Becoming very overwhelmed lately with the farm...

[dracoe19]

Not many people at school understand what I am going through so I thought I would ramble on here. Right now I am a full time student in Ohio while my parents and farm are in Virginia. I have seriously started dealing with poultry and have been "getting my ducks in a row". I have a page on Facebook which many people have contacted me about wanting chickens. I have been trying to manage getting poultry ready from Ohio but have been failing miserably lately... I have been trying to send a silver laced rooster to someone for over 8 weeks now with constant tie ups on my end. I had figured once I get home on winter break I can deal with everything. I cleaned every coop, I dusted the whole flock twice for lice (which was brought in on birds we purchased from some one will will NOT be buying from again), wormed everyone, watched/ studied everyone, took a bird inside at the slightest sniffle and rearranged the flock. I had felt like I had accomplished so much and made life a lot easier on my dear parents. Once I leave a rooster dies of a mysterious illness that wouldn't go away from antibiotics. Of course it had to be a bird some one bought from us. I had seen the bird myself and handed it to him and he had been 100%. I had no idea what he got and where he got it from. The bird wasn't quarantined when he introduced him (which should have been done regardless) so I have no idea where the sickness originated from. One of my favorite hens died 2.5 weeks later from what I think was old age but honestly I have no idea. The whole flock is under "lock down" now. Then on top of that one of my best roosters has been inside with the sniffles for over a week. It has been one thing after another with him... he was living with the bought birds (mentioned above) which I had discovered had, on top of lice, worms and contracted coccidious. THEN one of my other roosters slipped out of his pen and got the crap beat out of him by another rooster and he is now inside! I swear I feel like my head is going to explode! I feel so helpless being in Ohio then having my parents having to deal with this crap. Oh! AND I had 2 other birds from "the bought batch" in a coop in Ohio with 7 of my show birds and they now have lice from them!!! Sometimes I don't know if I am over my head or striving for a foolish dream of raising beautiful poultry... It feels like the world has turned its worst on me sometimes........ but a good thing is once I am able to see my babies again I am always happy and remember why I am doing this and how much I love it. Just wish the world could take a break for a bit so I can relax.

 

[thaiturkey]

Your energy and enterprise is commendable but perhaps, given the you are at school, you are trying to take on too much.

Education should be your top priority at the moment. Perhaps you could scale down your poultry ambitions until you are home and have more time. With luck, you will have decades in front of you in which you will be able to fulfill your other ambitions.

Well done for trying though! Good luck.

 

[JD4570]

Number one with your birds is get your flock healthy. You're going to have to go to a closed flock set up for about six months minimum to let sickness burn itself out and get rid of parasites. No buying or selling period. I bought a sick bird about eight years ago and was fighting disease for almost three months unsuccessfully. In the end I had to cull the entire flock and had to start over. If you let this burn itself out and get the flock clean it will give you the breathing room you need. When you have more time you might want to get hatching eggs and try hatching the birds instead of buying them, makes it a lot easier for the quarantine period. Sorry you're going through this.

 

[canesisters]

I agree with thai. You didn't say how old you are (or I missed it) but I think that you should look into the possibility of scaling down your flock until you are able to care for them yourself. How many different flocks - and how many birds - are your parents caring for?
Maybe just take it down to the show birds until your schooling is over. You could raise a batch from each set of your very good quality adults each summer. That way you would have high quality and related 'replacement' birds if anything should happen to your main breeders. Keeping only a few more than your main breeders and selling the rest as started pullets or breeding trios (etc) will help a bit with the expense of it all and keeping the flock small would make it easier not only for you to concentrate on your schooling but also to focus on breeding the very best birds possible from your current stock.
Once you are out of school and able to get back to buying and selling again - you will have a proven and great quality line of your favorite breed(s) to start off with.

Best of luck to you
Debbie

 

[dracoe19]

Thank you all for the replies. I am going to start getting my numbers down much more. Culling some of my fall hatch that I know won't turn out. In total I have around 65 birds including the ones in Oh. Some of the birds at home are my parents like our laying flock (15-20) and exotic birds (peacocks and pheasants totaling 10). I am hoping to combine my poultry with my school. I go to an art college school and will be working on my BFA project which is an all year thing. Hoping to do a detailed illustration book of the standard of perfection of the wyandotte. If I can I want to add a few other breeds. Also going to try to hold a informational class about poultry like the positive things they give to us, SOP, maintenance and more. I'll keep everyone on lock down and probably will go with the hatching eggs. It will take longer but it is going to be so much easier by way of disease control. I am also planing on making "self sufficient" coops. Meaning you don't need to open and close the coop at night. That is the main pain. I already have 3 and want to make all the coops like that so they are "worry free". Like my mother has told me I can get ahead of my self sometimes...lol. I am grateful to have such wonderful parents that they are willing to keep my birds. My friend sadly had to sell all of hers because her parents thought they were "gross" and "pointless". I feel like I am going in the right path now. Thank you again for the replies. I don't have many people to talk to who can understand or put themselves in my shoes. *sigh* City folk they don't know what they are missing. Oh! and in good news mr.snniffles is getting better along with his "partner in crime" who snuck out. It seems like things are calming down. Going to simplify some more like suggested. Thank you all again you don't know how much it means to hear your suggestions and input.

 

[JacquiJ]

Thank you all for the replies. I am going to start getting my numbers down much more. Culling some of my fall hatch that I know won't turn out. In total I have around 65 birds including the ones in Oh. Some of the birds at home are my parents like our laying flock (15-20) and exotic birds (peacocks and pheasants totaling 10). I am hoping to combine my poultry with my school. I go to an art college school and will be working on my BFA project which is an all year thing. Hoping to do a detailed illustration book of the standard of perfection of the wyandotte. If I can I want to add a few other breeds. Also going to try to hold a informational class about poultry like the positive things they give to us, SOP, maintenance and more. I'll keep everyone on lock down and probably will go with the hatching eggs. It will take longer but it is going to be so much easier by way of disease control. I am also planing on making "self sufficient" coops. Meaning you don't need to open and close the coop at night. That is the main pain. I already have 3 and want to make all the coops like that so they are "worry free". Like my mother has told me I can get ahead of my self sometimes...lol. I am grateful to have such wonderful parents that they are willing to keep my birds. My friend sadly had to sell all of hers because her parents thought they were "gross" and "pointless". I feel like I am going in the right path now. Thank you again for the replies. I don't have many people to talk to who can understand or put themselves in my shoes. *sigh* City folk they don't know what they are missing. Oh! and in good news mr.snniffles is getting better along with his "partner in crime" who snuck out. It seems like things are calming down. Going to simplify some more like suggested. Thank you all again you don't know how much it means to hear your suggestions and input.

Glad to hear things are looking up for you! If you need some good info to help with presentations at your school look up Dr. Scott Russell at the University of Georgia. It's hard being a college student with birds!! You can do it!!!