Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Danz- that would be so cool if you could get a building for your birds! It would make your winters so much better (I would think anyway ). Fingers crossed.
The BO in my avatar died Sunday , not sure what it was. I'm almost thinking it was heart failure or some thing (she was really fat). Seemed like she was having trouble walking and would kind of lumber along very slow, and then eventually couldn't walk at all ,tried vit E ,castor oil,and some egg but I think she was already a goner . Everybody else seems to be in great shape, maybe it was just bad genetics . Oh well.

Yeah well I've been saying that for at least three years. It was a landmark for him to finally say the same thing. It won't happen unless I pay to have it built myself but it sure would be nice. If he was out in the cold dragging the hose around and feeding all those pens it would be done. LOL I guess I'd have to find something else to dream about then.

I found the perfect building kit a while back. It was like two buildings hooked together. One could be a garage/shop and the other could house chickens. Of course by the time I paid to have concrete poured and such it would cost as much as my property did to buy it. If my income only could match my I wants.
22qZoo, Just wondering if you and your DD are going to make it to Gardner this year. Have you ever been? I think she would really enjoy it even if she just goes and looks.Best time to look is in the morning before the bird auction starts or later in the day when it starts thinning a little.
I really need to take some birds but I am too short on time to make cages and I hate making two early morning trips up there in a row. Plus since DH is working long hours I have no help catching and loading. I don't like to load them until I am ready to go because they have to spend 2 days in the cages as it is.
I've had a few hens die because of heart problems. I think that is what is going to happen with my big orp girl. She gets winded really easily and has trouble walking. And she eat like a pig. Quote:

I have a friend I have known for over thirty years that has kept birds longer than that. When he has his 'special' feed made up at the co-op they put fifty pounds of DE in a ton of feed before they make it into pellets. He has never wormed his birds ever, as a matter of fact his dogs either. The dogs also eat the chicken feed the same as his swans, peafowl, pigeons, and chickens. When he takes the dogs to the vet they never have worms.

Is he just lucky or is there really something to DE?

I use DE but I think it is more of a preventative than a solution. It does however help digestively so it can't be bad. You have to be kind of careful about stirring up too much dust when you use it. I also use it to absorb moisture but in that case it deletes the effectiveness it has on parasites.

Your multi didn't post. I was looking for some orange tomato seeds locally that I planted last summer. Thought I'd start my own but I can't find them. Now it's getting kind of late. Those things had the best flavor of any tomato I have ever tasted. I wish I wasn't so busy this week. I'd like to get some things like radishes and lettuce planted. I think they would be fine now. Maybe next week I'll have some time if the weather is warm.
Well my Coronation sussex died last night. I think she must have had egg peritonitis. I didn't do a necropsy. She had gotten up and walked across the floor so I put her in a crate. A little while later she did the tell tale spasm and died. I have a bunch of eggs in the incubator. Now I have to decide if I sell them or keep them. I could just sell the other adults and have one less breed. I could really use the room. I guess I'll see if I find some SQ replacements at Gardner. If not I may just put them on the for sale list.
I have a couple people potentially coming for a couple birds today. Not looking forward to getting out in the cold though. I thought I would get some more English Orpington hatching eggs I paid dearly for today but it looks like the PO is dragging it's feet. They should definitely had been here by now.

 

[Trish44]

Well either the dogs didn't kill the raccoon the first night & it was stupid enough to come back last night or there was a 2nd one. I told my DH they usually aren't alone, so it very well could have been another one. I can't imagine that those two big dogs didn't eat that one the night before last unless it got up the tree & they couldn't get it. At any rate I had heard the dogs going nuts out there again last night before he came home from work. He came in & said there's a raccoon out there by the wood shed, which is right next to my main coop. He came in & got our pistol & went out & shot it twice, so at least I know that one isn't coming back. Whew! He felt bad about shooting it, but I said well you have to think of it as a predator, it would have killed one or more of my chickens given the chance. I do have my main coop secure, but there are other pens it possibly could have reached through. I'm glad it's gone. I just hope it didn't go back & tell it's friends there is food here.

It's 49 here now, at least not as bad as it could be. It's still going to feel pretty cool after having three 70 degree days though.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Hello all! Haven't been on the forum for a really long time, but I'm still around & doing well. It will take me forever to get caught up on forum posts so I'm not even going to attempt it. Just going to pick up from the end & move forward. Hope everyone is doing well & that chick season isn't overwhelming you...at least not too much anyway. I'm intentionally staying away from them just so I'm not tempted.

Have a problem that I need your help/advice with. Pretty much all of my birds except for a couple have lost all the feathers on their bottoms & some on their back. The skin on a few of them is also really red/chapped; looks uncomfortable, but they don't seem to be bothered by it much. Can't figure out what is going on or more importantly how to treat it. Here are a few photos of what they look like. All of them seem healthy & are laying well. No signs of illness that I can tell. No signs of pests that I can tell. I've had a few birds go thru a molt during the winter, but nothing to this extent. Maybe they're just molting? I don't know. I've tried researching on BYC for answers, but as usual posts are all over the place. I do see them peck on each other occasionally, but not to the extent that I think would cause this much feather damage. Appreciate any ideas you may have on what to do. I'm still a rookie at this stuff.



Another positive note to share. Many of you may remember the dogs that took out my first flock back in September 2012? Just a quick update. The City of Wichita took the dog owner to court (twice) in the past couple of months. Found out that my incident was not the only one that these dogs or owners had been involved in. Long story short, they surrendered the dogs to animal control & the court made them pay restitution to me for my loss along with a few other folks. Got a check in the mail for $100. Good deal. Turned right around & spent it all on feed for my current flock.

That's all for now. Will try to do better keeping up with everyone. Spring is just a week or so away. I for one can't wait!

Looks like a case of mites to me. I sprinkle Sevin or the Poutry dust in the nest boxes when I clean out the old straw so when they go in to lay their eggs, hopefully some will get on their bottom to help kill the critters. They do look uncomfortably red though.

Wanted to know who all is going out to Gardner this year? Suspect I will make it, but might not be able to purchase anything since we leave town a couple days later.

I stil think it will be a blast to go and watch the happenings, and meet some fellow chiken peeps as well.

I'm sure some of the board members will be there. I have to work weekends now too so I won't be able to take time off to go to any auctions till after tax season. Hope you get to meet up with some of the people from the forum.

What's it called? Does it have a brand name?
Quote:
David, that's either a case of mites or lice. They will pick on themselves and then often other chickens will pick on them. I'd treat them with a good dusting of sevin if you don't have ivermectin or permethrim. You should probably dust their coop and nests as well. Then do it again in about 7 days. Even if you can't see them they are there. Look near the vent and see if there is some stuff that looks dry and crusty. If there isn't any it's probably mites which you rarely ever see.
I'm glad you got some justice. I know it didn't reduce the trauma but at least they had to compensate some for your loss.
posted by CHIKENROOKIE
I will be there and OkieQueenBee, ZigZag will be there weather cooperating. I would also expect that FrizzledPink and 22Qzoo might make an appearance.
I spent my time today and wormed every bird on the place again except the ducks. It's not been long since I last did it. I just wanted to make sure they all got treated again. Maybe this time they'll actually drink the water. It sure takes a while when you have to measure out and syringe out what you need for 36 water containers.
I sorted and counted cockerels and ducks that will be going on Thursday if all goes as planned. Sure hope nothing changes. That's several mouths I wouldn't have to feed.
Then I put a new storm door on the greenhouse. Of course after actually reading directions I couldn't follow them simply because they were designed to be used on a wood framed house doorway not a metal frame. So it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. It was also really heavy and I had to brace it up with scrap wood in order to keep it in place. I got the latch installed but not the safety chain or the hydraulic closer. When I got to that point the weather had switched and I was dealing with a strong north wind. I still had eggs to gather.
One of my coronation sussex isn't feeling well. I thought she might be egg bound but I think it is something more. I brought her in and let her fall asleep in a sink of warm water with lavender oil in it. Gave her some metronidazole and have her wrapped in a towel on a heat pad right now. I'll keep her in tonight and see if she is eating or drinking. I only have two hens so I'd sure hate to loose her. I have several eggs in the incubator but that would be like starting over again.
It seems like every day there is someone who has something wrong out here.
Maybe I should just downsize to a small flock and hope for the best.
Well DH finally said today he thought it would be better to have a poultry building then to have to run all these heated bowls in winter. I've been trying to convince him that is the way to go. With our utilities this winter we could have about paid for one.

Danz... where do you find all the energy to do all your never ending chores? I need some of your energy!

OQB the BCM chicks are out in the growout pen now & I'm pretty sure I know which ones are cockerels & which are pullets now, finally. They were getting too rowdy to be in the brooder any more, they were trying to jump & fly around in there & bumping the top, besides just the mess they were making. I do have a heat lamp out there for at night. Yeah I sure paid for doing all of that yesterday, but I have to get my strength back up because I have coops to clean out soon.

tweety I hope you're not overdoing it after surgery. Hopefully your GP will come back, it seems like if it just wandered off it would have returned, I hope nobody took it. Yeah it's going to be windy most of the rest of the week I think. It's supposed to be a high of 53 here tomorrow, after 70s that will feel cool.

We had a bad night for sleep here last night. My cat that I adopted has been in heat for the last 2 weeks & she yowls at night. I have been waiting for her to get through it to take her to get spayed. The Vets don't really like to do the surgery when they're in heat, I read they can have a lot more bleeding & it's just more complicated. It probably would cost more as well. Then after she finally settled down some the GPs outside just went beserk barking like they do when there is something serious out there. My DH finally got up & looked out the front window & they had caught a raccoon & he said they were tossing it in the air & then going back at it again. Hopefully that raccoon is a dead one now & I hope they caught it before it did any damage.

Well I'm getting a very late start today after all of that, so I had better get off here & get busy. Hold onto your hats everyone!

Coon is on my "kill" list. They are nasty and I can't think of any positive things to say about them. I'm glad your GPs are doing their job though. As for the yowling cat... I feel for ya... when I was living in the city, there was a few of them yowled and howled at the same time and there were loud!

I'm still taking it easy for now. DH and DS are leaving for China first thing tomorrow morning so it's just us girls in the house!

Danz- that would be so cool if you could get a building for your birds! It would make your winters so much better (I would think anyway ). Fingers crossed.
The BO in my avatar died Sunday , not sure what it was. I'm almost thinking it was heart failure or some thing (she was really fat). Seemed like she was having trouble walking and would kind of lumber along very slow, and then eventually couldn't walk at all ,tried vit E ,castor oil,and some egg but I think she was already a goner . Everybody else seems to be in great shape, maybe it was just bad genetics . Oh well. Not sure how your quotes got cut off... weird.

Sorry for your loss... it never gets easier (for me anyway...) when a chicken or a pet passed away. I've seen a few posts on the board about fatter chickens do tend to have issues with their hearts.


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I was quite busy today. Went to a funeral...again. I went to 2 funerals in less than 3 months. Just not a good start of the year. Sigh... We went out to eat dinner last night for my birthday and when we came home, DD went inside the house but didn't disable the house alarm. So DS rushed in to enter the code but he didn't enter it correctly. So I punched the code in to disable it. Guess my code didn't work??? Because there were 2 cops at our door step 15 minutes later. We didn't hear the alarm going off or anything though. That was really strange.

I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow to take DH and DS to the airport. With them gone, us girls will be taking it easy and just do girl stuff. I'll be working from home since it is Spring break and DD will be home. I don't like to work from home for a long period of time because I feel isolated from the team. Guess I need the adult interaction more than I thought. I also think face-to-face communication is much better when it comes to working on a project or troubleshooting issues. Oh well... my team will just have to "chat" with me on Skype or call me.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

I have used the spray-on leak seal "as seen on TV". I recently repaired a crack in my duck pond. I have used it in the past on metal water containers with good success. You can buy it at Walgreen's or Dollar General, but Wal*Mart has something similar in their paint section for a lower price of $9.99 and some Dollar Generals do, too.. It comes in clear or black. Years ago I used auto undercoat spray to make these repairs. As the saying goes, "poor people have poor ways".

Ralph.. I think I've seen the commercial on TV. The guy spray pained a screen door and put that in a small boat. He then sat in the boat to proof that the product was able to seal the screen door and made it water-proof. I may need to get some of the wal-mart generic one since it is cheaper. I looked at the duck pond/pool yesterday and it definitely has a crack on the bottom in addition to the one on the top/lip area.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

I have a friend I have known for over thirty years that has kept birds longer than that. When he has his 'special' feed made up at the co-op they put fifty pounds of DE in a ton of feed before they make it into pellets. He has never wormed his birds ever, as a matter of fact his dogs either. The dogs also eat the chicken feed the same as his swans, peafowl, pigeons, and chickens. When he takes the dogs to the vet they never have worms.

Is he just lucky or is there really something to DE?

I use DE for prevention. I'm with Trish that I don't think it will treat birds with worms or mites but I use it to help dry up the coop and prevent crawly critters in the nest boxes. Not sure if it works or not because I also use Sevin.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

That's good to know. I've seen the commercials and always wonder how well it works.


As someone said earlier, it doesn't take away the trauma, but at least no one else will have to go through it now.




Oh no! You don't need any more problems!


I'm sorry about your BO. I have one that's quite heavy, too. Every summer, DH predicts she will die in the heat. How old was she?

Hmmm... your lost post just got truncated or shrunk?!?! Weird... I agree with you on the wintry mix but we never got much of anything other than the strong north wind. I fed the chicken around 5ish and the wind was already gusting from the north. By the time we all came home from dinner, it was down right cold!

 

[chicken danz]

Well either the dogs didn't kill the raccoon the first night & it was stupid enough to come back last night or there was a 2nd one. I told my DH they usually aren't alone, so it very well could have been another one. I can't imagine that those two big dogs didn't eat that one the night before last unless it got up the tree & they couldn't get it. At any rate I had heard the dogs going nuts out there again last night before he came home from work. He came in & said there's a raccoon out there by the wood shed, which is right next to my main coop. He came in & got our pistol & went out & shot it twice, so at least I know that one isn't coming back. Whew! He felt bad about shooting it, but I said well you have to think of it as a predator, it would have killed one or more of my chickens given the chance. I do have my main coop secure, but there are other pens it possibly could have reached through. I'm glad it's gone. I just hope it didn't go back & tell it's friends there is food here.

It's 49 here now, at least not as bad as it could be. It's still going to feel pretty cool after having three 70 degree days though.
I would never hesitate to kill a raccoon or a possum. They are only here to eat my chickens and nothing else. Thank goodness for the dogs. Lots of times they just get them cornered so I can shoot them.

Danz... where do you find all the energy to do all your never ending chores? I need some of your energy!
I complain all the time how I have no energy. I used to work circles around what I can do these days. I just get slower and slower at doing things.
Coon is on my "kill" list. They are nasty and I can't think of any positive things to say about them. I'm glad your GPs are doing their job though. As for the yowling cat... I feel for ya... when I was living in the city, there was a few of them yowled and howled at the same time and there were loud!

I'm still taking it easy for now. DH and DS are leaving for China first thing tomorrow morning so it's just us girls in the house!
I'll bet you will miss your boys. Years ago I had some beans from China that looked like lady bugs to me. They were considered lucky. Do you know what I am talking about? I would love to have some more to plant if your DH has any idea what they are and could find some. I'd be glad to pay for them and his trouble.
Sorry for your loss... it never gets easier (for me anyway...) when a chicken or a pet passed away. I've seen a few posts on the board about fatter chickens do tend to have issues with their hearts.


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I was quite busy today. Went to a funeral...again. I went to 2 funerals in less than 3 months. Just not a good start of the year. Sigh... We went out to eat dinner last night for my birthday and when we came home, DD went inside the house but didn't disable the house alarm. So DS rushed in to enter the code but he didn't enter it correctly. So I punched the code in to disable it. Guess my code didn't work??? Because there were 2 cops at our door step 15 minutes later. We didn't hear the alarm going off or anything though. That was really strange.
Oh my! I would have been embarrassed.
I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow to take DH and DS to the airport. With them gone, us girls will be taking it easy and just do girl stuff. I'll be working from home since it is Spring break and DD will be home. I don't like to work from home for a long period of time because I feel isolated from the team. Guess I need the adult interaction more than I thought. I also think face-to-face communication is much better when it comes to working on a project or troubleshooting issues. Oh well... my team will just have to "chat" with me on Skype or call me.
I would have loved working from home. I'm not very sociable though. I needed peopel around me when I was young but now I just enjoy the solitude. The world rushes around and is too noisy for me I think.

I've been sweeping floors. I need to mop but I wore myself out for a few minutes. Theres a ton of stuff I need to do but probably won't accomplish today.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Danz... do you happen to have a picture of the beans? I don't know the name of the beans off the top of my head and I tried to google but nothing popped up either. If you have a picture or a link to the beans, I'll see if DH can find them there.

 

[Ralph Moyer]

I took a picture of the can of Rust-o-lium Sealer and a tub I had repaired last spring.. The tub hasn't been used since last fall, but I cleaned where the crack was on the inside of the tub. It was used by Muscovy ducks and did not leak after being repaired. The repair isn't pretty but I built it up on the bottom of the tub so that it would flow into the break.

 

[sunflowerparrot]

I have a friend I have known for over thirty years that has kept birds longer than that. When he has his 'special' feed made up at the co-op they put fifty pounds of DE in a ton of feed before they make it into pellets. He has never wormed his birds ever, as a matter of fact his dogs either. The dogs also eat the chicken feed the same as his swans, peafowl, pigeons, and chickens. When he takes the dogs to the vet they never have worms.

Is he just lucky or is there really something to DE?

The feed I buy from a friend has the same mixture - I feed it to my chickens and my pig (when I had him). I've never wormed my chickens either and have never had health issues with my birds (knock on wood!). My vet told me to give the dogs DE weekly in their food to keep worms at bay. Since I've done that, my one dog that was always getting tape worm, hasn't gotten worms since. I've been very pleased with the results of DE. (They say humans can consume it too!) It's just important to get food grade if you're buying it separately and not already mixed in with the feed from the co-op.