Blood on waterer and feeder

[WoodChic]

When my brother went our to do the chickens this morning, the waterer and feeder were covered with blood. He said that some of the chickies had blood on their heads. Could this be result of frostbite? It has gotten in the teens at times. The chickens refuse to go outside, but we've been getting eggs pretty regular. We have about a foot and a half of snow. Huh???????????????????

 

[Spore]

What do the chickens look like?

 

[journey11]

I've never seen frostbite that bled. Perhaps being cooped up for a few days has provoked some picking among them? Check them over really well and let us know what you find. Add pics if you can too!

 

[crumpet]

You know what happens when you lick a metal pole in winter? yeah, your tongue freezes to it. What's happening, in my opinion, is your chickens' combs are getting wet, and then freezing to the waterers and feeders, and when they pull them away, they bleed.

This happens every winter to my chickens, and the only thing I can do is replace the metal feeders with plastic ones. Of course, those aren't heated, so the water freezes, and I have to take it inside to thaw it out...

I hate winter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[theFox]

Quote:
Get a fount heater. Mine works fine.

 

[Plain Old Dee]

We have rubber water "bucket?" - it's only about 3" deep. When the water freezes, we just turn it over and the ice drops out, inlcuding all the gick that has collected, leaving a clean waterer behind. We just through the chunk of ice out in the weeds. Our feeders are homemade from short lengths of pvc pipe. We don't have issues with combs getting stuck to anything. I have known hens to get bored with being cooped up and little sunlight, and they can start pecking each other's combs. They leave tiny little "boo boos," but the boo boos bleed like crazy!

 

[WoodChic]

Quote:
We have a plastic waterer and HAD a plastic feeder when I posted this thread. My brother has been looking up heated waterers on the web. Hope to get one soon. Last winter was no fun. We had to thaw the water every morning and night, like you said.

We're trying to avoid that this winter.
I think it might be 'Boo Boo's' like Old Plain Dee says. We open the coop, but they rarely go outside. I'm gonna try and watch them sometime. Will try to post pix soon, but my sisters getting married this week, so its kinda crazy. Don't have that much time to hang out with my BYC friends.

Thank you!

 

[norcal]

I'm having the same problem. Blood on the feeder inside. It's not freezing here right now. I know I have a chicken who has been pulling out other chickens feathers, I'm wondering if she's decided on combs now? I looked and couldn't see blood on any of their combs. ?? That's the only way I can see blood getting on the feeder (right there above the feed tray).

 

[jerseygirl1]

I had two leghorns with HUGE combs bleeding - the others were picking on them to the point of where we had to seperate them for a few days. Probably as a reult of being cooped up and not liking it.

 

[WoodChic]

Hurrah! There hasn't been and noticable blood anywhere for quite a while now! And we got a heated chicken waterer.

Thanks everybody for your response.