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I began with 7 baby chicks and raised them to adulthood 3 years ago. I have lost 3 now, and the remaining 4 chickens in my spacious and lovely coop and runs look lonely. I'd like to bring home another 5 or so to join my girls, so am looking for a poultry show, I think (I've never been) to get...

I am wondering if I may have contracted e. coli from my chickens. I have been diagnosed with it in a urine sample I submitted after a particularly painful bladder infection. There are two possible places I could have gotten it: from a colonoscopy that went awry when the doctor pricked my colon...

Thank you for your opinion. Yes, the vet checked her for all the usual things. He is pretty sure she has peritonitis from broken eggs. She doesn't look well, but she is obviously a survivor and there are foods she just scarfs down: meal worms, greens, berries, yogurt, but no chicken feed at all...

About January of this year, my favorite chicken, a 1.5 year old Buff Orpington started laying shell-less eggs. I can't count the number of trips to the vet or amounts of antibiotics she's taken. She was my favorite hen and I tried to help her get well. The vet drained her to get the rest of egg...

Wow, I'm so thankful for your support, everyone! It's hard to figure out why (half of the girls) are having so much trouble. And it's with different things. The one thing they have in common is they don't lay eggs, even through the summer, and they're only 1 1/2 years old! My healthiest girl...

Wow, thanks folks for all the good advice! I think what this means is that I'm being overprotective, not only of my chickens' health, but my own (I have asthma, so when the dust builds up in the coop, I start wheezing). I got all the chicks as babies from a feed store, and perhaps that was a bad...

I have 6 hens of varying breeds for almost 2 years. Everything was fine, except for one girl, the first year. This past year, however, has been a nightmare! Somebody is sick all the time! I have literally spent thousands of dollars in medications, special vitamins and treats and, of course...

I can testify that chickens will definitely eat slugs! When it rains (which it does frequently in Northern California), some slugs become easy prey as they slither right into their coop. Or I might be in the garden (right next to their runs) and I'll find some pesky slugs hiding under a...

Good news so far! I brought Priscilla home from the draining the vet did, and she has regained her energy in the past week. I've been letting her and her sisters outside in the pasture almost every day. Now she is scratching energetically and even running around! I'm giving her organic whole...

Hello again. Thought I'd bring you up to date on my girl, Priscilla. It seems she has multiple ovarian cysts. Who knew chickens could have this? This seems to be the final diagnosis, so the vet has just drained them, and has given her a long-working antibiotic to combat any infection he might...

Thanks for the additional info, Aina. Does your vet ever give it to chickens, or is it for ferrets and other animals? I wonder if a human birth control pill (downsized, of course) would work? Stopping ovulation in a chicken is not commonly done, so I'm not surprised that there isn't a remedy for...

Back from the vet, and found out how much Leupron costs--yikes!!! $600 a dose! I'll look to see if I can get it cheaper elsewhere. I'm not particularly handy giving the shot myself, but my assistant could do it. Maybe there's a generic brand out there. If there is, I'll find it! Thanks, all!

Thanks, Aina; it turns out that Priscilla has ovarian cysts. The vet said we could give her Leupron to stop her ovulation, but it would entail bringing in once a week. I don't mind bringing her in once a month, but once a week I can't--we live about an hour away from our vet. We'll try it and...

Thanks, Liz_s. I see the vet tomorrow, and I'll ask him about Lupron. If Priscilla recovers, I hope she'll continue to sit in my lap and nuzzle her head under my arm. I think my Buff Orpingtons and Barred Rocks make some of the best chickens in terms of personality--friendly, affectionate...

Thanks for your empathy, everyone. This is my only outlet to express my sorrow when things go wrong in the coop--my husband just thinks I've gone off the deep end with my chickens! Always, it's "they're just CHICKENS!" I looked up Lupron (sp?). It's for humans, specifically men with prostate...

Thanks for the info on Lupron, which I'll look for online. What is it, birth control? Is egg yolk peritonitis always fatal? Do the eggs inside her solidify, or is it inflammation that makes her abdomen feel so hard? If anyone out there has a chicken that lived through this, I'd like to know what...

I have a 2.5 year old Buff Orpington that has developed Egg Yolk Peritonitis. She has been drained a few times and is on antibiotics. She was a normal egg layer for the first year, but then she began laying internally and has had a number of shell-less eggs. The eggs began to back up until she...

Thanks for the seed info. First, I'll look in the feedstore since I'm there so much. Nobody has ideas about how to keep rain from coming in the sides of the run?

Where do you get black oil sunflower seeds? How do you attach plexiglass panels to an outside run in a way that you can remove them easily? Will Home Depot-type stores cut them to any specification? Expensive?

I keep an oil-filled radiator heater in the coop. It has no fan, nor sparks nor flames to cause a fire and are very safe. They don't emit a lot of heat, but it does warm up their coop several degrees. In addition, I use a heat bulb about 4 feet over their roost and I have sewn curtains for their...