Bullying, Bathing, Runts, and Handling Hens

[chooks4life]

It was from a handsome chook who otherwise looked very fit to breed. You can see how the scales that should march straight up its shin from the middle, biggest toe instead deviate around to the inner leg, towards the inner knee joint. The outermost toe's scales instead take the dominant straight up the shin position. Hope that makes sense. It's not chronically bad in this bird but I would consider it a cull worthy fault.

You can see how it's pigeon toed already. I bet a significant percentage of its offspring or grand'children' will be spraddled.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Oh, funny note, well, kinda... On another thread there's an older lady who's a show breeder and has been snippy at me for daring to disagree with her. (She's an expert, of course). Anyway, she posted a photo of two of her purebreds, from her closed flock, which I'm going to use as a reference for bad genes.

Because she has the first good clear image I've found to show you the bad leg scaling. Bizarre.




It was from a handsome chook who otherwise looked very fit to breed. You can see how the scales that should march straight up its shin from the middle, biggest toe instead deviate around to the inner leg, towards the inner knee joint. The outermost toe's scales instead take the dominant straight up the shin position. Hope that makes sense. It's not chronically bad in this bird but I would consider it a cull worthy fault.

You can see how it's pigeon toed already. I bet a significant percentage of its offspring or grand'children' will be spraddled.

This is so interesting, thank you! I have been studying all their feet, and I'm fairly certain that Cersei's legs are cull worthy. Her scales do all kinds of weird things, twisting inward like you said, not uniform like the others' legs. It also seems like there are strange.. dents? flat spots? on parts of her scales. Also, her outer toes curl backwards. Here is a photo, what do you think?

I haven't been looking for the pigeon toed stance, but now I will!




Wow, sorry I've been gone for a while, this week has been super hectic!

Egglaying: Frankie laid a green egg today! I could tell from her behavior that she was close, and this afternoon - there it was! I believe I already had 3 others laying, but I'm not sure who the third is. I was thinking Lucy the other australorp, but then I found what I think is egg stuck on two RIR's bums, so maybe they have laid secret eggs already? At any rate, I get 1 or 2 per day. I can confidently spot Ethel and Cersei's, but there's a new layer (small eggs) idk who it is. The surviving barred, Betty, is starting to redden in the face and grow her CW's

Runty is laying! What the! I discovered 4 days ago that she had left two small eggs in her box. Hah! I honestly expected her to be last. She has no comb or wattle to speak of. The egg was actualy about average sized for a "first egg." She's laid every day since!

Runty's rehab has been complicated. After she was healed, I kept her boxed inside for another week-ish to make sure she was completely well. Then, I started penning her outside in a small area. The flock has been primarily cooped up, except the last ~2 hours of the day I let them out. It seems like first eggs always happen in the afternoon, so I want to ensure they're at home when it happens. Anyhow, this allowed for some gentle re-introduction through fenced safety for runty, and the other RIRs did try to jump kick at her, and she retaliated. Most of the time she gets pecked and backed down. While in her cage, she somehow re-injured her right leg! The same leg! I'm sick of this chicken! Was it walking too much? Kicking the fencing/other chickens? Digging in the dirt/grass? I don't know. It has been 3 days since then and she seems to walk on it now. Maybe she's faking because she has a sweet life indoors. ;P Now, I'm not sure how long to give her to heal again. I let her free range outside the cage today, and even among the top-ranking hens she was not attacked. I'm tempted to go put her in their coop tonight while they sleep. But I don't want to agravate her leg any more. I'm not sure what to do for her to help her. Maybe she will always have a bum leg? I realized she was not getting oyster shells when she begun laying, I wasn't expecting her to lay really, but she is getting them now. Maybe a calcium deficiency from eating chick grower only without calcium supplement weakened her leg?

Nasty butts are back again, same two chooks Lightning and Penny the largest/reddest RIRs. Their tail feathers are long and beautiful now; however they point straight back, not down or up. Squinter (runt #2) is the only RIR whose tail points up. Runty's tail doesn't point up either. She is missing some tail feathers, but her feathering is very weird in general. She is full of down, it makes no sense.

Anyhow, Penny & Lightning sometimes get drippy/wet butts since their vent gleet treatment a month+ ago, but they usually take care of it with dirt baths and I see it dry out within a day. Recently, their butts have looked horrible, so I went in to catch them . It's a horrible task with these 2; they are the most spacky, running away, spazzing out, flapping insanely in my face when I do catch them, screaming as if I'm eating them right there. Once I have them in my arms, they are much more calm while we walk and while I bathe them. The catching part is so awful. With the birds that are confirmed laying, they often just squat down and let me pick them up. It's night & day behavior. The Barred Rock Betty also spazzes out, and Squinter too. Squinter might be the worst, she seriously has brain damage or something.

When I inspected their vents, they both smelled awful. I gave them a soak and got most of the poo off, then I could see that they had a yellow/white/black-ish coating on the skin around their vents. At first, I thought it was an infection. After I started poking it with a q-tip, I started to think it was actually dried egg. I soaked them in a garlic brew and I cleaned off the yellow crap, particularly the areas that were starting to turn black/green. It was pretty awful. I don't know if this was the right thing to do, because some of the areas I removed the "egg" from started to bleed underneath. Maybe the egg was attaching itself like a scab and I removed it?! To me it seemed like a foreign body that needed to be removed, so that's what I did, all of it. Then garlic soak, then coated the skin in NuStock. That was yesterday; today I cleaned them again, and there was some yellowing around the skin again. This time, it's hard to distinguish because NuStock itself is yellow. Overall, it looked a lot better. Today they had the same garlic, nustock treatment. Pictures of this below -- warning, it's gross!

They both continue to have issues pooping on themselves though. No one else has this problem, I don't get it. Immediately after cleaning, Penny went into a nest and starting egg songing; no egg though. The one this morning was definitely from Ethel, it had a small black feather on it. And Frankie laid me a green egg! EEE! It's so pretty! I didn't know it would be such a beautiful color.

Betty, Wilma's sister, I'm pretty sure she suspects me of murder. She was really close with Wilma, they were inseparable. When I thought she was healing, I brought her outside and Betty saw her. Now, she looks at me and just starts warning-squawking like crazy. Don't even try to catch her. Maybe I will win her over when she starts to lay eggs. It should be soon, supposedly they are all 24 weeks today.

Lucy, the smaller australorp, makes strange sounds. She sounds almost as if she's trying to crow? Cersei does this sometimes too. The others make very clear cluck cluck hen sounds, but these girls just sound.. hoarse almost?
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Day 1


Day 2
note skin around entire vent area is red


The other end: (with that red face, no eggs?!)






All 4 confirmed layers in one photo! Cersei - Ethel - Frankie - Tiny Runty!
Don't mind the contraption to the left, that's where Runty is usually penned outside.



Ethel - Frankie - Runty



egg size comparison:

Far left is storebought from local free range farm. All the brown eggs I buy are much darker; are my eggs light in color because they are newer to laying, less established? edit: from further research, I conclude that these light eggs are laid by aussies and RIRs will lay darker..

PS: That monster egg that I got? It was a double yolker! It's second from the right in the photo above.

 

[chooks4life]

Congrats about the eggs!

I've not seen legs like Cersei's before... But they're not great. I do see some early indication of spraddling genes but then it fragments into lizardlike scales, not birdlike... I think some of her ancestors had spraddle genes and the breeder tried to breed it out. Just a theory I'm working on, lol. But overall her feet and legs do not look robust. Very fine boned and fleshed, wonky, and the scales are bizarre.

Someone else asked on another thread why their chicks can't walk, and posted about as clear a photo of a certain type of spraddling-indicative scaling as I've seen so far. It also indicates the broad sort of shin scaling that Cersei should have, except of course in the photos shown it goes off around to the side. But you would probably get the idea.... Here's the link:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-chicks-please-deformed-claw/10#post_11705503

Quote:
I think it was just too soon for her to try to stress it. A serious injury would be still mending on most chooks by this point. She's never been a robust specimen, so it would make sense for her to take a while to heal. If left longer to heal she should fix up, but we aren't 100% sure what's wrong, so she could have weak tendons or something. It's strange she struggled up hills and in grass, as you said before. I have never seen that except in a very, very weak chicken or chicks so tiny the grass was many times their height. How much TLC-needs you'll tolerate from a chicken is your call. Personally if Runty were mine, I would spare her if she was a great pet or if somebody wanted her, but otherwise...Probably cull. Lots of sub-par issues with that one.

Quote: It sure is a pretty egg. I've never had a blue or green egg layer despite having mix breeds of some chooks that do lay that type. Cute.

About the pooping-on-themselves issue, I haven't had that but hear a lot of Americans do. I'm thinking it may be something like horses needing the Caslick's operation (which IMO should prohibit them from being bred) --- maybe it's just anatomical fault? They might look normal, but if you've ever watched a bird poop it pushes out its vent to do so. If they do not have the normal action in place, it would be messier.

Maybe the nerves leading to their sphincters in the vent area are degraded or misplaced? Like those horses ('Roarers') that have one nerve that's supposed to go straight from neck vertebra to their lungs instead looping back over two metres through the abdomen before reaching its rightful place, so nerve impulses are delayed enough to make them hemorrhage when breathing in galloping because the valve doesn't open in time. It was all traced back to one stallion. Same could be, and likely is, true for the chooks, if it's an inherited issue. Now they use surgery on these horses and they're breeding on with them, more's the pity... Too much money went into them to be reasonable about the value of their genes. Now they call it a 'disease process' instead of an inherited fault of breeding! Here's a link to that if you're interested. I like to keep track of the whole livestock industry because a lot of seemingly unrelated stuff is correlated or important. Horses are too delicate for my liking but they are pretty great creatures in general. The same info on Roarers can be applied to other species.

Quote:
Quote: Shame about the spazzing out. You could breed possibly calmer offspring from them since they are the first generation direct from the hatchery, and their inherited imprint for human-chook interaction tells them it's a life threatening issue to be caught by a human. But with any really, really incorrigible freak-out maestro I would save myself the effort and eat it, but that's just me. Who knows, later they may settle. Squinter is probably brain damaged, it's not as uncommon as people may think either. Pity. At least she wasn't a specimen whose quality led you to hope to breed from her. It really sucks when a great chook is ruined by its attitude.

Quote: This is just genetic but if they had a good dose of hormones come in they might change the posture. Some hens of mine always had horizontal or obtuse tails until brooding/mothering, and then it was right angles/vertical all the way! Often it was a permanent attitude change, they took themselves quite seriously after raising a clutch. The other chooks learnt to leave the hens that posed like that alone, because they had no sense of humor. Some settle down in between broods. Plenty of roosters also hold their tails horizontal, depends on breed a lot. Some birds are disqualified from shows due to incorrect tail carriage. (Which you probably already knew, lol)...

Quote: There is a noise they make which is best described as a 'dinosaur roar' --- might that be it? It's often made when seeing something potentially threatening but distant and unimportant at the moment. It's a 'be alert but don't bother running' sort of call. It's hoarse and usually has an ascending pitch to it. A quieter version, basically a twittering noise, is also made for even less important curiosities they spot.

It can be very individual, and is inherited. I had a whole family line of roosters who went 'ooo-raaah!' instead of 'whroaaaaaaarrrr' or whatever. It sounded cocky as, not afraid at all, hilarious! They also had 'Machine Gun' crows that were staccato, not a smooth series of syllables. These traits breed true more often than not. You can easily identify a rooster's dad, grand-dad and so forth in his crow. Same for hen's voices and vocal habits, they more often than not (by FAR) breed true. No spacky screamers or excessive crowers left alive! lol.

Quote: I've noticed double yolkers often have an almost rectangular shape. They're rarely properly egg shaped. Often blunt, which is often why they kill hens, the egg just turns with contractions and doesn't begin to move down the canal. Double yolkers are interesting but if they keep happening it's often best to not breed on with the hen, unless you cross her with a high production roo whose line lays two eggs a day, because that's where her genetics are headed. Safer to lay two a day than one double yolker a day. Once off double yolkers aren't often an issue though.

About the 'dirty pants'/soiling-self issues, I don't know, but hopefully it's just yolk. Otherwise I'd think maybe a bacterial or yeast infection. But the garlic wash was a good idea. Hope it's all good. Best wishes.

 

[Shasta]

My chickens are completely bare on the butts and around the tail feathers. I thought they were picking them off each other but they also pick them of themselves. I have never given them broccoli but am willing to try. Also, watch out for the bullying. My went from that to trying to eat one of my hens, they say it is boredom. I had to separate her from the rest while she heals. I haven't put her back yet. Good luck.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Ethel Black Australorp (want to keep this breed/bird)



Lucy Black Aus (backup for Ethel)



Frankie/Beardie Americana/Easter Egger


Just from staring at these, I can see how their scaling is not perfect. Frankie/Beardy's main big toe scale line goes up the shin and then the scales start shrinking and twisting inward. Both Ethel and Lucy's main toe scales start twisting inward, too. How severe would you say it is, breeding wise? They'd be creating cross breeds with (hopefully) stronger genetics.. Runty's actually twist outward, which must be why she is so bow-legged?



Quote:

Yes, yes.. I know that anyone else would have culled her by now.. but by this point she's become a pet. It's quite pathetic/adorable. Since she re-injured her leg anyway, I decided to give the diaper another go, and lo and behold she is tolerating it now! She walks around wearing it just fine now. She's been kept in a very small box primarily, but this gives her a little bit of time to walk/explore/stretch/strengthen. Oh, and be completely cute walking around:





Quote:
It sure is a pretty egg. I've never had a blue or green egg layer despite having mix breeds of some chooks that do lay that type. Cute.

! Thank you! She has laid two more blue-green eggs since, I can't decide what color they are. One was very small again, and the next was pretty decent sized! They seem to ramp up quickly. I'm so surprised how much I love those colored eggs


Quote: Yeah.. I have watched them, they ARE capable of "pulling up their dress" and squatting, but it doesn't always work out for them...


Quote: Since my last post, TWO wind eggs were laid that day; one wind egg was laid the following day! I SUSPECT these were laid by the two RIRs after I helped them get their butts in order. Especially since I think that was egg yolk already stuck there. One wind egg was found in the coop on the ground, already broken open; one was found on the cement near the house. This distresses me because it happened during the very short (2 hour) free range period I gave them that day. Now, no more free ranging. Until everyone gets laying. I just don't trust them not to drop eggs in my massive yard somewhere.

The next day, another broken wind egg (just the membrane) was found on the ground in the coop. I'm hoping they will lay today? Maybe?

I skipped a bath day, then cleaned their butts yesterday; Penny looked much improved, Lightning was disgusting. Picked off more egg that I wasn't able to before. She might need another bath today, there is poop matted all around there. Do you think that getting the area hygienic is playing a role in her laying/not laying? Also, did you see in my last post where I said some of the areas of the egg were green/black? How would I know a yeast infection?








Quote: Yeah, at this point, I don't see very many keepers within my flock. I won't breed any of the RIRs, or Cersei. Beardy/Americana is one that I would like to keep. I also want to keep Ethel, the black australorp, as a breeder. I have her sister Lucy as a backup but I think her leg scales are worse (you tell me?) and I don't like her personality. Barred Rock Betty is a possibility, but leaning toward no, she is too spazzy - personality would have to change. I should take a photo of her legs, but she's hard to catch!

So that might be 2 birds total to integrate into a potential new flock next year.


Quote: Interesting! I think that Lucy's tail is starting to perk up more? She looks so developed, it's ridiculous that she is not laying!

 

[Farmer Viola]

Well, the RIRs laid no eggs yesterday.

I went out early this morning to find two wind eggs, though! At least, I hope these membrane-only eggs are what you call a wind egg. Edit: lol, well, a wind-egg is a yolkless egg. What I have are membrane eggs! It appears to be normal for new layers. Everyone recommends switching them to Layer feed. My plan has been to continue to keep them on organic Grower (chick starter) feed, mixing in oyster shells (up until now, oyster was free-choice). Is this plan sufficient? Should I buy Layer AND oyster shells?

One of the wind eggs looks kinda greenish to me.. I wonder if it was Frankie's?



Also, given our success with the Runty diaper, I'm now going about creating my own patterns to sew my own! heaven help us..

 

[chooks4life]

Great photos! Thanks, I'm sure they'll help people. I doodled and wrote on them. Here are a few of yours...

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: I don't think it's a yeast infection as I haven't heard one that causes green/black discharge, but I don't know anything first hand about yeast infections, it's all stuff I've been told or read. However if it's going black/green within the course of a day or two, I would be more inclined to think it was something along the lines of wet fowl pox or leprosy. But that all depends on whether or not it's actually in the bird as opposed to on the bird. If it is just egg, I doubt it'd turn those colors since even severely rotten egg is greyish. Maybe they've started eating a caustic plant? That could make greenish blackish mess around the vents and burn their vents as well. Strange, whatever's going on. I always keep an eye on what's growing and whether or not the chooks have signed it with their beak-shaped bitemarks... Sometimes they will dine on something they never touched for years before. You can never be too sure.

There's a few threads on yeast infections on these forums, but mostly it is characterized by discharge, smell, and infection, either just locally or also general. The treatment usually involves cleaning them up too, like you did. I don't know much else about it so I'm not sure what your chooks have. But whatever's going on with their vents is nasty. I think if you keep up the washing and feed them raw garlic they should get over it if it's an infection.

About the leg scales: I'll do up and post a pic of Runty's sometime, she's a definite spraddler, the bones twist in different directions and the scales give a good warning. Poor thing. At least she's made a pet of herself, lol! Frankie looks on par with Ethel or a little better. Sure hope Ethel and Lucy aren't related, for your sake! Lol about the chicken diapers. Good idea, would have saved me so much work when tending sick or hurt birds. I too shall learn to make some, methinks.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Thank you SO much for the foot scale diagrams! That taught me so much! I am inspecting everyone's legs much closer now, I don't think anyone here has perfect scales heh.

A different egg was laid a couple days ago. At first, it looked like there were small dusty brown dirt spots on it. It happened to get a drop of water on it (I don't rinse the bloom off my eggs), and those spots turned a rich dark brown! Perhaps the Barred Rock laid it? The Barred has been squatting in front of me, super hilarious since she's very anti-human.

Early this morning, there was another egg that I suspect might be someone's first egg. It had some blood on it. I'm pretty certain it's blood, not poop. So I hope that someone isn't going around with a bloody bum... I will have to inspect them closer. Maybe it's Squinter's? This egg is brown, slightly darker brown than the ones I get consistently.

Runty is doing great! She slowly transitioned to free-ranging, and over 3 days she integrated into the flock while free ranging, still sleeping indoors. Prior to this, she was only able to see them through the small pen I set up. She has a lot of energy, unlike before, is running around (running away from me! lol) with everyone, keeping up, and vying for food. I saw her get pecked a few times, but I have not witnessed any full on brawls yet. Based on her behavior, I'm letting her go back with the group. Her leg seems healed, and isn't causing her any pain - I watch closely. Last night, she slept in the coop, on the roost in between Cersei and Ethel (fluffy butts keep her the warmest ! I was quite surprised that she followed everyone in to bed, previously she had been squawking at the back porch to be brought in, for bedtime and for egg time. She will have to re-learn where to lay.

No more membrane eggs have been laid...

I decided to go ahead and buy Layer food even though I was mixing oystser shells into the Grower feed.. going to give the shells free-choice.

Hmm, what else.. there is a free workshop on how to raise chicks being put on locally that I'm going to go to So much to learn!



edit:
after butt inspections, I'm pretty sure the egg with blood on the outside was laid by Lightning! Surprisingly, it didn't have poop on it.. her butt is very poopy. I cleaned her and Penny's butts off today, 4 days since the last NuStock application. Nustock seems to heal by shedding the top layer of skin, so that layer came off with the poop on it, leaving pure white healed flesh underneath. Soon, it will be covered in poop again. Penny and Squinter's vents do not appear to have encountered an egg yet.

Lightning's vent looked red when she would push it out, like vent prolapse, but only when she pushes. It looks like the skin in there was torn passing the egg. Or more like blood vessels were burst in the area, if that makes sense. I took a photo, but you don't want to see it, trust me! Should I be worried about this?

Barred Rock Betty also had some poop troubles, which is new for her. She had liquidy poop trailing down her normally fluffy butt feathers. Would this be related to laying her first egg? I hope she doesn't start having these chronic poopbutt problems like the other 2. Ugh.

4 eggs were laid today! *dances* maybe 5 later when Runty lays in the afternoon!


edit edit:
Today Frankie has been picking on the two larger RIRs, Penny & Lightning, but not in the typical way I'm used to seeing. Usually I see them fluff up their necks and jump kick each other face to face. Well, the 2 RIRs don't fight back, they try to run, and Frankie grabs hold of feathers on their back in her beak while they scream. Sometimes they pull Frankie around the yard like that until the feathers rip out. I know I can separate a bully to reset her in the order, but I hope I don't have to. Just going to watch them to see how bad it gets.

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: I'm seeing more and more utter shockers from hatcheries. What terrible standards they have. Glad to hear my doodles were helpful.
Quote: Might be a bit of first-time layer strain. Some hens don't do too well with it. I haven't had that problem that I've noticed but it's entirely possible that it did happen and I didn't notice because I have had one or two hens lay an egg with blood on it before. Always first timers too. If it doesn't keep happening I wouldn't worry. Unless she looks like she's working on a prolapse anyway... Hope not though!
Quote: It might just be a viral thing going around that she's been incubating it for longer and now it's her turn.

Quote: Sounds like some males' behavior. They grab onto a neck or back or rump feather and hope she stops and sits so they can mate, but some idiots don't let go even if she doesn't show interest, so they rip out feathers. That's not a hierarchy dispute so the other hens won't often react in a combative manner. They just continue on their way, complaining that they're not keen right now. It may lead to mating. Just because she doesn't have sperm doesn't stop her from doing the exact same thing roosters do, if she's interested. One of my hens mated with roosters in a complete gender role reversal, as an example. Despite them being roosters they complained like hens, but moved their tail feathers out the way like hens... lol. I wouldn't be too surprised if Frankie starts mounting the others. One hen usually takes the rooster's role if there is no rooster.

Runty sounds like she's doing great, feeling strong. Good to hear. Never rains but pours with mine, if one breaks her toe I know I'll have a copycat within the fortnight. Nice when it doesn't turn into a full blown issue.