The road less traveled...back to good health! They have lice, mites, scale mites, worms, anemia,... - Page 103  

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beekissed 

The Prep-H really worked!  She is not so swollen and red inside her vent and I cannot see her cloaca tonight.  I just hope it stays that way.  It doesn't help that she lays such large eggs.  Went ahead and applied more Prep-H for good measure and also some NS on the rim and corners of the vent, just for kicks and giggles.  Gave her OLE dose and put her back on the roost...I bet she is getting pretty fed up with people touching her butt! 

 

Soaked Stumpy's(AKA MS) feet in epsom salts tonight and massaged that gland, removed a little debris and reapplied NS.  Her legs now show no evidence of scale mites and are nice and yellow...no more pale legs! 
 

Shark liver oil, a topical anti inflamitory and an ingredient in Prep-H and it works for puffiness under the eyes better than the most expensive eye cream.

Wow you go away for 2-3 days and it takes hours to catch up!!!!  I had the day off yesterday and decided to Jam some Plums & Passionfruit .... well long story short I managed to pour boiling water on my hand ...  I tried everything to calm the burn and a tomato actually seemed to be a magic treatment!!! Well then, last night I decided to Nu-Stock my hand ... I was planning on doing it anyways as I have eczema and thought it might help.....  Well, I think it might have helped a bit but I need to keep up the treatment to see if it really helps.  My hands look a little like Middle Sisters Feet all dry red and rough......    Hopefully the Nu-Stock will be my new magic eczema cure..... I WILL TRY ANYTHING!!!!  Ok now back to the chickens.... I have 2 questions:

1. So I have been trying to do the deep litter method in my coop and I know I have not be patient enough...... I have been being patient now BUT I did use DE in my coop.  I had a young silkie who wasn't thriving as she was the lowest on the pecking order and kept from the feed.... well when I inspected her she was covered in mites.  I freaked out and DE'd everything in site.... EVERYTHING.  This is before I learned of the benefits of wood ash .....    Well and truth be told here in Southern California I don't have much wood ash laying around.....  So my question is should I empty the coop and start over???  I did inoculate the deep litter with a few shovels of dirt a few weeks back .... but I'm assuming the DE killed off all the good bugs in there....  So should I start again????  I'm guessing the answer is yes....  

2. I also have another problem..... and I am not sure that this is the right place to ask, as your approach to chickens is to cull out the weak .... being a city girl these are my pets as well as my egg suppliers... So, I would like to try and heal my girl.  I searched the OT thread but boy is that hard to wrangle!!!  So I thought I'd try here..... I have a Golden Laced Wyandotte who the other day seemed a bit off in the morning.  She came out and ate a little but then went on the outside perch and had that weary look.... She promptly tucked her head under her wing to nap.  This is not like my chicken.... not at all.  So I took note but had to go off to work.  Well the next day she seemed better and went in to lay an egg and I went off to work.... That night I noticed as she was free ranging that her crop was FULL....  She was racing over and gobbling up treats as fast as she could.  Seemed more like my hen..... I felt the crop and it was HARD and softball sized ....  Hmmm ok noted.  The next morning she came out but was not that hungry and was shaking her head from side to side .... I felt her crop and it was still hard and full.  Ok impacted crop.... I got some Olive Oil and gave her a little and massaged her crop.  I decided to keep her with the girls and gave her another dose in the afternoon.... crop seemed a little smaller and more malleable ...  I was thinking progress was being made.  Great....  So the next morning out she came and her crop was big and hard....  So I decided I should isolate her to keep her away from food until the crop emptied and to give her more oil and water and massage her crop.  I gave her some yogurt too...  crop got softer she was pooping and crop was shrinking.  Once again I thought ok great almost better.  Well later in the day she started panting and panting .... and when I went to give her more soft food she jumped on my back and would not get down.  No matter how I tried to push her off she'd climb up ....  She is a very friendly bird and likes to jump up and say hello but usually jumps back down..... I know you are thinking CRAZY CITY GIRL and well you wouldn't be wrong     This morning there was an egg with her and I thought oooh maybe all that panting was getting ready to lay and egg and being irritated that she wasn't in her regular nest box..... but unfortunately she is still panting and sounds a bit congested. No wheezing per se but just a little off.  I have given her yogurt w/ crumbles & garlic and vet-rx her comb & nares .....  She seems alert hungry etc etc .... just a tad congested. I am only just over a year into raising chickens so I have been trying to learn as much as possible but there is SO MUCH to learn!!!!  Her poops look normal.....  She has been on FF for a few weeks and has ACV in her water all the time..... She is confined during the day to a run except for a few hours of supervised free ranging .....  My other hens seem fine.... Should I be worried???   Is there anything else I should be doing for her???  and should I keep her isolated???  

Obviously I would love to be able to raise my chickens the way you do but being in the city that is just not possible.... I am trying to take all of your sage advise and apply it to my city chickens to make them the healthiest home they can have in this situation!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beekissed 

 

Yeah, I answered that one somewhere in the shuffle...I gave it orally but am not a bit wary of also applying it topically. 

 

Did so on one of my kids once for a plantar's wart and it was gone in a few days.  We had already tried smothering it with bag balm, duct tape, etc.  Already tried the OTC wart remover and it did nothing.  Then one day we decided to mix some OLE and bag balm and cover that for a few days.  When we took the bandage off the wart peeled off and you couldn't even tell where it had been.  A similar thing happened to one of my other son's wart but purely by accident...he was running through the gravels barefooted and cut his foot on a rock, right through his plantar wart.  The wart died and peeled off the next day and you couldn't tell where it had even been. 

 

What????  Your chickens won't eat BOSS in the shell???  What kind of chickens are these?  Mine would hold me up at knife point to eat BOSS, in the shell or not...actually, I think I saw a couple of the Barred Rock thugs lurking at the corner of the coop cooking up just such a plan. 

  Mine would hold hostages if they did not recieve their BOSS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by delisha 

 My good sense tells me if they had a problem they would use the ash pile. I am wondering if I am wrong. I was wrong once before, but I was mistaken.

This was posted a few days ago and you might have had some replies already but I wanted to say that my hens don't go into wood ash.  Two of ours don't eat Calcium if it's on the side and there eggs are getting thinner.

We had chickens when I was growing up, our chicks were hatched and raised by hens. Those chickens did take dust baths in the ash and eat the eggshells that were tossed out with the table scraps. Do chickens (instinctively)  know whats good for them?

I have noticed, mostly from many hours of sitting in the yard and watching "chicken TV",  that hens often do things by imitation. My current flock were all hatchery chicks and I wonder of not being raised by hens is the reason  they don't  bath in ash or peck the calcium.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beekissed 

 

What????  Your chickens won't eat BOSS in the shell???  What kind of chickens are these?  Mine would hold me up at knife point to eat BOSS, in the shell or not...actually, I think I saw a couple of the Barred Rock thugs lurking at the corner of the coop cooking up just such a plan. 

Crazy right? I planted  a big patch of sunflowers because they are so expensive but I am getting so may sprouting and growing all over the yard and the compost that I don't think they eat any that I have scattered. They do like the sprouts so  I though I would try sprouting some. I also put a few cupfuls in a plastic bag and pounded them opened with a hammer.  The did ladies gobble those up like a chicken is supposed too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beekissed 

 

 

But..first and foremost, the dogs have to believe that you hold the keys to hell if they do something to those chickens when you are not around.  This doesn't have to be accomplished with any hitting or yelling, just a tone and expression, body language and purpose.  They have to know that everything you own is yours and they mustn't touch it, even when you are not around.

 

So true. I want to add that properly training a dog might take time and effort but if done right you will only have to do it once.

I have four dogs, including two (abused) rescues that were three and five years old when they cam here. None of them will take food of a plate, even if it's on the floor, until I tell them they can. Believe me this :trick" comes in very handy when your kids have  birthday parties!

We had a very hard time with one high prey drive dog because she seemed to think that the peeping baby chicks were toys and constantly tried to mouth them, but it stopped as soon as she figured out that 1. they were ALIVE  2. they were MINE.  Now she is their best protector. Until we got a taller fence installed (and clipped wings) we  had a hard time keeping them in the yard when they first started flying and as son as she heard them cheeping out front (long before we ever would have) she would herd them back over the fence.

BTW  I have never yelled at them or hit them I just let them know that the two legged family members are in charge from the day they arrived. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beekissed 

I would, if it's not too much trouble...or put in some more shovels of good, fresh earth and give it some time.  Did the ashes take care of your mite problem?  If not, I'd put some NS on the mite eggs near the vent, if any, and do it all again.  Dust that dust wand of a chicken! 

 

 

 

I've no experience with crop problems and never really had those in my flock, so I am no help at all....I'm sorry.  Anyone else care to weigh in on natural ways to prevent or treat this malady?

 

Of course, it's probably because I cull all the overeaters like Wyandottes, Buff Orps, etc. that I do not have these issues.  Culling really seems to circumvent a lot of problems that are breed or genetic in origin.  Even if you live in the city and just have a small flock, you will find that eventually you will really need to cull for certain traits if you want to have a healthy, functioning flock.  I know that probably takes most from 3 chickens down to 2 but that is why I don't normally advocate for chickens in the city....3-5 chickens does not a flock make.  You really can't manage it at all the way it should be managed and then have to resort to treating them like pets...which I understand that many city dwellers already regard their chickens in this light.

 

The only problem with this is that unless you have bought your birds from an exceptional breeder who has already done all the foot work for you, you are going to have pets that are prone to a wide array of maladies.   Does anyone really want a pet that ups and dies for no reason that you can see?  Or that develops any number of illnesses and diseases of which you have no idea how to prevent?  I think that eventually this whole pet chicken in the city craze will fade away and once again the country folk will be raising the chickens again...but until then it is going to be stressful and very difficult to marry the two factions, simply because the chicken is a livestock/farm animal and does not make an ideal pet at all. 

 

Most folks who choose chickens for pets choose the pretty chickens with colorful feathers, interesting top knots, feathered feet or with no feathers at all because that's just what pet keepers do...they all want a cute pet.  But, in all honesty, the most healthy breeds I've ever had were the ones that were just plain ol' utility breeds...White Rocks, Black Aussies, RIRs, White Leghorns, etc.  Nothing fancy, nothing to impress folks with except good health, exceptional lay, and a stress free life.

 

If that were my chicken I'd probably cull her, particularly if this is recurring and causing her respiratory distress.  Sorry.... 

I had a feeling that is what you would say .... Her crop seems to be fine now, she just seems to have a touch of congestion. So that is what I am looking for advice on ....

You would like my Ameraucanas she is a scrapy light weight prizefighter :)  She lays very well, forages well, and she did get "sick" but now I actually think she broke or fractured her keel bone (someone else was watching her she flew off my deck 30 feet down and landed hard... or so I was told).... I nursed her back from what I thought was a possible crop issue but learned of this flight after the fact... Now when I feel her keel bone it zigzags.... so I'm thinking that was the actual malady....  she was up and bossing around the other chickens in a few days .....  She is a tough one!!!  She has had watery droppings since that trauma but they seem to be getting less frequent.... so I'm hoping they will clear up soon.  Besides that she is back to normal......  

It rained here a few days ago , now back in the high 80s but I made a fire and ashed up my girls just to make sure the mites had gone..... I will NS the roost like you suggested to an earlier poster .... and I will clean out and start over my deep litter in the coop ..... I have the time right now so might as well do it right!!!  

Thanks for your advice .....  Some day I will have chickens out of the city but for now ..... I've gotta make a living :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by aggiemae 

This was posted a few days ago and you might have had some replies already but I wanted to say that my hens don't go into wood ash.  Two of ours don't eat Calcium if it's on the side and there eggs are getting thinner.

 

We had chickens when I was growing up, our chicks were hatched and raised by hens. Those chickens did take dust baths in the ash and eat the eggshells that were tossed out with the table scraps. Do chickens (instinctively)  know whats good for them?

 

I have noticed, mostly from many hours of sitting in the yard and watching "chicken TV",  that hens often do things by imitation. My current flock were all hatchery chicks and I wonder of not being raised by hens is the reason  they don't  bath in ash or peck the calcium.

  chickens raised by a chicken are much better at being chickens than those raised by humans IMHO. I had 3 chicks at 3.5 weeks old have their mother killed by a fox. At 3.5 weeks old they knew where the coop was, where I fed them and better still where to forage for natural food. They are now nearly full grown chickens who are full of instinct and survival skills.