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Hey Bogtown, so sorry to hear of your loss and your ongoing battle to keep Rose comfortable!
As I was reading through your thread I sometimes felt like I was reading my own diary! (I don't actually keep a diary, but if I did it would read very much like yours)
This has been my first winter with chickens and I feel like I've been fighting it the whole time. One girl got sick in the beginning of December (not really sure what it was, just the general puffed up, keeping to herself not laying eggs symptoms) but she eventually came out of it on her own with no intervention from me. She started laying eggs again about a month later, then another one had an impacted crop and possibly had a broken soft egg inside of her that she passed on her own within a day or two, but I was bringing her in to the house twice a day for a week to massage her crop and try to tube feed her water (which I never had success at). She finally got better after a week or two, and now I've got this serious feather picking going on! I'm pretty sure it's from exactly what you had going on: too many treats! It's been so blasted cold though! But I was really starting to notice that they were not eating their chicken food hardly at all, so they must have been just subsisting on scratch. I had been playing around with fermented feed, and they liked it when it was fresh but then after a week or so they wouldn't touch it, and I don't blame them, it smelled like a rotting animal! So when this feather picking started I baked them flock blocks and threw more BOSS and scratch at them just to keep them busy, and added meal worms for more protein, but they still weren't getting the right nutrition. Now I've just started wetting their food and mixing in some yogurt and Avia Charge (not fermenting it, just wetting) and have cut out the scratch all together. They still get a little BOSS and mealworms in the morning, but they are licking their feed bowl clean now! They definitely seem happier now that I've got things balanced out, with an occasional feather pick out of habit and boredom I think.
Anyway, sorry to drone on and on, but what I'm getting at is that I thought this was supposed to be easy!! Believe me, I have had those "is it all worth it?" thoughts too, but then I picture myself sitting out on the swing in the chicken yard in the sun watching them peck around. I just keep telling myself (and my girls) that we're almost done with this torturous winter and every winter after this one will seem like a breeze!
Oh look, a forecasted high temp of -4 on Thursday...
Hang in there Bogtown. I have yet to lose a chicken and I know I will be devastated when the time comes for any of my girls. My thoughts are with you!
Hey Foxy Chicken: I'm glad you found this thread and are following. It is easy to do this over graining. First of all we know they love it! Secondly for you and me we have that little piece of advice in the back of our heads that corn digestion produces a nice heat in the bird to keep them warm on frigid nights. And certainly we are getting our fair share of that this winter! I can't get over the cold weather now this week again! I'm glad you posted as I'm admire your other posts and your wonderful coop. I know I'm in good company with you putting down your thoughts here. So treat it as our little coffee round table to discuss our trial and tribulations chickening. No worries from me on that! I love it in fact. Our first winter, last year--our challenges were frostbite with the rooster. This year our problems seem to be more varied and systemic. Craziness! I can't get over some of the stuff I'm getting to deal with. I'm just very thankful for knowledgeable people that visit with me and supporting me. Because I'm the only one doing it...taking care of the health needs of the birds. I love it...but it would be nice to have a few jump ins from the kids or the hubby. Living in a fantasy world. LOL. Well my son did help haul the old bedding from the coop away from the coop. I scooped it and he hauled. That help was totally valuable. And my daughter has given Rose a few doses of her medicine. For the most part though it's mostly me. The kids do express that they are thankful for me doing it but it can add a lot to your plate. That is for sure. I dabble with fermented feed when it won't freeze on me. I like it and I think the birds like it when I'm doing it...but it does take up space in my laundry room. I usually feed it after 2 days of setting up. If it's any longer I see the white mold on top and a stronger "not right" smell. I do it spring, summer fall when the temps are above freezing. It sticks to wattles and such and I've seen frostbite after giving it too. I didn't like that last winter. I help this fellow at work with his chickens sometimes...give advice on things I've heard what not. He had a feather picker in his coop. Long days spent in the coop because too cold to go out...but also his waterer was freezing and he wasn't rechecking it to keep it open and the feeder too small for the number of adult birds he had. I told him that they were stressed out because of no food and water. We cut felted down wool sweaters for the more nude backed girl and were able to also determine by process of elimination who the feather picker was. I was worried she'd keep doing it...but she quit when he redoubled his efforts to keep open water and food well stocked. Also we put some Merricks Blue Ribbon in their water for a couple days in case their guts were off just a bit. No problems since. Thank goodness as I think it gets to be a favorite past-time. I wouldn't want that issue in my coop. That's a toughie!
I hope you keep popping by FoxyChicken! It was fun to see you post on here!
Its such a handful when you need to keep tabs on the "special cases" that is for sure. It's just a whole monkey wrench in your day's schedule too! After last winter I've just decided that I need to "let go" sometimes and if I can't get to it one day then so be it! Just redouble my efforts or pull a bird off the roost at Midnight if that's what I've gotta do. LOL. I'm glad you got her turned around though, pwand. For her sake and yours. LOL. So you do sort of a "Bra" then for her crop? I think Shell3 still uses hers on Bombie. She had a bit this summer with it off--quite a good full couple of months--but then gluttonous Bombie got in trouble again. LOL. But Shell just seemed more in control of it...knew what to do to turn it around. The constant pressure of that bra just really has made the difference for that bird and reshaping the crop up. Sort of amazing that the physicalness of that is probably the solution to that problem...almost more than the meds to some degree. You know?My hen got impacted crop and very soured from eating straw about three weeks ago, by the time I discovered her with it, the crop was swollen like a balloon. Long story short, the straw had to be removed from her crop, there was lot, and had to deal with the sour crop with Fluconazole. It worked.She is doing great, she is out with the other girls fashioning her apron over the crop area to keep her and others from pecking at it. The crop is almost healed. No more straw, replaced it with shaving. I hope that is the last of those problems. She did well over this past year. She had to make it a one year anniversary for me.
I hope this is it. I had the other hen with the egg broken inside her in my downstairs shower and the sour crop one in my bath tub up stairs. We had to work around shower times until my hen downstairs could go out with her apron over her butt. They are all doing great now. Time to relax. We got 1 ft of snow here over the weekend. It does happen, my chickens love to eat it. Its heavy wet stuff.
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Were all so different.
