Well, Chickensaresweet, you nailed it. NFM. I woke up this morning and Freckles was a little more responsive, but not enough to get hopes up. In her cage were hundreds of dead bugs. I took her to my vet and he examined the bugs under his microscope. NFM without a doubt. He did a fecal on her and...
Thanks for the info. My vet called back and got a lot of information. He wants to see her in the morning. My vet is good about keeping the cost down and being out in the country, he is well versed in livestock and poultry care as well as cats and dogs. He has a small ranch himself. Anyway, since...
OK, so I took her out in the sun so I could get a good look at her skin and feathers. I had my wife with me for help. We examined the hen carefully and did see a few bugs. These were not red as all of the mites I have seen, but they looked like common gnats. They may or may not be harmful, but I...
Yes, at the end of last summer. It is my understanding that if you are going to worm your flock, once a year is the frequency. Is that correct, or do I need to do it again?
Also, upon my examination I noticed no mites or bugs on her. That's not to say she doesn't have something going on...
First off, I normally research prior to posting a question. However, I may not have the time needed so I am going to do this out of order.
I have a beautiful Welsummer hen who lives with a flock of 7 other mixed breed layers and a rooster. She is our oldest hen, but I do not know her exact...
Thanks everyone for the positive replies. jtbass, that is a valid concern. In fact, I did have a rodent or rodents, but found where they were coming in and made sure they couldn't get back in. It was a corner of the hardware cloth where they were getting in. Looking back, the inside feeder was...
Thanks everyone for the votes and congrats to the other winners. I am sure this was tough for the judges because all the pages were packed full of information and tips. Researching the other coop pages was the only way I could come up with the design and features that I included on our coop...
Thanks for the comments LittleRedCoop. It's funny you should mention the nipples. Our winter was so much colder than normal, I was unable to use the waterer at all this winter. In fact, I learned a lot since this was our first winter and I will update this page with what I learned and some tips...
Thanks Kadjain, but I have found an issue with it during the last polar vortex we had. And I guess this goes for any bulk feed system. It needs a drain. I had just filled it with 50lbs of food and went out of town. I had to rush back due to the weather and I didn't get around to covering the...
Yeah, it's pretty neat living in an airplane hangar until you realize you have to heat and cool the thing. Then you start thinking the people who originally converted it could have gotten away with only using half of the space they did inside the hangar.
...fiberglass sheets screwed down with roofing screws. The fiberglass sheets were left in our shop from the previous owners so that was no cost to us.
*Hint* Spacing of the 2"x4"s need to be the same as the width of the hardware cloth you are going to use. This will minimize waste.
The...
So after using the PDZ a few days I am glad to report that there is about a 85%-90% reduction in flies. Granted, the weather turned a little cooler by about 10 degrees over the last few days, but I am loving the PDZ so far. Cleanup is super easy and there is virtually no smell in the hen house...
A wild game camera would do well, however as Wrooster pointed out, it may be difficult to distinguish between similar looking hens. You might be able to find a game camera in color that will do the trick. They are fairly pricey though.
Thanks for the quick reply. I do have some river sand left over as that is what the run area is. I could fill the bottom of the hen house with the sand and put a good layer of PDZ on top of that. Now, I hope I can keep these flies at bay until my first day off so I can pick up some PDZ. I will...
OK, my fly problem is getting out of hand. I have done several searches here in desperation. I saw where one guy/gal built a trough and put Sweet PDZ in it. He placed this trough under his roosting poles and his problem went away. He then treats it as a litter box and scoops periodically.
So...
I wanted a bulk system that would serve it's duty in the run and inside the coop while minimizing it's footprint. I ended up hanging a box on the outside of the hen house that dropped into a feeder. On the wall it was hanging on I cut a long narrow hole and put a tray underneath it to deliver...