My moved in with my boyfriend not to long ago and have taken over caring for his chickens. Prior to this, his parents cared for them (very poorly in my opinion).
Keep in mind this is my first experience with chickens but I have been learning and studying a great deal about them.
One of my favorite chickens, died today.
The sex and age is uncertain. I think it was a rooster because I have never seen it lay an egg...my boyfriend thinks this chicken was very old..maybe as old as ten years..
He has lived in a cage his entire life, in a petting zoo of sorts. And has only been fed cracked corn. With no grit. (His parents asked me what grit was, when I started giving it to the chickens!) this has been going on for years.
I have been feeding everyone nutrena grower/starter because we have a group of young chickens I am trying to make sure have a decent diet. It's been several weeks of this feed.
Recently I noticed this bird had some messy stools, all different textures n colors, but some very runny like egg white. He got dewormed about two weeks ago (the free range chickens had roundworms).
Finally today I couldn't handle seeing his poopy butt..it was very crusty and terrible looking. So I read byc for like an hour on how to bath a chicken and have him a bath. Which he seemed to really enjoy, he made cute noises and while I was soaking his behind he almost fell asleep. He let me blowdry him no problem. I then put him in a cage in the sun for a few minutes before moving the cage into the back porch.
In less than an hour I went out to check on him and he was layed over, freshly dead
I have been very very upset all day. I feel like I caused it, like I did something wrong, or failed to do something.
One thing I did notice was while I was bathing him his crop (I Think it's his crop bc I have never seen on before) looked full of fluid or something. I don't know what a normal one is supposed to look like so idk.
Here are the pictures..
Keep in mind this is my first experience with chickens but I have been learning and studying a great deal about them.
One of my favorite chickens, died today.
The sex and age is uncertain. I think it was a rooster because I have never seen it lay an egg...my boyfriend thinks this chicken was very old..maybe as old as ten years..
He has lived in a cage his entire life, in a petting zoo of sorts. And has only been fed cracked corn. With no grit. (His parents asked me what grit was, when I started giving it to the chickens!) this has been going on for years.
I have been feeding everyone nutrena grower/starter because we have a group of young chickens I am trying to make sure have a decent diet. It's been several weeks of this feed.
Recently I noticed this bird had some messy stools, all different textures n colors, but some very runny like egg white. He got dewormed about two weeks ago (the free range chickens had roundworms).
Finally today I couldn't handle seeing his poopy butt..it was very crusty and terrible looking. So I read byc for like an hour on how to bath a chicken and have him a bath. Which he seemed to really enjoy, he made cute noises and while I was soaking his behind he almost fell asleep. He let me blowdry him no problem. I then put him in a cage in the sun for a few minutes before moving the cage into the back porch.
In less than an hour I went out to check on him and he was layed over, freshly dead
I have been very very upset all day. I feel like I caused it, like I did something wrong, or failed to do something.
One thing I did notice was while I was bathing him his crop (I Think it's his crop bc I have never seen on before) looked full of fluid or something. I don't know what a normal one is supposed to look like so idk.
Here are the pictures..
