 minutes or so, but that's not frequent enough to produce a kitten.  Not wanting to push the man-made oxytocin, I decided to help Jay downstairs and revisit Cassie in another hour.  I considered calling my vet, but hesitated because I didn't want to disrupt her Thanksgiving preparation.  My guests were on their way and received regular play-by-play on the delivery.  They were hoping to watch the birth and the way things were going, they may just get that opportunity.  I should mention that my guests were also cat breeders and Cassie fans so they were naturally intrigued.  Only cat breeders and midwives can talk placentas and amniotic fluid while eating and not lose their appetites. 

After peeling the sweet potatoes and putting them into the Crockpot, I checked on Cassie.  Bingo!  She had just delivered another kitten on her own and she was a live squirmy little thing, born about 2 hours after the rest of her littermates.  Further palpatation revealed that Cassie was finished with the hard part.

Now that I knew we had four live babies, I could critique them.  Cassie is a ticked torbie, meaning she lacks the classic or mackeral stripes on her body like the traditional Maine Coon.  I'm not crazy about the ticked pattern, but it does look pretty on a silver or a red as the cats resemble a fox's coloring.  To me, most of the brown ticked tabbies look like mud.  Well, the whole litter is ticked.  With the exception of the blue ticked girl, their coloring is akin to watered down chocolate, like a Yoohoo chocolate drink.  As their coats come in, these kittens should be beautiful warm brown ticked tabbies.  See the Maine Coon Breeders and Fanciers site for examples of the ticked tabby Maine Coons in different colors.  My current plan is keep a female, ticked or not, so I at least have a Cassie daughter to carry on that winning personality. 

Thanksgiving Day Litter

Coming up with call names for a litter born on Thanksgiving Day, names like Pilgrim, Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan, John Smith, etc. were suggested.  However, most of them sounded masculine and I had 3 girls to name.  So I focused on the word "thanks" and my guests helped with the translation into various foreign languages; Spasibo (Russian) for the one male, Gracias (Spanish), Danke (German), and Merci (French) for the girls.  

Cassie Cleans Up Her New Kittens

*FMP - initials for F... Me Pumps

Cooperation (or Who's Going to Raise the Kittens?)

Many cat breeders will plan the birth of litters close together, just in case the mother of one litter needs help from the other mother.  Other breeders find this difficult to do if two females don't get along or they don't have the space.  When you read or watch news stories about how a mother dog or cat adopted a wild baby animal like a fox, skunk, squirrel, rabbit, etc, the reporters always express surprise that an animal would choose to nurse its natural enemy or prey.  The maternal instinct is incredibly strong and shouldn't be underestimated.  A crying baby calls to a new mother like no other, even to the point where my cats once came to the defense of one of my distraught baby chicks.

The first time I planned two litters together was for the simple reason of giving my stud male the confidence to breed.  I wrote about this in my blog "Cat Sex Therapy 101" Bugger was intimidated by Sassy because she'd bullied him as a youngster, but he grew up with Ginger and felt very comfortable with her.  I let Bugger build up his confidence with Ginger so that he felt "man enough" to breed a very willing Sassy two days later.  Eleven kittens resulted between the two of them and after a few growls and hisses, the two moms agreed to combine litters for space reasons.  Since Ginger had seven kittens and Sassy had four, I figured it would help Ginger's kittens to have a foster mom and even out the load. 

Sassy and Ginger with Their Combined Litter of Eleven

The most likely time a kitten will need a foster mom will be when it is a singleton, an only child.  It is not uncommon for the mother of one kitten to feel disconnected from her offspring.  One theory is a single kitten does not trigger the same hormonal release a normal sized litter does so the new mom goes into heat again very quickly, her body telling her to move on and get pregnant.  Also, since cats are designed to have multiple births, she instinctively feels like the kitten won't survive anyway.  If no other lactating queen with similar aged kittens is available, the breeder is left with bottle feeding and filling in for the mother, often with a decreased survival rate.

My black tortie, Amy, started out with 3 singleton litters in a row.  She went into heat by the time each kitten was two weeks old and Amy was ready to move on.  Luckily, each time I had another litter arrive a week before or after Amy's so she had another queen to take on her mothering duties.   The most memorable combination of litters was between Amy and Boom Boom.  The two queens couldn't look more different physically; Amy a small, dark, busy cat and Boom Boom, the largest breeding female I've had, 16-pounds, long, beautiful coat, somewhat shy.  Boom Boom delivered first as I recall and a pregnant Amy jumped right in to assist with the birth.  Initially, I found Amy's interference a nuisance, but I noticed that Boom Boom really didn't mind the help.  Amy cleaned up the kittens and Boom Boom.  All Boom Boom had to do was push.  They made a beautiful working team.  Later the two were very happy to nurse each other's kittens. 

Boom Boom and Amy - a Terrific Team

My cats have also fostered other breeders' litters, sometimes a singleton, sometimes an entire litter if the mother was sick.  Most were from fellow Maine Coon breeders who needed a lactating queen.  The funniest of these was when we took on a completely different breed, a sable Burmese from my friend Priscilla.  He was a singleton, his mother had lost interest in him and he was failing.  I warned Priscilla that I wasn't sure if I could save him since he had no suckle reflex anymore.  Ginger had a litter of 3 red males at home who were two days older than the Burmese.  The Burmese is one of the smaller breeds of cats, so you can imagine how a week-old kitten looks.  I called him Mouse.  When I first introduced Mouse to Ginger, I held him carefully, not sure how she'd react to a such a different-looking kitten.  She sniffed him and looked confused.  Then Mouse cried a little kitten meow. "Oh! It's a kitten!" Ginger immediately started licking the little guy.  Mouse thrived with Ginger's care.  She seemed to know he needed extra attention and kept his whiskers trimmed down to his muzzle, the way the Burmese do.  If Mouse cried, Ginger came running. He was louder than his Maine Coon brothers and developed more slowly, but he played just as rough and developed into a very confident Burmese cat.  Ginger and I were heralded as Mouse's saviors that year and I made lots of friends in the Burmese world as the word spread of Mouse and Maines.

Mouse the Burmese with His Maine Coon Brothers

Our current litter combo was one initiated by the mother cat.  Olivia had her litter of five in the cat cage in our bedroom since that offers more space.  I like to keep the cage door open so the moms can use the litter box in our bathroom, further away from my senses at night.  Trifle's litter of two were in the basket in my bathroom, two weeks younger.  Last week, I found Trifle in the cage, happily nursing Olivia's kittens while Olivia stood by looking perplexed.  The two litters are combined now and the mothers tag-team most of the time, with Trifle happy to carrying most of the load and Olivia glad to let her.

Trifle and Olivia et al

Cat Peeves

I've been reminded recently of those cat breeders who are less than desirable from a kitten buyer's perspective. A frequent complaint I hear from kitten seekers is outdated websites and failure to reply to kitten inquiries. However, few things get under my craw more than getting a phone call from a future or current Maine Coon owner who has had a negative encounter with a fellow breeder. While I can't name names, I often counsel prospective kitten buyers on what questions they should ask a breeder if I don't have a kitten for them. 

On the top of my cat peeve list are Maine Coon breeders who don't screen their breeding cats' hearts by ultrasound (or sonogram or echo-cardiogram, same thing). One upset person I spoke to referred to the breeder she'd gotten her kitten from as having cats that were "drop dead gorgeous", emphasis on the first two words. Maine Coon cats are certainly not the only cat to be subject to heart disease, but since we were the first breed that became part of a research project studying the heritability of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in cats, we are often associated with the disease. Read more about HCM here. HCM affects many cats, pedigreed and not. It does seem to be hereditary, which is why responsible cat breeders (notice I didn't limit my statement to Maine Coon breeders) will have the hearts of their breeding cats echoed on a regular basis (one echo at a year of age isn't enough) to try to eliminate the disease from their lines. Copies of the echoes should be provided to the kitten buyer if requested.

A DNA test came out a few years ago which identifies one of the mutations (called cMyBP-C) responsible for HCM in the Maine Coon. A similar DNA test is also available specific to the Ragdoll breed. More such tests could become the norm if research funds were there. A cat who has been tested as homozygous negative (N/N) will not develop HCM from that particular mutation, nor will its offspring if it has been bred to a homozygous negative cat. It's a nice predictor, however, a DNA negative cat can still get HCM from other genetic mutations which don't have a reliable test yet. If you keep in mind that humans have over 1000 such mutation possibilities for heart disease, you see just how complex this can be.

Therefore, ultrasound performed by a board certified cardiologist familiar with Maine Coons is still the best screening device we have. Better yet is getting a kitten not only from recently echoed parents, but who also has several screened cats behind its pedigree. Still, it's no guarantee. Heart disease is complicated, but responsible breeders do the best they can with the information available and stand behind the kittens they sell. The worst phone call a breeder gets is the one from a buyer telling them the kitten they sold died at an early age. It's news we don't like to hear, but that we need to know for future generations. While HCM in an older cat isn't desirable, many factors play into the health of a geriatric feline so we focus on HCM in the young cats.

Excuses and claims I've heard from certain Maine Coon breeders regarding HCM:

• Don't believe it's a valid test
• Can't afford to test
• It's not in my lines
• All of our kittens have their hearts checked by our veterinarian (a vet listening to a kitten's heart does not qualify as HCM screening, it just detects heart murmurs)
• All our cats are DNA negative, therefore they will never get HCM (see above explanations on DNA testing)
• No matter what you've heard, none of our cats have ever died of HCM (and if you say otherwise we will sue you in court)
• The cardiologist told me that my cats' hearts were so perfect that I shouldn't waste my money by continuing to test them. 

Other areas in which potential kitten buyers may need to beware:

• Cats and kittens in the U.S. should be registered in one or more of the major cat associations such as CFA, TICA, CFF or ACFA. Beware of non-legit cat registries that only require photos of the cat to determine its breed.
• Breeders who don't allow kitten buyers to visit the kittens in their home, but want to meet the buyer offsite or ship instead.
• Breeders that seem to have a hard time selling their kittens while still actively breeding their cats. "We couldn't sell these kittens, so we just kept them." The Maine Coon is a very popular breed so there's little excuse in the United States for having a litter of four or five-month-old kittens hanging around. Exception: breeders may keep a couple of kittens to see how they develop or show in order to decide which one(s) stays with them.
• Breeders who say negative things about other breeders and their cats. 
• Breeders who contractually require you feed a certain diet to your kitten, sometimes to their own personal benefit (i.e. ordering a cat food online from which they will receive a cut of the profit). By the way, this kind of contractual agreement is NOT legal according to the attorney I sleep with. 
• A breeder who doesn't know how to properly spell or pronounce the name of their cat's breed. It's Maine Coon, with an "e" on the end, as in the state of Maine, up there next to the Canadian border, not "Man Coon" or "Main Coon".
• Breeders who can't tell the difference between male and female kittens. Sometimes it's confusing in newborns, but after two weeks of age a cat breeder should be able to determine the genders of their kittens.
• Breeders who don't know enough about color genetics or the proper name for a certain color.  A knowledgeable breeder should know the color possibilities before a litter is born. Granted, most average cat owners don't know or care about how their cat inherited its color or pattern, but it still annoys me. Case in point, a Maine Coon pet owner once told me he'd paid $100 more for his kitten because the breeder informed him it was a rare "buff" color. Um, do you mean it was a cream tabby, the dilute expression of a red tabby? I get cream tabby kittens all the time. Pretty cats, but not pretty rare.

Bonnie and Clyde, two cream classic tabbies (not buff)

Roller Coaster of Life

The past week or so has been an emotional roller coaster for my family and me.  In one day, I found out three bad things happened.  Logan, the service dog I blogged about last year when she and her owners came to visit their future kitten, had surgery to remove her oral cancer.  I had just been thinking about Logan the day before as I hiked through the woods with our Golden Retriever, Chardonnay.  Logan is not only valuable because of the job she does for her person Suzan, but she is a beautiful, gentle animal who captured my heart when I met her.  I will continue to think positive thoughts for Logan as she goes through treatment. 

The same day, we got news that Kristen, my kids' cousin, was very sick and in the hospital.  It turns out she apparently had toxic shock syndrome and her condition was very serious.  I'm happy to report that Kristen is now home and doing better. 

Then, Kelsey came home from school with the news that Mr. Conlon, a Ledyard High School math teacher was found dead in the woods after missing for two days.  Mr. Conlon had hanged himself.  Fortunately, Kelsey never knew Mr. Conlon, but Tyler considered him the best math teacher he ever had so he was pretty upset.  We don't understand the full story behind Mr. Conlon's pain and don't expect to; he had a wife and 10-year-old daughter he left behind.  The students and teachers who loved him are confused as to why a grown-up who apparently had everything going for him would take his own life. 

Then, my mother called to report that she had an MRI done to look at the half of her liver which was subjected to chemoembolization treatment in September.  The MRI shows that all signs of cancer on that half of her liver are gone!  This is the same liver that was "covered in malignant lesions" originally.  Modern medicine is incredibly hopeful sometimes.  Mom had the other half of her liver zapped yesterday in Chapel Hill.  The same positive results are expected by her doctors.  I started a blog (what else?) for my mom soon after she was diagnosed called The Organ Within Me to keep her friends and family updated.  My mother's news was certainly a welcome change from the way things seemed to be going early last week.

On Saturday afternoon, as I stepped out of the shower, Olivia greeted me with repeated meows.  Hmmmm.  She definitely wanted my attention.  Olivia's kittens weren't due for another two days at least....but there was no mistaking her urgent behavior.  Sure enough, within a couple of hours, we had a blue tabby boy.  Next came a solid black girl.  "Mine!" Kelsey immediately claimed.  Kelsey has been wanting a solid black Maine Coon ever since we lost our black domestic short-hair, Creole, a few years ago to kidney disease. 

Kelsey left the room and I called a friend to report the arrivals so far while Olivia rested and waited for the next round of contractions.  I had predicted, based upon Olivia's size, that she was carrying 3 to 4 kittens.  As I was happily chatting away, Jay came in and indicated with a finger drawn across his throat that I should cut the conversation short.  After I got off the phone, he told me that while he was outside, he witnessed a hawk striking our red Silkie chicken, Frodo, killing her instantly.  He was too far away at the time to prevent the attack, but Jay and Chardonnay did manage to keep the hawk from carrying Frodo's body away. 

We only had Frodo for slightly more than 6 months, but during that time we came to care for her deeply because she was so obviously handicapped.  I've blogged about Frodo a few times, in fact my last blog was about Frodo and her first egg.  True to her nature, Frodo was out in the yard by herself, the rest of the flock was elsewhere.  She had no idea the hawk was approaching.  Of all the chickens to meet such an awful demise, we ask, "Why our favorite one?" all the while knowing that she was the most likely to be attacked as she was more vulnerable than the other chickens.  Frodo is now buried beside Kelsey's favorite rock.  We don't have to worry about her anymore, put her up to roost at night because she can't fly up there by herself, look around for her well after the rest of the flock has come in, provide her with a ground-level nesting box for her eggs....it's amazing how one little chicken stole our hearts with her neediness and cute little squawking face. 

Frodo's Grave Marker

After the news of Frodo's death and consoling a very distraught teenage girl, I still had to deliver Olivia's kittens.  She had 3 more - a black boy, another black girl, and a silver tabby boy (bonus!).  All are big and healthy and growing like they're supposed to.  We have a choice of 3 black kittens to choose from for our breeding program.  It makes more sense to keep a girl, but then again, a solid black male who looks like his grandfather Bugger would be hard to pass up.  Kelsey came up with a Poet theme so the kittens are named accordingly:  Edgar Allen Poe, Shel Silverstein, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Langston Hughes. 

And so we move forward, accepting that we can't change the past, just how we deal with it.  Here's to the emotional roller coaster of life and all that it offers. 

Olivia with Her Little Poets

Lost Chicken and Eggs

We have two Silkie pullets, Frodo the red one and Mumble the blue.  Frodo has gotten most of the attention since she was just a wee chick due to her apparent brain injury.  I blogged before about how Silkies are designed to have holes in the tops of their skulls from which part of their little chicken protrudes.  This head shape contributes to top notch of feathers sticking up.  Without a hard skull to protect their heads, the breed is more susceptible to brain injuries.  Mumble's brain seems to be normal although she is very shy.  Frodo is our Special Needs Chicken.  She seems to need to sleep more often and will often be napping while the rest of the flock is roaming around.  Also, when she panics, like she did the other day when a hawk got too close, she starts doing somersaults and running into things.  Yes, she is still the Flippin' Chicken, but only when under extreme stress.  Not the best survival skills. 

The chickens have free range of our yard during the day and are confined to their fenced-in space around the coop at dawn and dusk, prime predator times.  The girls are normally very good about not wandering far from our yard.  They are completely locked up in the coop after dark for safety.  The other afternoon I got the chickens in their yard, a process which is pretty easy since every time they see a human, they come running for hand outs.  I tossed chicken scratch on the ground and counted 13 out of 14 chickens.  Where's Frodo?  Whenever a chicken is missing, a feeling of dread slowly builds as I walk around the yard calling (yes, our chickens do come when called).  If she isn't found, the whole family participates in a chicken search.

Frodo and Kelsey

We've only lost one chicken, a Jersey Giant chick last year who just never came back.  In the grand scheme of things, I guess that's not bad considering we live in a rural area surrounded by acres of woods.  Jay credits our dog Chardonnay for intimidating the predators from coming too close.  Not that a Golden Retriever is a great guard dog by nature, but she is big and has a bark to go with it.  She also clearly understands that her job is to protect our yard from outside critters and has chased a fox and a raccoon into the woods before with pit bull-like intent. 

After 20 minutes of searching and calling for Frodo, I got worried.  However, looking for a missing Frodo has happened numerous times before so I tried to keep it in perspective.  I looked behind our garden shed several times as Jay found our first Silkie egg back there in the leaves the day before.  Silkies are a bantam (miniature) variety of chicken so the eggs are tiny and cute.  Frodo had recently started doing the Chicken Squat, a behavior where a hen will squat, flatten her back, wings slightly out, and stomp her feet when a human reaches to pet her on the back.  I've found that when a young hen starts doing this, she is "coming of age" and will start laying eggs soon.  So we knew Frodo had recently matured to the point of egg production.  Since Mumble was not squatting yet, we surmised that the Silkie egg was Frodo's. 

Frodo's egg with a medium brown egg

We have an old doghouse behind the garden shed among the bike, ladders, snow blower and other stuff.  The doghouse is one of those large plastic ones that have top and bottom halves.  I looked under the top half...nothing but a couple of buckets.  I looked under the separate bottom half and found exactly 12 brown eggs.  So that's why my brown egg production was so low!  I look up to see if there was a container nearby I could put the eggs in and saw Frodo, casually strutting around the back yard.  She had probably just woken up from a nap and come out of hiding, wherever that was.  
 

Now that I'd solved two dilemmas, the next one was whether or not the dozen found eggs were still edible.  Store-bought eggs have been washed to remove any chicken poop.  However, washing them also removes the natural "bloom" or coating they have which enables eggs to safely remain unrefrigerated for weeks.  So unless it's really hot outside and/or the eggs could be fertile, 2-week-old unrefrigerated eggs are still safe for consumption.  I knew this but how to convince my husband who throws out anything once it hits the expiration date?  I have explained and provided written proof to Jay that the Sell By date isn't the date an item suddenly develops salmonella.  With proper refrigeration, many foods are perfectly fine a week after that time. 

With the dozen eggs I'd found, how to determine just how long they had been there under the dog house?  I turned to Backyard Chicken's Chicken Forum and found the answer.  It's called the Float Test.  If the egg sinks to the bottom of a bowl of water, it's good.  If it floats to the top, it's over 4-weeks-old and should be tossed.  If the egg stands vertically on its narrow end, fat side up, it's 3-weeks-old and stale.  Many of your factory farmed grocery store eggs are a month old, however, they've been refrigerated from the beginning.  This test applies to eggs kept at room temperature.  I imagine that if there's a rooster around, you'd only want to keep the sinkers.  We no longer have a rooster and all these eggs sank to the bottom, so I had some reassurance we wouldn't get food poisoning or find a partially developed chick inside.  Knowing that a hen spends 1-2 hours a day in order to lay each egg would be a waste of nutrition and hen labor if they had to be thrown out.

Assortment of eggs, Frodo's mini-egg on the right