I'm having the same issues with three of my 14 hens and they are all three of different breeds. They seem healthy otherwise but when I gave them a once-over look today I noticed that three of them had brown/black spots on various locations on their tongues. I'm also in Oregon.
Hi All.
I had a similar problem pop up a couple of days ago with a 2 year old Buff Japanese. She kept one eye open all of the time and it was bright and alert. Her other eye remained closed most of the time, she only opened it reluctantly when other hens were getting too close. She was also...
We are in Toledo, Oregon. Just a mere 7 miles from the beautiful Oregon Coast. We have 25 hens and four roosters...everything from Silkie and Sebright to my favorite the always personable Speckled Sussex.
How are they doing now? I agree with Calicokat that it would be best to put them under the mother hen at night. Did you also treat the mother hen for mites?
Ugh, I feel your pain. I had a terrible mite infestation two years ago and I had to treat every hen and burn all of the litter/grass hay in the entire coop. You are right to be concerned about the health of the chicks as mites can kill. First I would move the entire brood to a mite free area...
We finally decided to try putting some three day old chicks that we picked up at our local feed store under a broody hen. It worked! She has been a terrific mother and the chicks are now a month old.
I've got to join in on this discussion because I too have lost more than 10 chickens to racoons over the past five years. It's simply not true that racoons only come out at night. I lock all of my hens up during the night but my losses to racoons were all in the middle of the day. This summer...