California - Northern

[gander007]

Today was not a good afternoon.

I discovered that I lost one of my favorite chicken earrings some time during the day.
I found my favorite sunglasses had broken in a place that can't be fixed.

To top it all off - I found Jean-Luc, my beautiful black copper marans roo, had passed away today.

I thought he had been doing better with more protein & vitamins.

I'll miss him but I know he is happy on the other side of the rainbow bridge with lots of company.
I'll be making another trip to Davis - I need answers.

Now that is truly a horrible day

Wish you well with the rest of your flock

 

[ronott1]

So sorry to hear that you lost Jean-Luc. It was a bad chicken day for me today, also. I am busy sewing costumes for a play so I didn't keep as close a watch on my flock as I usually do. We went out this evening to find 1 dead cockerel in a juvie pen and one of my big black Langshan hens with her head stuck in the decorative metal on our swing. Poor thing. What a terrible way to die. I also had 2 black Langshan sitting together on 14 eggs due to hatch today. I had already pulled 2 that were squashed but others were hatching and looked fine so I left the rest with them. Tonight there were 2 dead chicks, 2 more squashed ones, and 1 live one plus 2 in the process of hatching but not looking good. I took the chick, the partially hatched ones, and the rest of the eggs and stuck them in my cabinet hatcher. Why do these things always seem to happen when I already have too much on my plate?!

I am so sorry!

The Bay area is going to go over 100 today. Time to get working on the heat measures for the chickens. Chickens have a lot of trouble with heat compared to cold so make sure they have lots of water and shade. I try to check on them and if I see any in distress, take them inside where it is cooler.

I put the shade screens up yesterday and cleaned the mist system spray heads. They were clogged with minerals.

 

[curious chickee]

I have 4 frozen water bottles ready for the high Temps. Going to put them on a tray, open the cap a bit and let them melt, nice cool water.

 

[ronott1]

I have 4 frozen water bottles ready for the high Temps. Going to put them on a tray, open the cap a bit and let them melt, nice cool water.

That is a good plan!

 

[TheKeeper]

@ronott1 How do you clean your misters?

 

[joydix]

that is sad...sorry to hear all these bad chicken days! i would imagine that is always happens when you have a lot on your plate because like most of us we ALWAYS have too much on our plate!

 

[joydix]

We are so lucky to have Davis and their services. its wonderful we can get answers. i have taken advantage of that service at least 3X now. it is fascinating isn't it? j

 

[ronott1]

@ronott1 How do you clean your misters?

I have two strings of orbit misters. They screw into the plastic pipe:

I soak them in a calcium, lime and rust cleaner from Home Depot. It comes in a gallon size and boy do we need it here....for another year until we switch to Lake Shasta water.

I use a kitchen brush to brush the front and get some of the bristles to go into the back. They all cleaned up fine but just to be safe, I have 10 more mist heads ordered.

 

[caychris]

Never enough time for everything. Ill get the shade cloth back up for them today. Mister intstallation will have to wait. Need to strip out the sand (now cement after the rainy season) and refill the run after putting in some better drainage.


Im working on a cooling station that will let me put a number of frozen 2 liters and water bottles in it give the chooks a place to cool off.

 

[TheKeeper]

Thanks, Ron. I have the same mister and that is very helpful info.

And thank you everyone for your empathy & kind words about losing Jean-Luc. You all are the only ones that truly understand & open to hearing about these things. I can deal with it pretty well - it was hard when my 5-y-o was upset & crying.