Washingtonians - Page 8753  

Salma is eating much better this morning!



Her energy level is a bit higher, too. She's not eating on her own but she is more enthusiastic about being fed. She even pecked some out of our hands somewhat vigorously. Her comb and wattles look more red and less pathetic. In another hour or so when it warms up, I'm going to put her outside with the flock in the dog crate. Unfortunately the blue mutt can sense that Salma's weak and is keen to terrorize her, so she's staying in the dog crate until she fully recovers. I swear I will not hesitate to rehome the blue mutt if it becomes a long-term issue, despite the fact that she's our best layer both in terms of quantity and big, dark, delicious yolks. Anyway, for now I'm just glad Salma is improving.

Her poop is pretty runny, but I imagine that's normal when she's getting an entirely new diet? It's a blend of plain whole milk yogurt, her own egg scrambled, dried mealworms, and sugar. We may try the B-12 thing if we can find something cheap enough.

Her eye looks OK. It's got a thin layer of bloody goop over it, but I keep squirting saline in there. She does open it sometimes. I don't know if she can see out of it or if she ever will again, but at this point I don't think it's going to heal shut, so that's good.

I really think it all started with the sugar water. My wonderful boyfriend's idea, of course. She just didn't have enough energy to eat and that really perked her up enough to do so.
 

I'm not celebrating yet because I know she could get worse again, but for now, I'm a pretty happy crazy chicken lady. 

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Originally Posted by pettec63 

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Originally Posted by itsren 

I'm getting "old".  I recognize and remember those old shows. 

 Ok well then  I AM OLD!!    LOL!!   Dang it! It happens!! 

  Yep!  I remember when I used to think I'd never get to 25.  Today 25 seems so very young.

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Originally Posted by pettec63 

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Originally Posted by itsren 

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Originally Posted by pettec63 

My sister was diagnosed with West Nile three years ago.

 

Wow.  That brings that one close to home, doesn't it?  We hear about things like West Nile, but we can easily blow it off.  This year DH has been over-the-top picky about getting in the house when mosquitoes come out - to the point of driving me crazy.  He gets very upset when I ignore him and still work outside with the mosquitoes.

 

I'm sorry your sister had to go through that.  I hope she is doing much better and doesn't have lasting effects of the virus.  Good for you for catching it, too.  You probably did save her life.

I understand your DH's concern, obviously with this in the family, I too have been WAY freaked out about mosquito's too!  I use spray when I go out and I am super freaked out when I find them in the house!  At this point there hasn't been enough studies done on the West nile in people. My sister's MS condition and West Nile, is complicated, as in the Dr's aren't sure what's causing what.   Thanks for the kind words, I was just being the Big sister!!

 

One reason why I got my Scovies is cause they love mosquito's and flies and all kinds of bugs!!  They do a pretty good job, but, I have noticed a few more squito's tryn to get into my house!!  Everyone just needs to be careful, and watch your babies!! The tough part about that is trying to find a lotion that works that doesn't have toxic substances!  I'm sure in this next year, there are going to be lots of information and lots of stuff put out about it!

Don't be too hard on the hubby he's just concerned and for good reason!

It's funny - he's usually not overly concerned about illnesses that gets mentioned in the news.  For some reason, the West Nile thing has him bothered.  He watches a lot more news than I do, so he may have seen some pretty bad news stories about it.

I'm always the one saying "don't put that chemical on my kids" and I'm anti-chemical control in the yard, too.  He and I have battled that one for years.  He's now threatening to bring back chemical fertilizer for the lawn and I'm like "don't you dare!"  I think I'm going to make up some chicken poop tea and try to get to the lawn before he does.  Even if I make the tea wrong, I doubt I could kill it any worse than it already is.

That's terrible!  How awful.

Have a great day everyone.  I've got a lot to do today.  The big project... a brooder to work on. 

Yesterday we had our driveway sealed.  It's nice and pretty and black again.  Makes me want to get the front yard greened up.  I've been watering the back yard this past week and it has greened up pretty well.  The chickens love it.  They're eating a lot of grass, 'cuz most their poo is grass now.  Eeeew.    TMI?  LOL!

We got our oldest's MSP scores.  We're pretty proud of the kiddo.  He scored high in the "Advanced" level of Math and Writing.  He got 100% in the Advance Writing section the second year in a row.  When he aced his writing pre-test last year, his teacher told us that was "never done".  I don't know if that is true or not, but we're pretty proud of him.  I told my husband I'm going to have to be careful and not come to expect him to get high marks in the Advanced level.  We're so used to him achieving high marks, and it seems to come pretty easy to him, so I know we'll have to keep our expectations in check.  There may come a day it might not be quite so easy for him.  Some days that boy leaves me wondering how I should parent him - there are days he begs me to play math games online, and I have to tell him to go outside and play.  I'm never sure if that is the right thing to do.  I know many parents who would love it if their kid wanted to play math games, and I'm having to tell my kid that he can't.

I haven't candled any eggs lately, but nothing stinks, so I'm hoping that means we're good.  At this point, I just don't want to touch them.  I don't need the clutz in me to come out and accidentally drop an egg.  I can't believe in less than a week we may have new chicks to watch.   I hope so, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high since this is my first time going through this, and I'm not sure if I did everything right.

Well, it looks like the Building Inspector is here (finally) been on pins & needles all morning waiting....so I gotta go & have to catch up on posts later............

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Originally Posted by FirewifeJess 

UE- Glad for a good report this morning on your hen.

 

I am almost certain now that whatever rodent is living under the coop is also stealing eggs when the hens aren't around. We've already gotten 6 eggs today before 11am, and I've gone to check 3 times. I'm keeping the gals locked in the coop and run for a few days to see if that's the problem. We did a major family easter egg yard search yesterday and didn't find anything, which leads me to believe my theory even more. I am going to try and discourage the rodent under the coop from going to the chicken run for food by adding hardware cloth under the coop, hopefully this week sometime, and closing up the lid of the nest boxes on the sides that are open due to me raising/tilting the lid. Hopefully that will solve this problem. I may even shove some poison under the coop and add cement blocks all the way around it so the chickens can't get to the poison but the rodent can.

Hi. 

We are also having a rat invasion. Never like this before. My DH bought some big rat traps with the spring action. He tried the bucket & water idea but no go. Anyway, he places a wire cage around the set trap and uses a piece of cheddar cheese for bait. The wire cage keeps any other larger animal from getting its nose or paw snapped. He has killed 5 rats so far.

Not sure if you have thought of this scenario with the poison so thought I'd throw it out there for you to mull over. When a rat eats the poison it may wander out into the yard or nearby to die. If a dog or other animals finds it and eats it the poison may kill the animal and/or severely injure its internal organs. Recently this happened to a dog breeder I know. Her AKC champion got off her property when a breach in the fencing occurred from a tree falling on it in the wooded section of her property. She didn't know it until she went hunting for her missing dog. Tragically the dog found and ate something... vet said probably via poisoned mouse or rat. After agonizing weeks she had to have her best dog & friend put down. Since this story is still vivid in my mind and broke my heart for her I needed to warn you about this possibility. Anyway, just some food for thought. 

~Dee~

Quote:

Originally Posted by pettec63 

 Ok well then  I AM OLD!!    LOL!!   Dang it! It happens!! 

If you are lucky !!!!  

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Originally Posted by pettec63 

Don't know about cloudy days!!  

But, I was a dish subscriber for 15 years till two years ago when they started changing the programing without informing people! I would get  the channels I thought I had paid for and the next thing you know, their changing it, or taking it off!!  And their prices kept going up year after year after year!

NO thanks!!

 

Oh BTW on the wheat subject, the wheat we consume now, has an opiate effect on our brains, ( from the gmo strains) so that is why people get carb addicted, and in this article it said when people quit eating wheat products they lost 30 or more lbs!  I can attest to that, I've done it more than once, do remember the conversation we had and I told you all I have to do is look at bread and I blow up?.......there be the reason!!

 Exactly true...so true in fact that some people have withdrawals symptoms when they quit wheat. 

In fact, if a Heroin user gets caught by the cops, and flips out, the docs can administer a narcan type drug which blocks the effects of the heroin in the brain, thereby making the stoner instantly unstoned.

This narcan drug can also whipe out the stoner effects of wheat !

The same drug receptors in the brain that respond to Heroin, are the same that respond to wheat glutens, thereby creating a pleasurible effect when one eats glutens.

This makes folks want more, and it is all due to GMO breeding of so many types of wheat together to creat the midget wheat we have now.

Tall 4 foot wheat is a thing of the past, once genetically bred wheat seed heads were so large & heavy that 4 foot stalks could not support the seed.

Everytime a plant is bred to a plant, it retains genes from both parents, so in BC, wheat had a simple 28 chromosones, bred over to another variety, it then had 96 chromosones, and 2 X the gluen as the fore fathers of wheat had, and so on & so on til today we have frankin wheat with TONS more gluten, and several hundreds of chromosones.

It also has so much easily absorbed sugars as to rival a Mars bar.

Mars bar has 25% less sugars than whole wheat bread does.

Any diebetics should definitely avoid all breads & anything made from Wheat flour.

They have found these glutens can actually harm the body enough as to increase cancers.

It also has a devastating effect on Autistic & those with mental illness.

Well, the Building Inspector just left.

he is a super nice guy !!!

Very educational, and spent alot of time explaining what we need to do & where, what types of Hurricane ties we need, etc.

he was very impressed with our framing job, and said we have done alot that was not necessary, extra blocking & extra large headers, etc.

So, we passed with flying colors !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!