Bridgey is Unwell...

[Shadrach]

It’s a good day! I’ll summarize in bullets for easy reading.

• Millie’s crop was empty this morning.
• Ruby’s crop has just a persistent little (marble-sized) firm lump.
• Bridge’s crop was just about empty... maybe not quite, but close.
• The flock LOVED tomato juice and took a few sips voluntarily (not sure if it’s great for all of them, but it wasn’t much).
• See attached text from vet (to hubby, who dropped off sample).
• See finished ceiling of run. Woohoo! NO juncos were in there when I went out this morning!

View attachment 1564139

View attachment 1564140

Good job. You can come over and make one for me.

 

[Shadrach]

I think the latter is the correct interpretation. "Mother nature" is far cleverer than we give her credit for and sometimes we don't really appreciate the reasons behind why things happen or think we know better and try to circumvent them.

For instance ... we all often wonder why birds shed their feathers at a time of year when it is cooler and must be a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps it is because it helps them to shed external parasites with the feathers at a point when dust bathing facilities will often become more restricted and the cooler temperature will reduce the parasites' ability to reproduce, particularly when feathers are less dense to maintain the body temp required for nits to incubate and hatch, thereby knocking the parasite numbers at a point in the year when they could otherwise overrun the birds.
Similarly eating a lot of green forage may have a negative effect on internal parasites and perhaps scour their system. They do not need as much body condition at this time of year because they are not actively laying eggs, so perhaps a high veg, lower protein diet enables them to reduce the level of any internal parasites by starving them out, whereas we try to give them a higher protein diet that contradicts this behaviour. This is purely hypothesis on my part but animals must be able to manage parasitic load without chemical use, otherwise they would not have survived millions of years and there will be natural mechanisms by which they achieved that through natural selection.
Mankind's advances in science and technology gives us a bit of an egotistical view that we know better, when in fact we still have a lot to learn about nature.

I'm not suggesting that people do not use chemical wormers or delouse their chickens but just be open to the possibility that the way in which they manage their chickens may counteract the natural remedies and mechanisms that almost certainly do exist in nature.

Interesting idea about the diet change in moulting fowl.
I think I mentioned, the hens here are eating all sorts of stuff they don’t normally. They are also a right miserable anti social bunch at the moment, worse than a broody.

 

[staceyj]

How are your girls today @micstrachan ?

 

[micstrachan]

How are your girls today @micstrachan ?

I’m in San Francisco away from my girls, so I’m not sure.

They looked good in the morning!

 

[staceyj]

Oh it completely slipped my mind that you were going to be away on business!
I’m sure the family is taking good care of them for you! Don’t worry and enjoy the rest of your trip and take care of you.

 

[micstrachan]

Oh it completely slipped my mind that you were going to be away on business!
I’m sure the family is taking good care of them for you! Don’t worry and enjoy the rest of your trip and take care of you.

Not on business... on fun! Sister and friend are in town for 30-year high school reunion, so we did a day in the city. We’re quite the motley crew. My San Francisco friend has a glamorous, high end apartment (bigger than my house) on Russian Hill and wears $2500 shoes, and then there’s me, Farm Girl Michelle, who has no pavement where I live and hopes to find shoes for tonight for under $100.
But it’s so great to get caught up with girlfriends! We laughed SO HARD last night my belly hurt.
I’ll go home for a couple hours today before we go to the hotel to get ready together, since it’s closer to my end of the Bay. I can’t wait to see how my flock is doing. I think only hubby is home (teenagers slept over with friends last night) and highly doubt he has let them out yet. This is very late for them, but they’ll have to wait for hubs to wake up and let the dog out to pee. I hope to be home long enough to let them run around f(free range) or a couple hours.

 

[staceyj]

Not on business... on fun! Sister and friend are in town for 30-year high school reunion, so we did a day in the city. We’re quite the motley crew. My San Francisco friend has a glamorous, high end apartment (bigger than my house) on Russian Hill and wears $2500 shoes, and then there’s me, Farm Girl Michelle, who has no pavement where I live and hopes to find shoes for tonight for under $100.
But it’s so great to get caught up with girlfriends! We laughed SO HARD last night my belly hurt.
I’ll go home for a couple hours today before we go to the hotel to get ready together, since it’s closer to my end of the Bay. I can’t wait to see how my flock is doing. I think only hubby is home (teenagers slept over with friends last night) and highly doubt he has let them out yet. This is very late for them, but they’ll have to wait for hubs to wake up and let the dog out to pee. I hope to be home long enough to let them run around f(free range) or a couple hours.

Can you hear me sighing with envy from the absolute opposite side of the US?!? Sounds like a totally FABULOUS weekend!!!!!!! Enjoy every minute.

 

[micstrachan]

I let the girls run around for as much time as I could yesterday... just an hour and a half or so. Called them in with canned guna and OF COURSE the two who wouldn’t come were Bridgey and Ruby. I had to carry Bridge part of the way. Only had to lift Ruby slightly, but she felt VERY light. I’m going to let them be out in the yard most of the day once I get home.

I think my husband probably did not lock up the girls last night, which is PRECISELY WHY I was so frantic to get the run enclosed fully with hardware cloth (including the top...remember I finally did the top on the front half of the run this week).

In other news, since I was so busy this week, I was complacent with the feed and did not put it away each night... saw my first sign of a RAT (turds). So today I need to find every hole bigger than the 1/2 inch hardware cloth and deal with it. Good times!

 

[staceyj]

Hey!
Give that man one of these from me !

Take one thing at a time.

Ugh on the possible rat turd!

Seriously. Get yourself a metal trashcan and lock that stuff up at night. If you get in the habit of doing it when you go out to lock them up it becomes second nature fast.

My girls spend early morning in the run, then the rest of the day in a bigger enclosed area of the yard free ranging. They have access to the run all day if they want though. I prop open the door.

Their food and water gets hung in the run when they come out of the coop in the morning. There’s a carabiner at the end of the rope they hang from.

It makes hanging and unhanging an easy, one handed, 5 second operation. I try to get out there before twilight to put the food away, which is the time of day that rats start looking for dinner.

This also encourages my girls to forage a bit and clean up after themselves before they go in the coop for the night.

Don’t freak out though just yet, unless you find a lot. Is it possible it could have been a squirrel turd?

 

[micstrachan]

Hey!
Give that man one of these from me !

Take one thing at a time.

Ugh on the possible rat turd!

Seriously. Get yourself a metal trashcan and lock that stuff up at night. If you get in the habit of doing it when you go out to lock them up it becomes second nature fast.

My girls spend early morning in the run, then the rest of the day in a bigger enclosed area of the yard free ranging. They have access to the run all day if they want though. I prop open the door.

Their food and water gets hung in the run when they come out of the coop in the morning. There’s a carabiner at the end of the rope they hang from.

It makes hanging and unhanging an easy, one handed, 5 second operation. I try to get out there before twilight to put the food away, which is the time of day that rats start looking for dinner.

This also encourages my girls to forage a bit and clean up after themselves before they go in the coop for the night.

Don’t freak out though just yet, unless you find a lot. Is it possible it could have been a squirrel turd?

Thanks! I actually DO have metal trash cans to lock up their feed. But I have several small feeders around, in addition to the two big ones. It might help if I put the trash cans inside the run (make it easier on myself). I usually do lockup the feed, but had board meeting one night and worked on the dun the other nights. Then the two nights I was out, the feed was left out. It will all be locked up tonight!

Oh, and as far as free ranging... we have way too many predators for them to be out unsupervised, so they are not allowed out without both me and the dog out there. She’s just a little border collie, but super fast and protective of the flock. When a hawk calls or flies over, I send her on a fast ball chase across the middle of the yard so she’s sure to be seen.
Anyway, my flock definitely does better with more free range time, but I’m not willing to take more risk of loss from predation.