Last updated 05-01-2026
Mabel I
Noa holding Mabel I just before her rental was sold and her family’s new rental didn’t allow chickens.
Mabel arrives in Portland at 10:30pm, late March 2017 with only a cage. We shared people food for a few days because it is raining.
Needs feed, straw, and a companion so April 1, 2017 I walk to Dekum Street Backdoor for supplies and find a barred rock under a heat lamp. It had hatched February 24th, my birthday! Here we are, barred rock in box with straw and laying pellets back at my house.
Building coop – installing hardware cloth to a depth of 18″ below grade to foil potential digging under by raccoons.
Feasting on raspberries
Gertie and Mabel I June 2017, taken by a neighbor, used for my Reed College 50th reunion web page.
Feasting on tomatoes
9-10-2017, Mabel I was killed by a neighbor’s Husky that was not on a leash and that got over the 4′ fence on the north side of the free ranging area. That dog was subsequently rehomed with a rural relative of the owner outside Portland so no longer poses a threat.
With the loss of her companion, Gertie was too lonely to sleep on her perch in the coop so spent the winter sleeping nights in my bathroom sink.
Mabel II
Mabel II first meets Gertie, February 2018 – note Swiss chard planted for their enjoyment
Then we watched a foreign film with Mabel II still on my shoulder and Gertie perched on my leg – no sibling rivalry!
Their favorite shady spot under the rosemary bush
Eating rosemary blossoms
Waiting to come in for the night
Perched on back porch railing
Gertie and the late Mabel queued up to lay eggs in the bathroom sink. They became indoor chickens during the winter.
The morning I left the gate between the bathroom and the kitchen ajar and they flew up on the counter to check out what I did with their eggs!
Raspberries for chickens and 48″ fence at west side of free ranging area
Sunday 6-10-2018 at 10:12 am, Mabel II lays an egg. She has become broody, but this particular morning she continues to breath through her mouth after she has laid her egg. At 12:12am she has a seizure and immediately becomes unresponsive. She had ingested RoundUp contaminated dirt at the back property line where the neighbor had over sprayed.
Gertie needs a new companion because this is her second loss and she doesn’t want me to be out of her sight for more than a few minutes fearing new losses.
New second fence at east side of free ranging area to protect against herbicide sprayed by neighbor along property line fence several days prior to Mabel II’s seizure.
5′ vertical bank and future retaining wall to protect chickens from dogs on north side of free ranging area. Also note garden dirt pile where I am blending in six, 3 cubic feet bags of Dekum Street Doorway soil amendment earlier this summer.
Fence at south boundary of free ranging area. Chestnut tree in bloom!
Lonely Gertie enjoying oats with raspberry treats with me
Marigold
Introduction of two new chickens to keep Gertie company Sunday, 6-24-2018
Dekum Street Doorway, where I had originally bought Gertie to keep my first Buff Orpington company April 1, 2017, is closing because gentrification has raised land prices and led to new development of housing leading to insecurity regarding being able to continue the lease of their current location. They had three chickens that needed to be rehomed. They had recently added a 6 year old barred rock to their 3 and 2 year olds. My barred rock, Gertie, had only had Buff Orpington companions and their Buff Orpington was familiar with the 6 year old barred rock, so there seemed a potential for a happy merging. I interviewed the chickens a day before picking them up to ascertain their pecking order because I was concerned about introducing two older chickens to my single one. As it turned out, the 6 year old was dominant, the Buff Orpington in the middle, and the little Mille Fleur d’Uccle bantam at the bottom of the order. The six year old was rehomed separately, and once that was taken care of, I picked up the other two.
Arriving home (that red in the straw is crushed raspberries that I had brought with me for them
​I opened the cage directly into the exercise yard and coop so this is Frenchie looking out at Gertie:
Gertie wonders why she doesn’t have access to HER own coop and exercise yard, but I wanted the new chickens to adjust first to their new coop and then later to adjust to Gertie.
​Much later in the day I introduce Gertie to them inside the coop
Frenchie really likes the two levels and can both go up and down the ramp as well as fly up and down directly to the laying and perch area above. She was very active trying all combinations of ramp and flying, up, and down. Then she made herself a nest and in the morning there was her little bantam sized egg. Marigold had slept cuddled against her in the coop.
Frenchie’s passion for flying has continued outdoors. She quickly demonstrated that she can fly to the top rail of the 4 foot fencing of her exercise yard, fencing that clearly serves no purpose unless I added a roof.
Here is a low resolution picture of her from a movie late Monday afternoon where she is flying from branch to branch in the lilacs. The foliage is dense so this is quite an amazing feat to watch.
So far Gertie feels a little like the new girl in school trying to break into a clique of the established girls. There have been no fights, it is just that they spend their time together free ranging, tolerate Gertie joining them, but don’t bond with her yet.
Mabel III & Gertie II
April 30th, elderly Marigold died in the evening. She had been having seizures and falling off her perch when sleeping. Her life long younger companion, Frenchie, the Mille Fleur d’Uccle bantam has been grieving and following me around – now she has my attention!
May 10, 2021 I got Frenchie two new companions. They were 4-5 weeks old, so adapted to 70 degrees indoors and did not need a heat lamp. I chose one buff orpington and one barred rock and named them after their predecessors. When I was cleaning their cage, Mabel III flew out the top and landed on my shoulder. I pivoted to reach for my camera.
Mabel III
Mabel III and Gertie II are getting along well with each other and with me, but Gertie hasn’t warmed to them yet, first pretending they didn’t exist, then inspecting them and rejecting, then in another day of inspection showing them who was the boss. I need Frenchie to take a motherly interest in them before I can release them for free ranging. Then she can take them to safe places (coop or rosemary or lilac bushes) when crows warn of a hawk riding thermals above.
Mabel III and Gertie II
Mabel III can fly!
May 29, 2021, first day outdoors without a cage – will they fly over the fence? They seem to want to stick to something already familiar.
Next pictures are June 4, 2021.
Now they are grown. Mabel III laid her first egg September 12, 2021
Gertie II laid her first October 17, 2021.
Metal from a surplus Pong chair makes a quick sleeping perch above their sink. I have a plastic tray to catch their poop at night.
I’ve had to make the fence higher outdoors because they also like to perch on what was previously the top of their fence.
February 2024: After a new neighbor I haven’t met dispatched three police to do a welfare check because my back door was open, I decided to add a glass storm door with an obvious pet door. The chickens come in to lay their eggs and to eat
Sometimes I have gotten other visitors, which will likely be less frequent with the smaller opening.
Frencie died late Saturday night 4-06-2024 at 12:33am – We buried her the next morning
Which is less stressful for the survivors: to have no explanation of what happened to a sibling and wonder if she will reappear at some later time, or to witness that she has died? The surviving chickens had never witnessed a death before. They were enjoying eating earth worms as I dug the hole. Then I brought the very lifeless Frenchie out to bury. Some nights still, Mabel III and Gertie lI look across from their evening perch over the bathroom sink to the the pipe over the shower that Frenchie used to perch on, so I know they have not forgotten her. She was the dominant chicken in spite of her bantam size. I raised Mabel III and Gertie II from 5 weeks old. They soon grew to many times her size without contesting her dominance.
Frenchie shared my home for the last 5 years, 9 months, and 2 weeks of her life – a little longer than any of my human partners (although I have known my first long term partner since January 1965 and we are still friends). Frenchie was an adult chicken before she was rehomed with me, perhaps already 5 years old. Introducing an adult chicken to an existing flock often precipitates violence that can be lethal. In this case I thought it was possible because she came with a buff orpington and had previously had a barred rock companion. My barred rock had just lost her buff orpington companion, so the introduction was successful. I am glad that Frenchie was able to spend all of her last years with me without having to adjust to a new home if I had died first.
I had notices some behavior changes back in February. First she stopped asserting her dominance. When I had installed a glass storm door with chicken door for them in late February, she, the previously most athletic chicken, seemed to have trouble using it.
3-26-2024, she left a little yellow poop in the bathroom sink. It looked like a thin paste of water and dry ground mustard.
The next day, 3-27-2024, she did not want to leave her perch over the shower. More yellow poop. I added a little vinegar to her water in case she had a bacterial infection 3-28-2024.
3-30-2024 was her last night over the shower where she had stood since the night of 3-26.
3-31-2024 I was concerned that she might fall, so I moved her to a tray on top of my washer in the kitchen.
4-01-2024 I noticed that she seemed blind when she sought to drink from a cup and missed the cup with her beak. Perhaps she had become blind some time in February which would explain her no longer asserting dominance and having difficult navigating the chicken door as well as not wanting to go outdoors where she would have been vulnerable to hawks she could not see.
4-02-2024 refusing food
4-03-2024 now refusing water too.
4-05-2024 she can no longer stand up. Before being too weak to stand, she developed an unusual posture of one leg in advance and one leg trailing instead of both legs together.
4-06-2024 clearly terminally ill since she was still pooping liquid yellow and neither eating, nor drinking. I spent the entire day and evening with her until she died a little after midnight in a spectacular seizure in which she spun around before becoming clearly deceased.
Besides appearing to have become blind, she never uttered a sound from 3-27-2024 when she started standing on her over the shower perch 24/7. She did appear to be aware of sound as she would turn towards me if I moved.
Before she became ill, she would not allow herself to be picked up. But when she needed my help, she would initiate interaction. In the next two pictures, she has an egg to lay. I am reading on my back steps and she needs my help to open the back door so she can go in to her egg laying nest. She has figured out how to get my attention! Chickens have very warm feet because they require good circulation for the nerves that allow them to balance on a tree limb at night while asleep
Once ill and dependent on me she was totally cooperative. She did a good job of not standing in her poop, but with feathered feet, she twice let me pick her up and wash her feathered feet in the shower with a hose.
When she could no longer stand, she let me stroke her back – as much to comfort myself as to comfort her. She had not made out a medical directive, so I wondered if she would have liked assistance dying sooner once it was clear she would never recover. She did not appear to be conscious of pain, or was she just brave? I think she may have had a stroke leading to blindness followed by liver failure. No sign of lice, mites, or worms. Her yellow poop stopped having a strange smell after adding the vinegar to her water. Her two companions have remained healthy.
Gertie II was snatched by a silent predator 7-20-2024. I heard her panic and ran out to find only three piles of feathers in different areas of her free ranging area and chicken poop at the level of 5′ on the back storm door. I am guessing a large hawk as I would have heard a dog running up the back steps after her. An off lease dog usually just kills without taking the carcass which I found no signs of.
Dorothy Wyandotte joined us Friday, 8-16-2024 as a companion to Mabel III. Noa ( lower right) and her mother picked Dorothy up from a farm east of Portland.. Noa has been president of the Black Student Union at her public school in Eugene, Oregon.
Mabel III fell off her night time perch and was unresponsive February 1, 2025 at 8 am. She had only laid 7 eggs in 2024.
Dorothy has grown. She laid her first egg, January 14, 2025
Dorothy is an amazing chicken. Without specific training, she only poops outdoors, or from her indoor night time perch over a tray over the bathroom sink. She was laying 5-7 eggs a week – even one day laid two eggs!
Chickens are social animals, and I like my animals wild, not as pets. I became more concerned as she spent more and more time being broody, even when she was making new feathers instead of eggs.
July 03, 2025, I received Coco Orpington. It is always difficult to introduce a new chicken to an existing flock, even a flock of one lonely chicken in this case. Noa and her mother picked up Coco for me from the same farm east of Portland.
Chickens are especially fond of steel cut oats, so this was a good way to get acquainted.
By this time, Dorothy was a very large and intimidating chicken.
She protested loudly all the first day and would chase and bite Coco if Coco was not sitting on my lap. That night I put Coco over the shower which Dorothy cannot reach.
The tarp over the outdoor coop was fraying, so I am redoing its roof. Here is Coco, safe at a height of 5′ supervising.
On Coco’s 5th day, we picked up poop together. With my rollator between the two chickens, Coco got to explore their free ranging area and could hop up on the rollator whenever Dorothy was looking like she was about to chase.
On her 6th day, they started being able to share their free ranging yard as long as I was present for Coco to retreat to my lap when chased – and then she would venture out again if Dorothy gave her some space or was chilling in the shade.Dorothy laid an egg today, 7-10-2025. She was not broody now that she has a companion to chase outdoors. None of my previous chickens had this extended conflict over the free ranging area. On the other hand, they had more conflict sharing separate roosts at night in the same room (my bathroom) than my newest chicken.It took 11 days for Dorothy to accept Coco. Here they are together sharing their free ranging area which includes under this rosemary bush.
Another 4 weeks and Coco should start laying too.It took Dorothy longer to share her perch over the bathroom sink, but here they finally are sharing it.
Coco laid her first egg 9-29-2025
I’ve been in the hospital for a DVT, so I have had to rehome Dorothy and Coco. They now have a fenced pasture on a 9,600 sq. ft. lot with a view of Mt. Hood across the Willamette River. They are adjusting better to our separation than I am. I am back home 04-02-2026. I missed their coming in last evening and missed letting them out this morning. They seem to be enjoying exploring their new space.
If my health stabilizes, I will be able to reclaim them. If I die, my heir, Noa, will be able to reclaim them. I would not want her to quit college to care for them and I wouldn’t think she could have them at Spelman College or the graduate school of her choice next.
Wednesday, 04-29-2026
Matching chicken coop shingles and paint, 04-11-2026.
