Beginning coop construction...

[DreamsInPink]

I hear ya Terry! After learning all that, I am right there with ya!!!

 

[beautifulpirate]

Did I mention ^^^^^^^

As long as I dont see them, we are good. But ifI see them and rhey are qhere rhey can do harm to my animals or my children, they gotta go. Once we have the rest of the hwc on, I wont worry as much about the chickens because there will be no way a snake could get in.

 

[beautifulpirate]

If it was a King snake, I would have let it live and just tried to scare it away. They are immune to the bites of venomous pit vipers and will eat them. I'd rather suffer the loss of a chicken or egg than to have rattlesnakes.

 

[beautifulpirate]

Put a couple of these steps in the run so they can get to their perch snd swing more easily.

 

[DreamsInPink]

Ohh, as I said, I know nothing about snakes.. so probably any snake I see, better high tail it outta my space.. lol

Cute little steps... my run is still not done.. we have had nothing but rain!!! Ugh. Bf did get the last post set and cemented today between showers. :/

 

[beautifulpirate]

Got our first chicken injury today

My husband went to shut the run door when one of the roosters darted to try to get out. The door caught his toe and he squawked loudly and ran for cover in the coop. Sure enough, a few minutes later when he walked back out, it was skinned up and bleeding a little. We cleaned it and bandaged it and will change the bandage tomorrow and look it over. The husband feels awful even though it was an accident. The roo is favoring that foot but he seems to be able to walk on it completely. Hoping the bandage keeps it from getting infected and keeps the chickens from picking on him. Otherwise he'll be going in some super cramped quarters tomorrow.

 

[DreamsInPink]

Oh dear... poor boy. We had something similar happen. BF stepped on Violet's toe and broke her nail to the point it bled. I put Blu Kote on it, but the other hens went after it like crazy, so I had to separate her by putting her in the intro pen with the teenagers... no one was real crazy about it, but it was all I could do to protect her from her 'friends'.. after a few days, the purple from the Blu Kote had worn off enough that the girls left her alone. I'm surprised your chickens aren't picking at the bandage.

 

[beautifulpirate]

Oh dear... poor boy. We had something similar happen. BF stepped on Violet's toe and broke her nail to the point it bled. I put Blu Kote on it, but the other hens went after it like crazy, so I had to separate her by putting her in the intro pen with the teenagers... no one was real crazy about it, but it was all I could do to protect her from her 'friends'.. after a few days, the purple from the Blu Kote had worn off enough that the girls left her alone. I'm surprised your chickens aren't picking at the bandage.

They picked the first one off. Then we wrapped the second one with masking tape. We weren't really sure what to do. We figured if they got the second one off, we'd use good old super glue. It's what the army uses sometimes in extreme situations. BUT they didn't mess much with the second one. It was still on when they went in to roost. The bit of skin that was hanging off was actually ripped off and eaten by the owner of the injured toe. Dumb bird. So the bleeding should be done and the wound should be healed enough tomorrow to take the bandage off. We'll probably still add some super glue as extra protection against the wound reopening. And as long as it doesn't attract attention, we won't rebandage. But we will only know tomorrow.

Off to Google Blu Kote...

 

[DreamsInPink]

MMM... tastes like chicken!!! hahaha, sorry, I couldn't resist!!

Just BEWARE, if you use Blu Kote, they will most likely go after his toe! And if you get it on your skin, it stains bright purple, and it is tough to get off . Ask me how I know this....

Super glue would work.... I've never used it, but if it's not still bleeding and the others will leave it alone, I'm not sure I'd worry too much. Especially if you keep a close eye on it. The Blu Kote is an anti-fungal that I use on my horses and I read somewhere that it can be used on chickens too.

Good luck, keep me posted.

 

[beautifulpirate]

Finally got the trigger feeder set up to how we like it. We took lots of pics so will make a post later in detail about it.

Plus we got out vertical water nipples set up on a bucket. I would rather have horizontal but we can always another watering system as our flock grows later.