WOW people! I was on vacation for 2 weeks, plus 1 week "catchup" and now I am finally through the 100s of posts on here...wowza you all can WRITE 
So.....sorry to those who have experienced losses and illnesses....
.....and welcome to the new folks and new peepers! 
So, I wanted to chime in on the 'decrowing' discussion. We had our Serama roo "Cujo" decrowed by Dr. Babcock at Palo Verde Animal Hospital (on Northern at 12th st) and it went very well. I had a lot of concerns about it, but it came down to whether or not we could keep him. He's a good mellow little dude, and we really wanted to keep him and possibly get some little serama chickies from him at some point.... (he is fertile)
We had it done back mid-January and he came through it like a champ. We did keep him inside for about 2 weeks until he was totally healed, since it is major surgery, going down into the chest deeper than I had imagined it would. There were two layers of stitches, and we took him back twice for check-ups and stitch removal. Cujo was a surprisingly well-behaved house critter! He liked to sit on the couch and relax with us, was pretty tidy overall and stood 'guard' when we took naps. It was sometimes disconcerting to wake up and see him sitting on the arm of the couch intently watching us. He would also make the "yummy" come-n-get it whistle noise at us when he thought he found something tasty to share 
. Our opinions about 'tasty' often differed from his, though!
As far as the cost, it was not cheap. PM me if you want details, but we felt it was worth it, and Dr. Babcock was (and continues to be) fantastic with all our chickens. We had to take a hen in right before we left on vacation for strange wheezy sniffling symptoms, and Dr. Babcock has made himself available for phone calls on weekends/after hours, and has called to check in on her several times since.
Kevs, were you the person that had this happen too also? I was worried that it was IB and quarantined right away, got her on Baytril. She is on a second course of it now, but suffice it to say she doesn't appear to have anything that is treatable with Baytril. None of the others have displayed any symptoms at all and she is still a little sneezy. She is also drinking A LOT of water, but is laying and eating normally. I wonder if chickens can have allergies, or maybe if this is fungal or something else?
We are also about to do a total coop re-do next weeekend.....time to wire out the freeloader wild birds and make the coop easier to clean!! I want to borrow some of your gorgeous and functional coop plans, but alas I have a feeling it will go from being "Redneck ramshackle version 2.0 to Redneck ramshackle v. 3.0!" 
Edited to add: Cujo sounds like a squeaky toy now. I will try and get a video and post a link to it sometime....he sounds like "Whu WHEEP Beep"
Edited by pdx2phx - 3/18/12 at 12:02am
