Recent content by salty midnite

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    Rooster shaking head like a wet dog

    Update: 1/14/21 It must have been a parasite, mite or louse?, in his ear. This morning we inspected with an otoscope, saw nothing we could identify, but since we saw no other foreign matter in there, we put one drop of Ivermax into that ear. No more head shaking! All is well. He appears...
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    Rooster shaking head like a wet dog

    Thanks. I'm not sure where the frostbite occurred. Could you fill me in on why you're certain it happened inside the coop? It could have happened outside, yes? Previously to discovering the blackened tips of his comb, I was allowing them to go outside by 7:30 a.m., when it has been quite cold...
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    Rooster shaking head like a wet dog

    Thank you for your detailed answer. Next step will be to put a sensor into their roost area to find out for sure what that humidity is, but I've been monitoring it by hand and it's always dry as far as my senses can tell. We're located in a windy mountain pass where the ambient humidity is about...
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    Rooster shaking head like a wet dog

    My 10-month-old Brahma rooster, who weighs about 6 lbs & looks very healthy, started a week ago shaking his head multiple times per hour, briefly, almost like a dog shakes off water. No one else in the very small flock does this. Surely it shouldn't be ear mites, since I treated them all with...
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    how did I live without chickens?

    I hope they have long and happy lives together with you!
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    how did I live without chickens?

    Haha...hadn't occurred to me that I might have been being manipulated!!! But I surely manipulated him, many stressful changes for him in a short time, and he did his very best to comply with all demands, for example, bravely walking himself up a brand-new-to-him weird ramp into a very strange...
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    how did I live without chickens?

    Well, I suppose if I didn't need his help I'd listen a lot less!
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    how did I live without chickens?

    Thanks! I'm so glad to find you all and your knowledge & experience. We have a bunch of mixed breeds from a barnyard mix. Salty, our alpha rooster is a light-colored Brahma and the sweetest, best leader of the flock you could imagine. His girls are 2 Polish and 1 small red hen, not quite a...
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    how did I live without chickens?

    !!!! Yep, it's hard not to adopt every bird that comes up locally, especially roosters, who I love, it turns out. But we really can't expand at all, and hubby is adamant, so there's that too.
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    how did I live without chickens?

    Just 7 of them, none quite a year old yet. Two turned out to be cockerels and did not get along, so I separated them into 2 tiny flocks. Everyone's happy now, and I'm exhausted!
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    How to entertain a single cockerel feeling lonesome segregated from the flock?

    Yep, ditto on the earwigs. Why I'm so proud of the girls for decimating them! But we don't have enough crickets here for them to have learned about them. Maybe I"ll buy them some next summer for practice.
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    How to entertain a single cockerel feeling lonesome segregated from the flock?

    :) I call them over and point out the earwigs...fave treat.
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    How to entertain a single cockerel feeling lonesome segregated from the flock?

    Right? It's a pretty fun game for even me, and of course they love it. Though the top hen gets 90% of the bugs no matter how hard I try to even out the opportunities. She's smart & fast.
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    How to entertain a single cockerel feeling lonesome segregated from the flock?

    Update and new question...this lone cockerel is adapting and has become a real pet, but he does still pace and is awfully lonesome despite my best efforts to be his flock. If I could find a spare hen somewhere, would it be cruel to her to put her with him, since she'd be the only mate? And...
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    How to entertain a single cockerel feeling lonesome segregated from the flock?

    He is indeed the same age, and I love learning that his hormones might settle! I didn't realize that. And thanks for the enrichment ideas. We do already do the turning-over-of-everything-I-own for bug hunting. I'm a sucker for that game, so all my smaller planter boxes get rolled onto their...
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