I can't keep my flock healthy.

[Stephine]

I wanted to update on our crisis here:
I started the poult on denagard per recommendation of an admin from my cross beak fb group. She’s been getting it roughly three days now and her swelling is gone. She is still sneezing a lot. But she’s running around with a normal face, thank goodness.

The bumble foot. She’s still so swollen. Still won’t put weight on it. I’m changing the dressing every two days. Prid and neosporin. The incisions are healing well. But that swelling won’t budge.
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I’ve got Tylan50 now at home. So I guess I’m going to figure out if that will work or not.

Didn’t somebody give you a link to the soaking treatment for bumble foot? Maybe it was a different treatment they linked to, but I remember someone on here recommend a soaking treatment that did the trick for an impossible bumble foot situation.
It looks like the infection you are dealing with is really deep and the skin heals but that doesn’t help the tissue underneath…

 

[Stephine]

One more thing: clean water is essential for the health of the flock. The waterers you show are hard to keep clean and really need to be scrubbed at least once a day, but even then… At a minimum get them off the ground, so they can’t stick their feet in them. I can highly recommend self filling cup waterers (lubing cups). I made one from a igloo cooler (great for hot weather), but also have them made with buckets.

There’s also a new, different cup style I like even better (so far):

They still get a bit dirty, but at least it’s just from beaks, not feet. I spray the cups with a hose daily and wash them every few days.
In my experience cups are better in hot weather than nipples - the chickens drink a lot more water with the cups as they require no work and fill themselves.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Just popping in to say I second the recommendation to cover your run with woodchip/mulch. It works wonders, decomposes poop rapidly and ultimately breaks down into a rich compost. I have my mulch layer about 4 inches thick, so it does required quite a lot of mulch. I have no mud, no smell, and they find earthworms in there.

Please note that I live in a temperate and humid environment, if yours is dry you may need to wet the mulch every so often to keep it biologically active. But if you have mud it sounds like it'll be just fine.

 

[Stephine]

The First saturday lime acts as my DE. I was using it initially for odor and bugs. So I have increased the amount I put on the coop floor.

We had pine shavings before. It was just a lot of clean out and smelled. Maybe I'll go half and half? Just to cushion it some. Thank you!

You could also try a bedding called Coop Klean (or Koop Klean? something like that). It’s chopped hay with sweet PDZ mixed in. That’s what I am using in the coop since it composts better than shavings, and it is great. Really keeps smell down, dries out the poops and I only clean out when the ratio of poop to bedding gets too high for my liking, (every 6-8 weeks - I scrape poop boards daily) it never stinks, at least not in our Sonoma climate.

 

[Stephine]

Just popping in to say I second the recommendation to cover your run with woodchip/mulch. It works wonders, decomposes poop rapidly and ultimately breaks down into a rich compost. I have my mulch layer about 4 inches thick, so it does required quite a lot of mulch. I have no mud, no smell, and they find earthworms in there.

Please note that I live in a temperate and humid environment, if yours is dry you may need to wet the mulch every so often to keep it biologically active. But if you have mud it sounds like it'll be just fine.

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I use large pine shavings in the run but wanted to try wood chips, so I asked the tree trimmers to leave me a pile, and I let it sit for a few weeks so it wouldn’t be to aromatic and then when I wanted to use it it had gotten moldy! I would still like to try wood chips but how do you age them without getting mold?

 

[ccredeur]

Just popping in to say I second the recommendation to cover your run with woodchip/mulch. It works wonders, decomposes poop rapidly and ultimately breaks down into a rich compost. I have my mulch layer about 4 inches thick, so it does required quite a lot of mulch. I have no mud, no smell, and they find earthworms in there.

Please note that I live in a temperate and humid environment, if yours is dry you may need to wet the mulch every so often to keep it biologically active. But if you have mud it sounds like it'll be just fine.

Just popping in to say I second the recommendation to cover your run with woodchip/mulch. It works wonders, decomposes poop rapidly and ultimately breaks down into a rich compost. I have my mulch layer about 4 inches thick, so it does required quite a lot of mulch. I have no mud, no smell, and they find earthworms in there.

Please note that I live in a temperate and humid environment, if yours is dry you may need to wet the mulch every so often to keep it biologically active. But if you have mud it sounds like it'll be just fine.

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Oh man. I am going to try and see where I can get my hands on some. I need something that won't mold for sure. I got a few bags of rocks over the weekend to throw down in the worst spot. My only concern is mold and splinters on their feet.

 

[sdm111]

In my opinion once you have so many illnesses as you you won't ever have really healthy birds from that flock. It is also of my opinion to thin the heard out by at least half to try to get a handle on things. If it were me I would cull every one and start fresh. And don't give all kinds of vaccinations, antibiotics or medications. Let them build a healthy immune system. Giving all kinds of medication makes for weak animals. The run I would put wheat straw. It is hollow and wicks water as to not absorb it and mold and smell another problem that will cause less that healthy animals

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

I use large pine shavings in the run but wanted to try wood chips, so I asked the tree trimmers to leave me a pile, and I let it sit for a few weeks so it wouldn’t be to aromatic and then when I wanted to use it it had gotten moldy! I would still like to try wood chips but how do you age them without getting mold?

Without seeing a photo of what you're calling mold I can't 100% be sure of my answer, but what I suspect you're seeing is the fungal life in the chips as they begin decomposing in the pile, and that is a very good thing. It will be reduced when spread thin and mushed around by the chickens, but that is a great sign you have the microbiology in there to make the system work. Are you seeing lots of white/cream colored fungal growth? That is the good stuff. Woodchip based compost/mulch should be fungally dominant, not bacterically dominated. Adding the chicken poop will push it towards being bacterically dominated so starting with lots of fungal activity is excellent.

 

[Stephine]

In my opinion once you have so many illnesses as you you won't ever have really healthy birds from that flock. It is also of my opinion to thin the heard out by at least half to try to get a handle on things. If it were me I would cull every one and start fresh. And don't give all kinds of vaccinations, antibiotics or medications. Let them build a healthy immune system. Giving all kinds of medication makes for weak animals. The run I would put wheat straw. It is hollow and wicks water as to not absorb it and mold and smell another problem that will cause less that healthy animals

Wholeheartedly disagree with this. The OP does not have an unusual amount of issues with her flock. Certainly no need to cull birds for bumble foot, the occasional worm issue or mites. Those are incredibly common. And it’s not like she wants to have a commercial flock - this is backyard chickens after all and it’s a hobby. And she is working on building more adequate coop space for them. It sounds more like she’s a bit overwhelmed, and I think it won’t be that hard to get a better handle on things.
And please don’t use wheat straw. The hollow stems are an excellent breeding ground for mites and will make hard to clean up mess in a wet outdoor run.

 

[aart]

I use large pine shavings in the run but wanted to try wood chips, so I asked the tree trimmers to leave me a pile, and I let it sit for a few weeks so it wouldn’t be to aromatic and then when I wanted to use it it had gotten moldy! I would still like to try wood chips but how do you age them without getting mold?

Let it sit for another week.
Then scrape off the outer layer of the pile and spread it thin in the run.
Keep this up once a week or so.