Arizona Chickens

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20 weeks 1 day old and counting (21 & 1 day for Clare & Vony, EE). I am so looking of word to eggs. :fl

All has been quite, and Murphy has been at work, woke up with a sprain rib (level 1 thankfully). Been trying to ignore it, but I really can't. I finally had to wrap it. I have never had much luck with hot packs and I can not stand cold pack, that is what worked in the past. Bottom line my house didn't get cleaned today.

About mid-day looked for my girls to see if they were alright. I could find only 3 of them. I couldn't bend over so I took pictures.
700

700

There is actually 5 under the Water storage tanks. I just hope that they do not start lying there. :rolleyes:
 
Fuzzybird said:
RIP my beautiful sweet Tansy! Three days ago I found Tansy wondering around like she was lost. I thought maybe her top crest got so fluffy she couldn't see we noticed she was kind of thin. I checked her over but found nothing. She had stopped laying also. Well I did trim her face but the next day she was laying around more. I checked her again and saw one lice on the back of her neck this time. I went to work and and clean the coop and dusted all the birds even tho none of the others had any trouble. I cleaned and dusted the other 2 coops also. Tansy acted better yesterday and thought, yea I caught it in time but no this morning she was dead.
hit.gif
I still think lice gets on sick birds but doesn't bother healthy ones. I might be wrong.
Click to expand...
My heart is saddened for your loss my condolences. :hugs
 
Hey again guys. So I had a question about transitioning my ladies to the coop. They are now about 5 weeks old. And they've been spending their days in the coop (all day) for about the past 2 weeks. I noticed that they don't need their heat lamp in their brooder box at night anymore. When I brought them in last night and turned it on, Rosco started panting after a few minutes (and I had already moved the heat lamp as far away as possible). So I turned it off. That's when I discovered that they are afraid of the dark. They got so upset and were cheeping and cheeping. And then when I put a night light out there, they calmed down and went to bed.

So I read on another page here about chickens being afraid of the dark. And some people said they weaned them and just let them cry it out for a couple nights until they got used to it. A lot of other people said they just put a light in the coop. So this morning my husband and went and got and LED landscape light with a solar panel and photovoltaic cell so it would just come on at night. Then I mounted the light towards the top of the roosting area (pointing down). It got dark, and they weren't as clever as I hoped, they just huddled in the corner in the outside part of their coop crying. So I moved them up into the top. I even put some of their food and water up there so they wouldn't have to venture out into the scary dark. So this is kind of the setup....






Problem is, they still never really settled down. I thought maybe they were chilly, but they've been out in the coop in the mornings when it's colder than it is now and were totally fine. After a couple hours of them cheeping away and noticing that they never really settled down for the night, I brought them back into their brooder box with the night light.

Is this typical for when you are transitioning your chicks to the coop overnight? Have you guys had issues with this? Am I doing something wrong? I don't want them to be stressed and upset. But I don't want to coddle them too much either (which is my tendency with all animals). But my only thought is maybe they are just upset because they had never been left in their coop overnight and it was messing with their routine. Or maybe they were chilly. But I even put a little box out there with pine shavings and a couple of buried hand warmers to give them some heat. They weren't really interested. Boss Hogg stays on the roosting sticks, but Rosco always just sits on the floor, I don't know why she's not roosting because she likes roosting on stuff during the day. Ugh, I don't know. Anyway, what do you guys think?
 
ChicksOfHazzard said:
Hey again guys. So I had a question about transitioning my ladies to the coop. They are now about 5 weeks old. And they've been spending their days in the coop (all day) for about the past 2 weeks. I noticed that they don't need their heat lamp in their brooder box at night anymore. When I brought them in last night and turned it on, Rosco started panting after a few minutes (and I had already moved the heat lamp as far away as possible). So I turned it off. That's when I discovered that they are afraid of the dark. They got so upset and were cheeping and cheeping. And then when I put a night light out there, they calmed down and went to bed.

So I read on another page here about chickens being afraid of the dark. And some people said they weaned them and just let them cry it out for a couple nights until they got used to it. A lot of other people said they just put a light in the coop. So this morning my husband and went and got and LED landscape light with a solar panel and photovoltaic cell so it would just come on at night. Then I mounted the light towards the top of the roosting area (pointing down). It got dark, and they weren't as clever as I hoped, they just huddled in the corner in the outside part of their coop crying. So I moved them up into the top. I even put some of their food and water up there so they wouldn't have to venture out into the scary dark. So this is kind of the setup....






Problem is, they still never really settled down. I thought maybe they were chilly, but they've been out in the coop in the mornings when it's colder than it is now and were totally fine. After a couple hours of them cheeping away and noticing that they never really settled down for the night, I brought them back into their brooder box with the night light.

Is this typical for when you are transitioning your chicks to the coop overnight? Have you guys had issues with this? Am I doing something wrong? I don't want them to be stressed and upset. But I don't want to coddle them too much either (which is my tendency with all animals). But my only thought is maybe they are just upset because they had never been left in their coop overnight and it was messing with their routine. Or maybe they were chilly. But I even put a little box out there with pine shavings and a couple of buried hand warmers to give them some heat. They weren't really interested. Boss Hogg stays on the roosting sticks, but Rosco always just sits on the floor, I don't know why she's not roosting because she likes roosting on stuff during the day. Ugh, I don't know. Anyway, what do you guys think?
Click to expand...

Someone else on here might have better advice, but I can tell you what I did...

We started leaving them out while it started turning dark - each night, we would leave them out a little longer, to both experience the dark and the cold so they could acclimate. When it was time for them to stay out all night, we made sure they were all in the house in a bed of straw/pine shavings. As long as they could all huddle together in a big soft "nest", they were ok with the dark. Maybe you could go the next couple nights in the brooder with just a small amount of light shining in - not a full night light? Also, mine were closer to 8 weeks old, so that might make a difference too. I have a new batch in the brooder right now that are 2-5 weeks old, so it will be interesting to see how these guys do when we start turning out the lights...
 
Fuzzybird said:
RIP my beautiful sweet Tansy! Three days ago I found Tansy wondering around like she was lost. I thought maybe her top crest got so fluffy she couldn't see we noticed she was kind of thin. I checked her over but found nothing. She had stopped laying also. Well I did trim her face but the next day she was laying around more. I checked her again and saw one lice on the back of her neck this time. I went to work and and clean the coop and dusted all the birds even tho none of the others had any trouble. I cleaned and dusted the other 2 coops also. Tansy acted better yesterday and thought, yea I caught it in time but no this morning she was dead.
hit.gif
I still think lice gets on sick birds but doesn't bother healthy ones. I might be wrong.

Click to expand...

So sorry! It's amazing how special they become...
 
I put them in the coop/run at 4 weeks. I used a light all night the first 2 nights then for about 2 weeks I used a light only until they went in at night. At about 7-1/2 weeks I stopped turning the light on at all. They coop up just fine without noise or fuss.
 
It takes them about two to three nights to get the hang of it.... they'll settle down... you just have to let them cry for a few nights.
 
Mine made a racket as well the first few nights but we all got over it.
They are giving us eggs now (15 weeks later) so I guess they aren't
holding a grudge
lol.png
 

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