INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[tmarsh83]

I wouldn't pack up the winter gear yet all.

Next Saturday looks to usher in some wicked cold air that is going to hang around well into the next week. Weather models are putting single digits across much of the state for next Sun/Mon/Tues. It could be holding on a little further than that even but the models don't go out any further.

I'm ready for spring, but I'm more concerned because my chicks are set to be hatched the 29th and shipped during the heart of the cold streak. Hoping that goes well.

Just a heads up.

 

[Mother2Hens]

@pipdzipdnreadytogo Thank you for taking the time to post the info! Luckily, I haven't gone to RK to buy wormer —Thanks for the heads-up! Don't know why he'd say that either other than the report had just arrived, and they were getting ready to close. He has chickens, horses, cattle, etc. so you'd think he'd know.
I am going to go back outside now to enjoy this amazing weather with my flock (and intermittently with Lacy), but I will discuss more this evening.

 

[iamfivewire]

Hi all.
We all survived the wind storm friday - a dead pine tree blew down & luckily the dead ash didnt, or would of hit the house.
Power out fri nite til sat mid-afternoon - had to get the generator goin' & plugged in fridge + freezer, and also the incubator. Ran out of gas early sat morning for a little while - added some more & restarted . Incubator dropped aprox 20°F, but went back up to temp . Had one egg pipped this am, so hopefully will have a couple fuzzies later today/tonite.
. . . . . & just for fun - a recent pix of Brownie, or Charcoal IowaBlue pullet:

 

[Leahs Mom]

@iamfivewire
Glad the tree didn't come down on your house! We have a neighbor here that had a huge (maple I think) come down right between garage (not attached) and house. Hit their honda in the driveway and gave it a good smashing but missed the buildings it appears.

 

[iamfivewire]

1 chick hatched & 1 pipped. 3rd egg not due for 7 more days
(will update some baby pix later)

 

[Indyshent]

Welcome to my world.

If you ever have any questions about MG, let me know. I haven't had the time lately to dedicate to as much research as I could, but I do have a lot of sources of information saved from when I first found out and can probably answer questions. Funny thing, my flock never showed symptoms, either, save for my little Sebright with sinus issues due to her wretched previous owner botching her completely unnecessary debeaking. It's just so mild that, realistically, unless you test your flock regularly for it, if your birds are outside the odds are high that they have it and you just don't know it! There are many professionals that believe MG could be in as many as 80% of backyard flocks without the owners knowing, a piece of information I wasn't sure I believed until I got the positive test back on my seemingly healthy flock.

Marek's versus MG, I'm not sure there's a comparison of which is worse. Marek's disease can have a lot worse symptoms, but tends not to affect older birds, and it does not transfer through the eggs, so breeders can work with it and breed for resistance without concerns about passing the disease around as long as they make sure to wipe the shells of the eggs before incubation in case of dander sticking to them. MG is not a huge deal for the pet flock owner unless you have a strong strain of it that you keep having to treat and retreat for, but it does transfer through the egg, and so it puts a damper on me ever having a breeding flock along with my current flock. My options are to cull and start over (which I could never do to my babies!) or breed for resistance and live with the knowledge that I can never be NPIP certified in the state of Indiana (one of the very few, if not the only state that tests for MG for certification from my understanding--those of you who are certified testers can correct me if I'm wrong) and could possibly be passing the disease around to anyone I sell to in doing so, something I'm not sure I can do and feel okay with... Even if 80% of the flocks have it already, I'm not sure how okay I would feel about selling chicks and eggs from a flock known to have it and possibly infecting one of the 20% without it, you know?


I am quite surprised that your vet would recommend using Wazine for threadworms! Wazine is ONLY useful for treating roundworms in poultry, as is stated on the label, and will not get rid of any other kind of worm your birds have! Threadworms, AKA Capillary worms, are most effectively treated with Albendazole, but can also be treated with an aggressive round of Fenbendazole. Albendazole is really hard to find in feed stores; I had to get my bottle online. However, it is more recommended because it is safer; it slowly kills the worms to avoid a blockage of dead worms in the gut. Fenbendazole is available in goat liquid dewormer, horse deworming paste, and cattle dewormer, and is pretty easy to find in stores, but you may have to dose Wazine a few days beforehand to make sure that there isn't a blockage of roundworms in the gut as a result of using Fenbendazole. Both Albendazole and Fenbendazole require weighing each bird and dosing individually if you want to be accurate, so they are hard to use on larger flocks like mine, but worthwhile to know that they actually work! You can use the token 1/4 cc per bantam, 1/2 cc for large fowl, 3/4 cc for especially large chickens dose for Fenbendazole paste, but I have found this dose to be pretty far off of what you get when you actually weigh them and dose by that.

The dose for Safeguard Fenbendazole 10% Horse Deworming Paste is: 0.51 mL of paste per kg of body weight, once a day for 5 days in a row to treat Capillary worms.

The dose for Valbazen Albendazole 11.36% Liquid Cattle Dewormer is: 0.176 mL of liquid per kg body weight, dosed twice, the second dose given 10 days after the first. Make sure to shake the bottle thoroughly before drawing up doses!

The egg withdrawal for both is 14 days after the final dose.

Also, notice that both dosages are per KILOGRAM of body weight, not per pound! The dosages can easily be calculated per pound if that's easier to work with; there are 2.2 pounds per kg.

For what it's worth, worms generally only show up in droppings if there is a HUGE infestation; your birds could have them and you would never know without doing a fecal float test or some other test for internal parasites. That's why a lot of people worm their birds once or twice a year just as a preventative. ACV is not a dewormer, either, and so the use if it is irrelevant to whether your birds have worms or not. If your birds are outside eating bugs and earthworms, odds are they will get internal parasites at some point.






RE: Names. Eh, there's nothing wrong with having a Lacy and a Lacey.

I have a Margie and a Maggie, both nicknames for Margaret (although I didn't think of that when I named Maggie). I also have three Wyandottes, one of which is named Miss Wyandotte, so...

It's so interesting how many vocalizations chickens have! My understanding is that they have a different call for every different perceived predator, so it doesn't surprise me that Lacy has a cat alert. She has you well trained.

Edited to clarify

I'm pretty sure this bug that's been going around is MG. Everyone will be asymptomatic for months, then all of a sudden, someone will get to sneezing, and then a couple more will. What's worse is that it probably went through the egg to bitties. Good news is that it does respond very well to Denagard (the MG treatment), though other antibiotics were major slackers and took forever to have any real amazing improvement.

When the bitties started sneezing, I was pretty sure I was going to be stuck with all of them forever, but this 80% number gives me a little hope. I really don't want to sell or give chicks to people knowing that MG is likely just biding its time to strike again, but if anyone knows they already have it, they're welcome to chicks. I sent off for a T-12 carton, but it can take a long time to get the answers back (though MG is certainly tested for). I'd planned to breed sexlinked Brahmas, Cochins and Breda this year... C'est la vie.

*For anyone who wants them, I'm looking to downsize adult birds too* I'm not going to give away birds who have ever been symptomatic, but I'm willing to find others new homes. Symptomatic birds I will not rehome are the Breda rooster (the hen I'll keep with him anyway, even though she's always been well), a buff Orp, two of the light Brahmas, the BLRW roo, one Welsummer, one Australorp, and an EE. There have been a couple symptomatic babies, but by and large, they've been unscathed from it.

Available for new homes are:

Chicks: Purebreds are likely to be Brahma and black Cochin, but it's hard to tell who's pure and who isn't (many of the Cochins look pure). Mixes can be of any combinations of the following:
Of hens: Cochin (black and lemon pyle), Brahma (light, gold penciled), EE, Wyandotte (BLRW, SLW, GLW) (one chick looks to be pure Wyandotte and black-laced red), Australorp, buff Orp, possibly mottled Breda. Of roosters: black Sumatra, black Cochin, mottled Breda, dark Brahma, buff Colombian Brahma, and BLRW. DB is the dominant, but the Wyandotte ranks second, and the black Cochin has been surprisingly busy, judging by all these fluffy black babies with single combs (he's the only single combed rooster I have, and it's a recessive trait). Almost all of the babies have at least a few feathers on their feet, so I blame Wun Wun the DB for getting a lot of action (he has fewer foot feathers than Mag the Mighty, and a lot fewer than the Breda and the Cochin). His babies are also really tall like him already. Sick as he was, I'm pretty sure the Breda got some, too, because one of these babies is a dead ringer for him (though it might have a comb).



***Update, seeing as how long it's taken me to write this post*** One of the tweener mixes isn't walking, which kind of makes me suspect M. synoviae instead. MG isn't known for lameness, but MS is. Of course, it could be something else entirely. He's never had any respiratory problems--just suddenly lame in both legs with no apparent injury.

 

[Mishlerfarm24]

Ugh. Hoping she finds a safe spot. I've been lucky that the couple times its happened she's shown up the next day like nothing happened. Meanwhile you have a heart attack! All you can do is search as best as you can and hope and pray she's okay.

She must of been somewhere safe!!! I walked out a little later than normal this morning around 8:15 to let the girls out and she was no where to be found. About 11 am my fiancé went out looking for her walked the entire 5 acre property and nothing until he got back to the coop looked inside and she was sitting in the nest box!!! Still have no idea where she went! But yes I prayed all night that she was safe and nothing would get her!!

 

[Mishlerfarm24]

Have you had it happen before?

No, first time! But she finally showed up in the morning!!!

 

[Leahs Mom]

***Update, seeing as how long it's taken me to write this post*** One of the tweener mixes isn't walking, which kind of makes me suspect M. synoviae instead. MG isn't known for lameness, but MS is. Of course, it could be something else entirely. He's never had any respiratory problems--just suddenly lame in both legs with no apparent injury.

@Indyshent

When I hear of chicks (or any age bird, really - but chicks especially) starting to have issues with the legs/lameness, I suspect a b vitamin deficiency. If you have it, chop up some raw liver into tiny pieces and feed immediately. if you have some Brewers yeast around, give that.

This is also confirmed in the Merks Veterinary Manual.

This is a cc from a former post:

*******************************

Often times - and usually - a "b" vitamin issue.... Riboflavin, thiamine often. There are quite a few articles, including the Merck Veterinary manual, that talk about these issues.

Natural remedy:
-raw high quality liver, chopped into tiny pieces and fed
-high quality brewers yeast (Lewis labs if you only need it for a few birds works well.)

Synthetic Remedy:
-Poly-vi-sol children's vitamin liquid drops NO ADDED IRON just the regular formula.



************************************************



When I first heard about various "B" vitamins having an effect on leg issues w/chickens was a few years ago in one of Joel Salatin's books. Here is some info that is very interesting on riboflavin in young chicks in particular. I think if you click on the images they will come up large enough to read.

Quote:
Pastured Poultry Profits
Author: Joel Salatin
Chapter 26 In It's Entirety
For Educational Purposes Only. No copyright infringement intended










Someone had remarked earlier how they wondered how the birds could be fine one day and not able to walk the next. In another part of JS book, he mentioned that was what happened. One day they were in that condition. After feeding the liver, they recovered quite quickly as well.

 

[tmarsh83]

I have a couple volunteer mulberry trees growing in the litter under a big pine tree in my yard. My plan was to cut them back, but I started thinking yesterday that maybe I should just transplant one or both to the area planned for the new chicken run. Thoughts?