I am looking for a decent pre-fab coop, big enough to house 2 large roosters for about a month. I'll be building them a nice custom coop as soon as I have time, but these boys need new housing faster than I can build it. All the prefab housing I've found is tiny, with tiny doors, and usually a...
Hi! I wonder if there is any good cold weather forage that I could plant in my runs. Is anyone doing this? Something that would stay green longer into the winter than grass does, or that would begin greening before the grass in spring?
Update: Well, it has been 6 weeks. Zinnia is healthy and happy, but still on the Furosemide. She does not lay eggs anymore. In fact, I'm not sure it was even her who laid the soft shelled egg in the first place. But all the other girls seem well. Zinnia got clever and stopped accepting my...
I had my pullets and cockerels living together for too long, because I was delayed in completing the separate coop for my boys. Meanwhile, my hens lost some feathers on their backs and heads from over mating. The roosters have been living separately for about two months now. I do see some new...
Dosing:
Furosemide 12.5 give 1/2 tablet 2x daily
Ablon LA Mix 1 oz into 2 gallons of drinking water
I'll let you know how it goes. We all fully realize it's a long shot.
Update: Took her to the vet. Her belly was full of fluid, and her heart was beating very fast. The doctor thinks it's edema caused by a heart condition. We are going to try some medications, which may or may not help.
Thanks all! We did the "spa treatment" last night, and I added nutri-drench and oregano tea to her water. She is swollen. I've got her in a crate for observation. Is there anything else I can do for her?
Thank you! I have some nutri-drench and an isolation area. I don't know which hen laid this egg, but I do have one hen whose comb is a little pale and she has been hanging out alone more than usual. She also looks kind of....puffy. Tail is pointed up though, and shess engaging in normal...
Two of my hens have received pretty bad mating injuries. The wounds are not bleeding, but there's like a hole in the skin where I can look in and see muscle tissue. So far they seem to be acting normally. I've isolated them from the rest of the flock and treated the wounds with Vetericin...
I recently bought a cheap plug-in candler, hoping I'd be able to detect blood spots in the brown speckled and pink eggs I get from my faverolles. They have really thick shells, too. I can't see a thing inside these eggs, even with the light! Is there another method or a better candler that I...
I'm not quite a full year into this myself, but I'll comment since I have been successfully maintaining 9 cockerels. Mine are pretty gentle as a rule, but here's what works for me when they start to act up.
1. Don't take any crap from him. Zero. Zilch. Nada. If he so much as looks at you...
Oh good! I was concerned they would get respiratory infections. It's a warm, rainy week here. 40 degrees and damp.
Deep litter method. I mixed what was there thoroughly and then spread a layer of the straw on top.
I use the premier 1 electric poultry net too. It does not keep the chickens in- they can fly over it. I keep them in with bird netting. I've been using it since May and though I have dogs, foxes, coyotes, possums, raccoons, etc in my area, I haven't had any problems. I have two of the solar...
My local feed store is out of almost all kinds of bedding. All that's left is compressed straw in bags. They were labeled for chicken bedding. I got some today and I just put it in my coop and holy chicken, it's so dusty! I was coughing quite a bit after spreading it around. I know it's not...