Recent content by farmergal

She didn't actually eat any part of them, though, as far as I could tell. I've raised probably 150 chickens from chicks and never lost 4 at a time like this. They were completely fine last night, no signs of illness whatsoever -- could 4 really just instantly drop dead like that? I've never...

I am so, so saddened and confused. A week ago, my bantam broody hatched out 1 chick on her own (the eggs had originally started under another broody who abandoned the eggs, hence the low hatch rate), and I grafted 6 others from the feed store onto her. She'd been broody for over a month so it...

I am so, so saddened and confused. A bantam broody hatched out 1 chick on her own (the eggs had originally started under another broody who abandoned the eggs, hence the low hatch rate), and I grafted 6 others from the feed store onto her. She'd been broody for over a month so it wasn't like...

Oooh, the paint sounds like a good idea. I thought of the "raddle" at first but then thought that the pain of getting my ram in a harness (and then having to look at him, being so silly) wasn't worth it... plus, it seemed like an unnecessary cost... but direct paint would be cheaper. I'll...

Awww I'm so sorry! That person sounds horrible, how irresponsible. When I took my goats to the vet the other day (to fix a bad disbudding :p which had been done by a first-time breeder) the vet was telling me about the horrible things she'd seen... for instance, the person who let a scur grow...

So, I am new to the sheep thing -- I brought my first sheep (babydoll southdowns) home around February. I've had the ram separated from the ewes since July so I wouldn't end up with lambs too early. Since our climate is pretty mild, I figured Feb/March would be a good time to lamb. And...

Awww too bad I'm too far away to bring home your little buckling... I have an adorable buckling of my own who is currently kind of bummed to be by himself, in with the male sheep. He misses all of his girlfriends but they're going to have to wait until they're old enough to date! I've only...

Me too. Sounds like a LF Cochin auction would do VERY well right now...

If only I weren't 3,000 miles away...

Thanks for the help. For those who have a similar problem, I am trying the following treatment: *Syringe feed her yogurt, mixed with a bit of chick starter (just to make it as calorically-rich as possible.) *Put nutri-drench in her water, and then the next time I filled it, I put in some...

To be perfectly honest, it will probably not survive and the kindest thing to do would be to put it out of its misery. Where did you find it? Was there some sort of nest nearby? It's possible the mama mouse was moving it to a different spot and dropped it. If you're really going to try and...

Interesting. He didn't seem to have a leg problem until at least a week after he started shaking... At first it was just shaking with no other symptoms whatsoever. (And he would shake even when he was sitting down, not just when trying to stand up.) Here I was thinking it was some kind of...

Does anyone have any suggestions? I just put her back in a small cat carrier with water and chick starter... she is definitely sluggish, it was easy to catch her (and usually my WLs are crazy, fast, and don't like to be caught). I gave her a bit of Nutri-Drench too.

I have a six-week-old guinea keet who has a problem that no one (at the feed store, local guinea breeders, etc.) seems to have seen before. At about 10 days old, he started shaking. The shaking kind of impaired his ability to function with the group of 12 keets and chicks he was living with...

I have a flock of approximately 80 birds, and about a week ago I noticed a WL hen looking out of sorts. Her comb -- normally a perky, huge, red comb -- was looking shriveled. Her wings seemed to sag a little. And when I picked her up she had obviously lost quite a bit of weight. One other...