Gtaus,
Thank you for your post.
I was a nurse for 20 years - so I know what you mean about smells. It has been 15 years since I was a nurse. And we have come late to the rural life. I wanted chickens even when I lived in the city - knowing it gave us some food security and autonomy that we...
Thanks! I am way past being pregnant... so that is a big ol' NO! LOL
I will consider... I cooked older eggs (way before she had this issue) last night, a dozen for my husband. When I opened it today - the smell was not necessarily 'off' but I kept sniffing because I could not decide. My dogs...
I was not sure where to put this post - and so this seemed the best place. Not sure of even the response I expect, but a conversation about it would help.
A week or so ago, I found one of my girls was sick, very sick. She somehow got injured, and was infested with maggots. I had to put her...
My Blue Laced Red Wyandotte - was fine 2 days ago. She is just under a year old.
Today - I wanted to check her because I see she is suddenly losing a lot of feathers.
I turned her over after a bath and it looks like she is split up the middle. She has white worms - which I assume are maggots...
This has been going on for weeks, she isn't getting better. And as soon as she started laying again, it started again. I understand some hens can have pain related to laying, and she lays the biggest eggs I have had.
Her right leg is weak - and she struggles to walk. It seems painful, for...
So - it's been weeks now and my hen was finally diagnosed with sciatica - and was placed on prednisolone for a few weeks.
She finally came off - and is still not walking right, but she is getting along.. okay. I am on the fence about it still - but right now she is okay and with the flock. She...
She did not mention Mareks - and Zoe is bright with red combs and eating everything she is offered. She does not seem to have the signs and symptoms of it.
I had put them on a whole seed feed and I think they were nitpicking through and getting the tasty stuff (if nutrition is even the cause)...
For the last two weeks we have had this hen who won't walk more than a few tentative steps. She mainly sits down. Her foot does not place as a normal foot would, and she slips and slides with it.
We were keeping her inside for a few days while we tried to figure out if she was egg bound. We...
We are keeping her separate - so she has her own food and water. She is in a part of the run that that other chickens are right next to. I also put her into the house each night so she is sleeping with them.
This morning she left the coop on her own - I didn't get to observe it, so I don't know...
This feed is fresh - and the guaranteed analysis has 17% protein, a min of 3.5% calcium, along with lots of other things.. it smells great (to me) kinda like pizza, very rich smelling. This has been a much bigger learning curve than I anticipated.. but hopefully things will get better now.
It's 5am on Sunday and I can't sleep because I have been worried about my first sick hen all week. She started limping and stopped being able to walk. (You can find several posts from me earlier on this across forums trying to puzzle this out). We took her to the vet last week, and the vet said...
Vet said the crop was small, but normal. She just started laying in the last 30 days... I have five so not sure exactly when. She came as a chick vaccinated. the vet did not give vitamin e. She mentioned which b's but I can't remember.
Her eggs are the largest (of the five) , but the vet felt...