Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Good to see you here again Tweety. Sorry you are having to work so hard.
HEChicken I know the goats will act up again so I keep reminding myself of that. I think if I ever had another goat it would have to be a milker. And still I can't see myself out milking a goat on a cold morning.
It was a crazy insane day. I got feed, took care of some stuff in town and then got home and shoveled off the feed. I had to feed and water before I left. Got the chickens shut back up just at dark. Now I'm trying to catch up feeding these chicks in here again. I emptied one incubator with Red star chicks but the chicks in the other are still hatching so they can wait until morning.
Tomorrow is going to be even busier. I am so glad my life isn't like this every day.

 

[lizzyGSR]

Gosh, Danz! I don't know how you keep that pace all the time!

I had a really good evening. I went out to get the horses this evening and played with them on the way back. Then, I played some more when I got back to the house. We made lots of good progress, and I had lots of fun! I'm worn out now from all the walking, but it is refreshing to be able to play with the horses and be able to see them making such good progress!

While I was in the pasture, I was surprised by a small milksnake. That's the first time since we've lived in this area (2 1/2 years) that I've seen a snake that wasn't a rattlesnake, bull snake or blue racer. It startled me when I first saw it, but then I stood a safe distance away and watched it crawl away from me. It wasn't very big and was kind of interesting since I'd never seen one in person before. And here I thought it was too chilly for snakes to be out and about today (I think the high today was about 64*F).

More good news.... We got just shy of 1/2" of much-needed rain last night! Yesterday was SO WINDY and really dusty. It was windy again today, but the rain helped to settle the dust, which made it much more pleasant outside. It was also cooler today with a cool North breeze. However, by the time I went out, the breeze had drastically calmed down. It turned out to be a lovely evening!

 

[cherwill]

Tweety, good to see you here again!

Lizzy, I'm glad you're getting rain. I know some areas of Kansas are still in bad shape. McPherson's pretty good on rain, but I wish we'd get a little more now and then. It keeps showing up in the forecast for a couple of hours, but then it doesn't actually rain.

This is way late, but I'm finally getting the pictures off my camera. Remember the watermelon radishes I planted? This is some of them next to an average sized red radish (later in the season, we got even bigger watermelon radishes):



This is what they looked like inside:



Most of them were hotter than the average radish, and took longer to grow. They're not the same as the ones my SIL loved so much in Hawaii. We won't bother with them again.

 

[chicken danz]

Interesting radishes -especially the color on the inside compared to the outside. I have decided to plant radishes for the tops next year. I found my peafowl and such love radish tops. My Chinese friends cut off the tops and use them in soup and they reproduce so I figure I can cut tops and feed to birds. I like a few radishes but not many too eat. I can always just pull what I want.
Lizzy glad you got some rain. We got a little moisture last night but it was mostly noise not much in the way of rain. We are supposed to have the cooler weather today and then next week it is supposed to be much cooler all week after another front moves in Monday. Actually it will be a little too cool for me.
I had one obligation disappear for today which left me open to take care of another. I am relieved although I will still be super busy. I am already behind in things I need to get done. But I need to relax and drink my coffee. I've been having some blood pressure problems again lately and I suspect it is from feeling too pressured to take care of things.
First on my agenda is to clean out one of these chick bins and get fresh bedding in there. Then I can unload the incubator. I forgot to turn the heat lamps on in the brooder house last night so I hope I didn't loose too many babies out there. I hate it when I get so bogged down in activities I forget to do simple things.
I just decided to run out and check the brooder and it was pretty darned chilly in there. Only found one chick dead but the others sure were happy when I plugged the lamps in. Maybe I'll find the time in the next couple days to get the oil heaters set up on a thermostat for them.
I think DH ordered some kind of electric heater months ago that mounts from the ceiling he thinks will work but I don't understand exactly what it is. I worry about anything that doesn't have enclosed elements because of the dust issue. I really like the oil heaters for chicks.
I also need to get the last of my eggs set. I should have had them done two days ago. It will be really strange to pick up all these eggs for eating again. The red star breeders are laying really well right now so I should have quite a few eggs just from them.

 

[cherwill]

Danz, another way I like radishes is to cut them in half, toss them in a little olive oil, then roast them. It takes a bit of the heat out (though I don't mind a little heat) and makes the tops crispy. In fact, when they're done that way, the tops are the best part! I don't care for them much raw, so when I'm just using raw radishes, the chickens get the tops.

Some of you might remember when we had two Mysterious Chicken Deaths within two weeks of each other. It was two of three Black Australorps we'd gotten from one of DH's co-workers when his daughters stopped doing chickens in 4H. With no warning we ever saw, the chicken would just become too weak to hold itself up, and would be dead in a few hours. That was 1 1/2 to 2 years ago, and I wrote it off to some genetic problem. This morning, it's happening to another BA. Unfortunately, I can't be 100% sure it's the third of the BA's we got from the co-worker, because we had one already. We put her in a crate and have set her away from the rest of the flock. She was fine yesterday as far as we could tell. This morning, she walked slowly out of the coop instead of fly-running across the pen like they all do every morning. Now she's just laying around, not resisting when we moved her or anything. It's exactly the same way the other two acted before they died.

We're not sure what else to do. We're not going to be able to save her if it's the same as before. We can clean out the coop in case it's something contagious, but if it's the same thing we had before, it isn't contagious. I know this has been discussed before, but I guess I didn't pay enough attention. What is the best way to sterilize the coop after we remove the shavings? I'm not thinking well enough to remember what all has been talked about when sterilizing coops has been brought up.

 

[chicken danz]

I remove any and all shavings or whatever in the coop. Then I use a shop vac to clean out the loose stuff. I do like using the pressure washer but I doubt it is necessary to use that much power. I sweep or vacuum out the moisture. Then I use one of two things. I either use tektrol or oxine in water and either spray or dose it down. I like to let it sit and soak in the wood for awhile and if I didn't get it too wet even let it just dry naturally. I figure the more it penetrates the better job it does.
Prior to having either of those disinfectants I just used bleach and/or lysol. But I always rinsed those out because of the bleach fumes.I've had good results from that.
I've also disinfected the ground to some extent as well. I have sprayed any of those things with a pump sprayer and drenched at least the top of the ground. I have used lye and then water to create heat (but you have to let that completely get done reacting or you could burn the chickens feet.) I have also taken a propane touch and burnt the surface of the ground where I had some sick chickens confined in a smaller pen.
I have read that 3 days of good sunshine will kill a lot of organisms as well but never figured out how to make the sun shine for three days on command and where to put the birds in the meantime. These are my methods and by no means a professional science.
Are the birds skinny like they have not been eating well? Are they loosing their balance and not able to stand other than from being weak? Are they congested at all? Are their combs blue looking? Have you ever done your own necropsy? That can tell you a lot about what was going on. I have found large hearts, awful looking livers, congestion, and some times just nothing apparent. I need to do that on a peachick I lost yesterday that the hen is raising.

 

[cherwill]

Thanks Danz.

The other two birds died over a year ago. At that time, there was no vet who knew anything about poultry. There's one now who's in the process of learning. We didn't think to do our own necropsy, and probably wouldn't have known what we were looking at. What I remember about the other two, and now with this one, is that they just appear weak. They don't stand up, so it would be hard to say anything about the balance. They didn't appear congested and their combs looked normal. It's like they just weaken very suddenly, then die within hours. Back when the first two died, I looked up everything I could on the internet and couldn't find a single illness that seemed to match the symptoms. That, and the fact that it was two of three siblings who died, is what made me think it was something genetic. Not that I found any information on possible genetic problems that matched the symptoms.

 

[chicken danz]

I would almost guess maybe a heart condition would do that except often if it is the heart the comb will turn blueish. Have you checked to insure she isn't egg bound? They tend to act a bit like that. Other than that I am at a loss.

 

[chicken danz]

I was out feeding and watering. This is what I found. My two guinea adults who had been missing were in the goose pen. Now I know why I hadn't seen them. The daddy guinea is being very protective of these and is right there with the Mom. There are 10 babies there.

 

[chicken danz]

OMG I just did an necrospy on a dead peachick cause the one that wasn't feeling good yesterday was dead this morning. I found some worms in it's gut. That is the first time I have found any worms in any of my birds. I treated all the peafowl and the turkeys because they are in the same set of pens, with Ivermectin in their water. I am nearly out of it. I almost bought some last week but the price kept me from doing it. Now I feel like an idiot cause had I checked the first peachick I lost I would have saved more by having two more to sell. Now I am afraid I need to treat all the birds again. I was just reading that the worms could be egg transmitted in chickens so I am guessing the same could be true in peafowl. However the only peachicks I have lost are the ones the mother peahen is raising.
So I ordered a bottle and I'll have to wait a few days to get it. I just hope I have enough to get these guys cleared out enough. Makes me feel like a bad bird mom.