California - Northern

[tommysgirl]

Haha such beautiful golden eyes you have.


So in reading over information on keeping flocks healthy... " the dangers " of poultry shows and purchasing anything but eggs... I'm feeling confused ? On one hand I tend to believe most places /properties are not as clean from illness as one may believe and feeding and cleaning are key to prosperity. On the other hand there's the " bleach your shoes" group that I understand but can't "do" .
There are so many typs of illness and npip only test for some. What do each of you care to know about? How do you decide about adding to your flock aside from incubation? Aside from Merck and or Newcastle .... Do you grin and bear it and use antibiotics to treat symptoms as necessary or flush carriers and cull -starting fresh,?!?

We have never had symptomatic birds of any kind. I don't want that to cause me to become TOO carefree. But when beautiful birds become available I want to feel confident on my decision and how I bring them home.

Everyone's thoughts welcome.

First of all I am so new to this that my personal experience is limited but here it is.

Like you I got information from multiple sources and it varried from extremely vigilent to totally lax but here is what I did

The first and most recent new birds came from capayvalleychick just an hour and a half from me. They road home in an airconditioned truck cab and ask Kim...I seat belted them in so their ride wouldn't be bumpy. That was a factor in how I handled quarintine. With those three I was very careful...changed shoes and clothes always did them last etc. However on advice from someone who has been doing this longer and who has purchased birds from shows and had them shipped, I didn't go the full four weeks. I knew that they had come from a facility where they had only been exposed to the birds on that property. I had seen the operation and it is CLEAN. so they were only quarantined for about 10 days before I began the integration process

I plan to use the same sort of caution with the two girls I got yesterday because they came from the same place.

I did play a little fast and loose with the two EEs that I got. I picked them up from one town over from a friend who also doesn't show, and has a tremendously clean free range set up. They spent the night in a calm quiet dog kennel then I put them right in with their roo who had no other pullets/hens so I figured he would be like a guinea pig. Since that little micro flock is separate from all of my other birds the whole living situation is like a quarantine

I personally would never purchase a juvenile/ adult bird through the mail or from someone I didn't feel like I knew through BYC or another source but that is because I don't want to hassle with a month long quarantine as much as anything else. If I had a better designated area I might feel differently but my quarantine area is small and certainly not an ideal new home for my chickens.

Every one has to make their own decisions about the risk they are willing to take. I think there is a continuum and you have to decide where you land on it in each given situation. If I had invested heavily in show stock/rare breeds etc and my chickens were more to me than delightful and beautiful and productive pets. I might fall somewhere else.

Hungry too!

Good Morning All!

I finished the morning chores and need to make a list for the days work.

How are things going this weekend? We need a hatch report or two and baby pictures!

Are the chickens leaving the coop yet? Are the skinny ones starting to plump up yet? Is anyone processing for the Fall?

I need to find a pumpkin today for the girls to work over....

DH took care of chicken chores this morning so I have nothing to report other than I did candle the remaining 4 eggs Saw no movement in any and one wasn't full enough. It was an early quitter....Choc rock pullet egg so on the small side too so I chucked that one and put the other three back under her.

The little black chick is giving her fits. it ventures out of the nest box wanders over under the roosting area she clucks at it but as of yesterday she was still committed to the nest. It behaves like its mama did as a chick...very bold and curious.

DH is almost done with the new pen and it wlil be where we put this little family. I have been spooked by all the hawk attack stories so they are going into a covered run with BuckBeak who before all of this broody nonsense was Beakface's BFF. Buckbeak's wing tops are still all featherless and if we stick her in there we can take off her saddle and let her range when Ozzie is penned so that she has a chance to heal.

Re processing, I have a guy who I work with just learned to process. Next time he does it he has said that I can help so that I can practice on someone I didn't raise. But yes. No more getting rid of unwanted cockerels by giving them to other people, I am going to conquer my aversion and get it done.

 

[tommysgirl]

I breed for resistance. Sick birds are culled. Birds exposed and not showing symptoms are bred. This is what the old timers and master exhibitors do. Read the posts on this page: post #15941

According to the people who show the most, shows are not really a danger as far as disease. In CA, they do a health check on every bird before it enters the premises. That is, the show floor. I have seen questionable health in birds at sale barns. Swaps without health checks are a source for infection.

Before you buy chicks, ask them about how they handle illness in their flock. If they have to immunize and medicate in order to keep their birds healthy, that flock is not truly a healthy one.

Use common sense regarding biosecurity. There is more danger of exposure from wild birds than from most poultry keepers.

Years ago, I had some chickens come down with symptoms of MG. I think the source was some Craigslist birds and I do not buy any chickens off Craigslist anymore for this reason. According to popular opinion on BYC, I should have culled my entire flock and started over. I culled the sick ones, had tests done at UCD. They were sure that it was MG but tests were inconclusive. I kept breeding the healthy ones that had been exposed. In the following years, I'd get one or two with symptoms and they were culled. Any new lines introduced were the ones who usually showed minor signs of illness, ie sneezing. This year, I tested at UCD and was negative for MG. I did have my first case of Mareks this year, a line new to me. I was panicked at first, thinking it had just been introduced to my flock, since I haven't had any Mareks in 13 years. My mentor is also a CA Health inspector, as well as a long time breeder. He assured me that the Mareks has been here all along and my flock is mostly resistant.
I haven't used medicated starter in years, either. This works in my environment but may not for others. I test before I use wormer and those tests lately have not shown parasites. My flock has had one case of lice in 13 years. I don't treat unless there are visible bugs. I did quarantine my birds that had been at a show for a week. I also quarantined new birds from other breeders for a month before introducing them to the flock, even though the old timers don't.
So that's my opinion.

Thanks you just validated my decision!

@tommysgirl here's that thread that I mentioned: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...rock-chicks-indy-rex-and-iras-progress-thread

Thanks for this too!

 

[AmyPaperlady]

Are the chickens leaving the coop yet?

We've had people over the last couple of nights, so I haven't been able to be outside an hour or o before dark to give it another try.

 

[tommysgirl]

So nothing new in the chick count going to read how to do a float test on the last three eggs. Found a broken egg in with the new EE pullets

I think they are both laying though so far neither has laid on the same day. Could the roo be breaking the eggs? I found him on the ledge in front of the nest box.

 

[ChickNmamma]

First of all I am so new to this that my personal experience is limited but here it is.

Like you I got information from multiple sources and it varried from extremely vigilent to totally lax but here is what I did

The first and most recent new birds came from capayvalleychick just an hour and a half from me. They road home in an airconditioned truck cab and ask Kim...I seat belted them in so their ride wouldn't be bumpy. That was a factor in how I handled quarintine. With those three I was very careful...changed shoes and clothes always did them last etc. However on advice from someone who has been doing this longer and who has purchased birds from shows and had them shipped, I didn't go the full four weeks. I knew that they had come from a facility where they had only been exposed to the birds on that property. I had seen the operation and it is CLEAN. so they were only quarantined for about 10 days before I began the integration process

I plan to use the same sort of caution with the two girls I got yesterday because they came from the same place.

I did play a little fast and loose with the two EEs that I got. I picked them up from one town over from a friend who also doesn't show, and has a tremendously clean free range set up. They spent the night in a calm quiet dog kennel then I put them right in with their roo who had no other pullets/hens so I figured he would be like a guinea pig. Since that little micro flock is separate from all of my other birds the whole living situation is like a quarantine

I personally would never purchase a juvenile/ adult bird through the mail or from someone I didn't feel like I knew through BYC or another source but that is because I don't want to hassle with a month long quarantine as much as anything else. If I had a better designated area I might feel differently but my quarantine area is small and certainly not an ideal new home for my chickens.

Every one has to make their own decisions about the risk they are willing to take. I think there is a continuum and you have to decide where you land on it in each given situation. If I had invested heavily in show stock/rare breeds etc and my chickens were more to me than delightful and beautiful and productive pets. I might fall somewhere else.

DH took care of chicken chores this morning so I have nothing to report other than I did candle the remaining 4 eggs Saw no movement in any and one wasn't full enough. It was an early quitter....Choc rock pullet egg so on the small side too so I chucked that one and put the other three back under her.

The little black chick is giving her fits. it ventures out of the nest box wanders over under the roosting area she clucks at it but as of yesterday she was still committed to the nest. It behaves like its mama did as a chick...very bold and curious.

DH is almost done with the new pen and it wlil be where we put this little family. I have been spooked by all the hawk attack stories so they are going into a covered run with BuckBeak who before all of this broody nonsense was Beakface's BFF. Buckbeak's wing tops are still all featherless and if we stick her in there we can take off her saddle and let her range when Ozzie is penned so that she has a chance to heal.

Re processing, I have a guy who I work with just learned to process. Next time he does it he has said that I can help so that I can practice on someone I didn't raise. But yes. No more getting rid of unwanted cockerels by giving them to other people, I am going to conquer my aversion and get it done.

If you want to help momma out - put something around so little one can't go a-wandering so far. She may make the decision to follow it instead of sitting on the eggs if she thinks it is in trouble.

Congrats on taking the next step to chicken ownership, being able to make the difficult decision and follow through with it. I don't like it, but I can get it done. Since we don't spay our chickens we need to control the population when we choose to hatch, and perhaps get something back for those months of feeding and care. The girls give us eggs.. the boys can contribute too. In the wilds the boys are flock protectors and sacrificial birds to the predators. In our backyards we need to remove those causing dis-harmony in the flock since they cannot fulfill their original destiny.
I feel since I can make their final moments without trauma and they go in peace that is a better end then what might happen if I give them away. When you learn to do it right you can see there is no trauma at their end. The contractions when they go are involuntary and brief. It always disturbs me, but I believe they don't feel any pain or anxiety at that point and its very fast. I used to do the chop the heads off - I never liked that one. I prefer the hang upside down calm and cut the throat and let them drain out. I messed up last time and cut the wrong side, poor boy hung there for a long time - but he did not act upset and only flinched when I tried to find out why he wasn't going and was messing with the cut side. Finally found out I had cut the return vein and not the out going - cut the other side and he was gone in seconds - still no trauma, only involuntary spasms and I could see his eyes were already glazed over when they started. No blood to the brain = unconscious.

On the what do I do about diseases issue, I have not fed medicated feed since I ran out the first of the year. I have had some signs of cocci (bloody poop) in my juvie birds but no fatalities. I have not medicated for it as I decided I want my birds to build up the immunity necessary to combat it - and if they aren't hunched up and listless they are doing what I want them to do. I have raised and am raising over 50 chicks so far this year (silly broodies too) and I have not seen any signs of cocci in the broody raised chicks. If they showed signs I would give them the boost by medicating, but I would prefer not to do so.

I didn't like the idea of showing because you can expose your flock to diseases they haven't had a chance to become resistant to. I ask that people who have chickens not wear the same shoes when they come over here to get birds they want to buy - because I don't know what they have in their area, and if it is different than mine. I know I have cocci here, it attacked my brooder raised chicks last year who hadn't been exposed until 5 weeks, I changed my routine after that. Now I expose all chicks to cocci in the first few days - a plug of dirt and weeds from where my chickens roam - and I haven't had any signs of cocci in the chicks since then and no chick deaths either. They have natural immunities from the egg - why waste those immunities by not exposing them to what I carry here? I think babies should be exposed to dirt also for the same reason - those super clean kids were always sick...

I read the information on the Heritage thread about MG and Mareks and diseases and I found it very interesting. I have no intention of raising my birds in a glass bubble and it seems to me that to keep birds that are the healthiest and those resistant to diseases makes more sense than babying the sickly ones. I haven't had to make the difficult decision to let birds die instead of treating them yet, but that time may come. I guess it depends on who it is.. and when... Its another difficult decision in chicken ownership. Are these pets, or are they chickens... I think I have some of both.

 

[ChickNmamma]

So nothing new in the chick count going to read how to do a float test on the last three eggs. Found a broken egg in with the new EE pullets

I think they are both laying though so far neither has laid on the same day. Could the roo be breaking the eggs? I found him on the ledge in front of the nest box.

Sometimes new layers won't have the shell down right and they will break the eggs. Any broken eggs then become food. I haven't ever seen a rooster break eggs on purpose - only had one hen who ever did that and upping the calcium and letting them out to free range once a day cured her very quickly. The instinct of hens is to move a new egg - and sometimes peck at it. If it breaks then it wouldn't hatch - so eat it. If it doesn't break then it would hatch - leave it alone...

I only find broken eggs now if I forget to collect for a few days - the hens climbing over too many eggs will break one - then somebody will find it and eat it. They don't eat any more than that one broken egg though so its opportunity, not intentional.

Hope your float test comes back wigglers, and Buckbeak is happy to stay on the nest until they hatch out. Did the other SPW that had pipped hatch?

 

[Ali707]

Yay, so far I've sold fifteen turkeys!

I think this weekend I'll process a couple to cut back the numbers even more. And a duck. I'm really looking forward to roasting a duck next week.

This was the pen I most wanted to cut back the numbers before winter weather sets in.

This must have the same satisfactory feel as spring cleaning.....

I cut a hole in the side and let the chickens do the work.

I will get a picture of it for you.

So with 13 chickens you would give them 1 pumpkin with 1 hole? I used to cut in half and give them a half a pumpkin to devour, but the whole hold in the side thing would make them work a little harder. Although I can't believe their head doesn't get all gunky.

I breed for resistance. Sick birds are culled. Birds exposed and not showing symptoms are bred. This is what the old timers and master exhibitors do. Read the posts on this page: post #15941

According to the people who show the most, shows are not really a danger as far as disease. In CA, they do a health check on every bird before it enters the premises. That is, the show floor. I have seen questionable health in birds at sale barns. Swaps without health checks are a source for infection.

Before you buy chicks, ask them about how they handle illness in their flock. If they have to immunize and medicate in order to keep their birds healthy, that flock is not truly a healthy one.

Use common sense regarding biosecurity. There is more danger of exposure from wild birds than from most poultry keepers.

Years ago, I had some chickens come down with symptoms of MG. I think the source was some Craigslist birds and I do not buy any chickens off Craigslist anymore for this reason. According to popular opinion on BYC, I should have culled my entire flock and started over. I culled the sick ones, had tests done at UCD. They were sure that it was MG but tests were inconclusive. I kept breeding the healthy ones that had been exposed. In the following years, I'd get one or two with symptoms and they were culled. Any new lines introduced were the ones who usually showed minor signs of illness, ie sneezing. This year, I tested at UCD and was negative for MG. I did have my first case of Mareks this year, a line new to me. I was panicked at first, thinking it had just been introduced to my flock, since I haven't had any Mareks in 13 years. My mentor is also a CA Health inspector, as well as a long time breeder. He assured me that the Mareks has been here all along and my flock is mostly resistant.
I haven't used medicated starter in years, either. This works in my environment but may not for others. I test before I use wormer and those tests lately have not shown parasites. My flock has had one case of lice in 13 years. I don't treat unless there are visible bugs. I did quarantine my birds that had been at a show for a week. I also quarantined new birds from other breeders for a month before introducing them to the flock, even though the old timers don't.
So that's my opinion.

That is great information....thanks for taking the time to write it all out..

I did play a little fast and loose with the two EEs that I got.

So nothing new in the chick count going to read how to do a float test on the last three eggs. Found a broken egg in with the new EE pullets

I think they are both laying though so far neither has laid on the same day. Could the roo be breaking the eggs? I found him on the ledge in front of the nest box.

You have a special irritation in the egg breaking department don't you? lol You seem to be especially irritated by it......As in Flaming mad!

I have a special irritation when my supposedly sweet breed of chicken the Orps keep trying to find exposed skin to grab.

 

[ronott1]

So with 13 chickens you would give them 1 pumpkin with 1 hole? I used to cut in half and give them a half a pumpkin to devour, but the whole hold in the side thing would make them work a little harder. Although I can't believe their head doesn't get all gunky.

First the pumpkin gets an opening:



The chickens do not find it at first:



Then Sienna, the three year old Australop finds it!




They will work on the pumpkin for several days, slowly making the hole bigger. They do not get gunky with pumpkin. That is reserved for yogurt....

 

[Nikon]

First the pumpkin gets an opening:



The chickens do not find it at first:



Then Sienna, the three year old Australop finds it!




They will work on the pumpkin for several days, slowly making the hole bigger. They do not get gunky with pumpkin. That is reserved for yogurt....

That's AWESOME!

 

[Nikon]

More eggs!