Awwwww! That is the "second" coolest thing EVER!Ok, had to share a few more since #2 arrived.
Chick #2 hatched early this morning. Another EE/Mottled Cochin
Has chipmunk stripes on back
Mama Gretchen has been panting all day. Poor gal. 4 more eggs under her. Will see what happens
the next couple days.
That's good that you caught the prolapse!I've been having issues with my flock, including egg eating. It all started just over a month ago when LareePQG, reported that she found mites on her birds and recommended that we should look for them too. The next day I examined all my birds closely. I didn't find any parasites, but the first thing I noticed was that all of my 2 1/2 year-olds were fat. Really fat. Then, to my horror, I discovered that my favorite girl was prolapsed.It was the first time I'd dealt with this problem, but I knew how serious it was. Fortunately, it had apparently just happened because we were waiting for her to get off the nest from laying when we examined her and the flesh didn't yet have time to become dried and excoriated. I put her in a wash tub to clean her up and either the coolness of the water or the stimulation of washing her back there caused her to retract everything back inside. We put her in the dark garage for about four days to stop her from laying and put her on a very restricted diet. So far this has worked and she has not prolapsed again. She's a BO and I understand that they are prone to prolapsing as they age, as are overweight chickens of many breeds. Time will tell how she holds up. But thanks to the timing of the reminder by Laree, she's alive right now.
This episode and the weight of my chickens made me realize there were problems in the way I was managing my birds. I had a batch of chicks hatch this spring and I raised them in the tractor on the opposite side of the yard from the chicken coop. All the birds free ranged and the older ladies loved to go into the tractor and eat the chick grower, which I left out for the chicks ad lib. I think that contributed to the weight problems. That and all their favorite treats I'd give them. So, I've severely restricted their diets. Few kitchen scraps, especially NO bits of cheese, which they loved and worked great at getting them back into their run. I'd stopped feeding them anything except layer pellets and fresh greens. I even stopped feeding them BOSS when the last bag ran out. I only feed the remaining three cockerals two to three times a day when the older girls can't get to it. Despite the sad begging from the girls waiting at the gate for me to bring treats, this seemed to work out. Then, about two weeks after the prolapse and change in diet, the egg eating started. We had noticed a couple weeks earlier that egg shells on some of the girls were getting thinner and we suspect that the egg eating started when an egg broke as it was laid. The egg eating rapidly increased and spread--both of my one year olds were guilty, but there may have been others. By the end of the first week of egg eating, we were losing about 2 eggs daily (of 5-7 laid each day). Interestingly, the eggs laid by the ladies with the thinnest shells were those that were being eaten. I don't know if it's coincidental or not, but about two weeks prior to the beginning of the egg eating, I put new oyster shells into their oyster shell feeder. They don't seem to like the new shells, perhaps because the bits are so much larger than they grew up with. Large amounts are being billed out onto the ground, which first started right after I added the new bag. I'm going to have to grind that up further or get some smaller stuff.
It seemed that in our case, the start of the egg eating was directly related to their change in diet and a reduction in the amount of calcium they were consuming. So, in addition to their layer pellets, I started feeding BOSS again, they got TJ's canned sardines twice a day for a few days (they love those) and kefir daily. Within a few days of these changes they stopped eating their eggs and we haven't lost an egg in over a week.The shells on some of the girls' eggs are still thinner than I'd like though. It makes me wonder if there is some relationship between decreased calcium uptake/utilization and the sudden onset of hot weather.
