The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Mrs Hutcherson]

Hey everybody, been a while since ive been on here.
I want to ask for some tips on taking care if an injured hen...
Came home from a veterans day ceremony at our daughters school to find one if my girls motionless on the ground outside her penwith a pretty good hole in the back of her neck and face, one of her earlobes is torn and part of her comb missing. The puppy my husband rescued is the culprit. Ee cleaned her up, I stitched up her neck and cut back the feathers around her head, they were matted and dirty.
we have her wrapped lightly in towels in a pet carrier.
She responds to sounds, but is sleeping mostly, quite understandable, she ate some scrambled eggs and drank a lil water. Every so often I offer food and water.
Is there any thing else I should do?

The poor darling even layed an egg in my lap wrapped in the towel!

Any suggestions, tips and/or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Please and thank you

 

[armorfirelady]

Quote: I actually moved it further down so it was a wind block where the entrance of the compost pile is. Its still in the veggie garden tho. I figure if we get anymore I will just line them up.

We are forecast for snow here as well. Yesterday I took down one electronet fence but left the other up. It gives them a smaller area but they didnt venture down that far after the hawk attack. I am hopefull the snow keeps the fence up. I hate to take it down so early in the month when I know the snow is not here to stay yet. Its not that I dont want them in the veggie garden I was just hoping the ground cover could grow some more before I let them in there.

 

[aoxa]

Yes. It is strange when you find an otherwise robust virile cockerel in good flesh stone cold under the roost with no apparent weakness, illness, or wounds. The first thing I do in necropsy after a thorough external examination is pull the internal organs. His heart was the only thing that looked strange. It was raining and cold on the exam table so I didn't take pictures. I have learned to notice irregularities in the heart and where to carefully slice it open to view the different chambers, aortic valve, and such. That clot was blocking and lodged in the large aortic valve. It was very like a small liver in consistency. The heart lining was covered with a fine white veining that sort of resembled white netting. Have not seen that before. It did not look like any normal chicken heart I've seen. I'm really glad I held back four HRIR males. It is exactly for this reason I needed to wait for choosing breeders.

It always makes me smile to enter my barn yard. Those flags and streamers looks like a party every time there is a breeze. The hawks cruise my neighborhood but I haven't lost a bird since flying the sparkle flags. And I let forty white Silkie chicks free range the orchard and garden everyday. Having said this, now I'll probably get hit. It takes just one really brazen and hungry predator to break the cycle. But so far....Not one loss to predators in over two years.
I don't have a dog or overhead netting. Except for the turkey run. There is a tarp and net over theirs to keep them dry and from flying out and taking a jaunt around the neighborhood. When the turkeys are all in freezer camp, the Silkies will get that run. Wet Silkies are pathetic looking. I need to net and tarp their set up.

Mumsy,

I asked Stony for you and here's what he said:

My findings are on 7 to 9 month old chickens in general not just roosters. When a seemingly healthy chicken of that age dies unexpectedly overnight I have found that it is from a birth defect that comes to a head at that general age. More often than not when I butcher the chicken I find that there is a lot of blood pooling around the heart.
My conclusion in these cases is the chicken was born with a bad heart and at 7 to 10 months of age the heart gives out. Other organs as well but I have mainly seen the heart be the issue.​

 

[stonykill]

I popped in to see what's happening. Fun to see "Johnny Cakes' are still being made. I'm getting ready to feed some to my flock now that the weather is changing. Cold, rain, wind,....same old same old this time of year.

One of my HRIR cockerels dropped dead off the roost last night! Really a weird deal. I had banded him early on as a keeper for breeding. He was beautiful but as the months went on, other boys passed him by in quality. I still kept him, waiting to see if he would be a late bloomer after starting out as a early bloomer. The only thing the necropsy showed was a large heart with a huge clot in it. His organs and everything else looked perfect. I was going to cull him next month because he has a bit of a roach back. A serious defect and if he didn't outgrow it, he wouldn't be breeding worthy. I'm sad to lose his meat. He was long cold when I found him this morning under the roost. He was buried in the rose garden.


This is him a week or so ago.

Any way....Nothing much else to report. My flock free ranges every day. No sight of a hawk. My twirly gigs, streamers, and flags still flying and keeping them away. For now anyway.

Not getting many eggs. Everyone settling down for the long winter. I've been baking cookies for the freezer.


Left these out for the weekend. Husband has finished them off! I got one!

My findings are on 7 to 9 month old chickens in general not just roosters. When a seemingly healthy chicken of that age dies unexpectedly overnight I have found that it is from a birth defect that comes to a head at that general age. More often than not when I butcher the chicken I find that there is a lot of blood pooling around the heart.
My conclusion in these cases is the chicken was born with a bad heart and at 7 to 10 months of age the heart gives out. Other organs as well but I have mainly seen the heart be the issue.

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

AFL - I like reading and questioning. Only if it's of interest to me

Mumsy - I just made a batch of Johnny cakes last week and thought of you. Sorry to hear about that boy. And I remember stony talking about that too.

I need to go back and look at your garden photos to see what you put up for hawks. I'm seriously thinking about putting some of the bird netting in strategic open places. Those rolls are 100 ft. long and 7 ft. wide for about $8.99 here locally so that' a lot more coverage than the fishing line. And it's not obnoxiously visible from a distance so it's not a eye-sore to the neighborhood.

I use this netting on my layers run. It is 24x35. I do have to go out every couple of days an shake the leaves off, but the hawks have not figured out how to get in.

 

[aoxa]

My findings are on 7 to 9 month old chickens in general not just roosters. When a seemingly healthy chicken of that age dies unexpectedly overnight I have found that it is from a birth defect that comes to a head at that general age. More often than not when I butcher the chicken I find that there is a lot of blood pooling around the heart.
My conclusion in these cases is the chicken was born with a bad heart and at 7 to 10 months of age the heart gives out. Other organs as well but I have mainly seen the heart be the issue.

such a shame..

 

[MumsyII]

My findings are on 7 to 9 month old chickens in general not just roosters. When a seemingly healthy chicken of that age dies unexpectedly overnight I have found that it is from a birth defect that comes to a head at that general age. More often than not when I butcher the chicken I find that there is a lot of blood pooling around the heart.
My conclusion in these cases is the chicken was born with a bad heart and at 7 to 10 months of age the heart gives out. Other organs as well but I have mainly seen the heart be the issue.

Thank you. This would certainly explain why a visibly healthy looking eight month old cockerel would die over night and have a huge clot on his weird looking heart. Keeping back four of the best cockerels to grow out for a year was a good judgement call on my part.He was #4 choice. My hunch was spot on.

This is my #1 choice for breeding in Jan through May. A hatch mate that at eight months old is everything I'm looking for in a male HRIR. He needs to keep growing and thriving for another two or three months.
He is nine inches along the back from his hackle edge to the base of his tail. Some one asked me earlier if my poster board measuring chart was for gauging size. It is. I am breeding to the American SOP. He is bigger than the standard calls for. I am raising for eggs and the table. His bonus size does not bother me.







Banded early on as #27 and my number one breeding choice. He got a name today. King Leopold.

 

[stonykill]

Thank you. This would certainly explain why a visibly healthy looking eight month old cockerel would die over night and have a huge clot on his weird looking heart. Keeping back four of the best cockerels to grow out for a year was a good judgement call on my part.He was #4 choice. My hunch was spot on.

This is my #1 choice for breeding in Jan through May. A hatch mate that at eight months old is everything I'm looking for in a male HRIR. He needs to keep growing and thriving for another two or three months.
He is nine inches along the back from his hackle edge to the base of his tail. Some one asked me earlier if my poster board measuring chart was for gauging size. It is. I am breeding to the American SOP. He is bigger than the standard calls for. I am raising for eggs and the table. His bonus size does not bother me.







Banded early on as #27 and my number one breeding choice. He got a name today. King Leopold.

 

[armorfirelady]

He is beautiful Mumsy

That 2nd picture while I know is meant to show his comb & wattles but it certainly looks like he is giving you the stink eye

 

[MumsyII]

He is beautiful Mumsy

That 2nd picture while I know is meant to show his comb & wattles but it certainly looks like he is giving you the stink eye

All of the big reds have that look. This big boy is so large, I'm sort of afraid to pick him up and lug him around. He could do a lot of damage if he wanted to. I tuck him under my arm facing backwards and he is calm as can be. He lets me open the cage and stroke his back and smooth his feathers with no fuss. The other boys struggle and scream and have conniptions. Keeping him penned separate and having him deal with me directly every day is the best way I know to keep him gentled and safe. I don't want him to be a pet but I do want him to respect me and be still when the need calls for it. Funny side note. One of my Silkie cock birds stands under the cage and taunts him by jumping up and down trying to get his attention. It cracks me up. The big red ignores him much like eagles ignore crows.