Consolidated Kansas

[ChooksChick]

I don't know why she died. She was fine thru Sunday. The woman who called said she was told she seemed off Monday, they pulled her, put her under a heat lamp (???) and a couple hours later, she was dead. They didn't have any of the vets look at her or do anything else for her since they were already medicating all the water. She could have died from anything. She could have choked on a Pronto Pup stick for all I know.

My kids all know there are risks with showing. We've had birds get parasites and become ill from shows. It's like free-ranging. You do what you can to minimize the risks (treatments/quarantine/etc), but you accept some troubles and losses as part of it. That being said however, I have never before seen the type of complete disregard for standard show protocols that I've witnessed in the last few days. If a lot of birds get sick or die after the fair, I believe they are entirely to blame. Its unheard of to move birds from cages and then place other birds into those cages without fresh bedding and water. This was done repeatedly. I know for a fact they removed a sick bird and without even so much as dumping the sick birds water, they placed a healthy bird into the cage. The judge and I were stunned. He was like "double your quarantine and be ready for anything!" This is basic stuff even my 6 year old knows not to do.

Good LORD who is running this mess?? I would see about letting them know they don't have a handle on it and there should be new management next time. This sounds like a nightmare. and you all know me and my OCD heebie jeebies about showing anyway...I'm going to go crawl into a hazmat suit and lay in fetal position for a bit...

 

[JosieChick]

I just went out and found one of my buff laced brahma pullets dead in the coop.

I am so sad, she was so young and beautiful, how could this even happen to such a young bird. She looked fine last night while I was out doing chores.....

 

[ChooksChick]

Quote: Thanks, darling! Glad to be back. No, things aren't slowing at all, and now that I'm virtual schooling 2 high schoolers, I'm even more of a strung-out wreck, but I'm trying hard to check n once in a bit. I'm heading down to Oklahoma to get some birds from Heirloom Orpingtons in the next week or so...should I check with Marc and see if he has any Whites? His are all imported from England and Belgium, and UNBELIEVABLE. I have some pics of them in my folders, listed as Heirloom Orpingtons...the whites were incredible.

I'll open that offer up to everyone: I'm going to Oklahoma to Heirloom Orpingtons. If you want something from Marc, please contact him and make the purchase, and I'll shuttle the birds back up for you. You can meet me somewhere along the route home from OK City to Lawrence or in Lawrence if you're east, west or north of that route. I generally would go south on 59, to Ottawa and then on 35 from there, I think. Let me know right away!

Does anyone need anything from me and my flocka? I'm thinning out already for winter and have a billion chicks of banty Cochins, Silchins (non-frizzled Sizzles...), BRs, and a bunch of culls from projects that I will simply call mixes (many roos possibly split to Chocolate of different breeds, etc.). I hate to sell them to the general public if they might fit a project someone is working on.

I also have a home-made cabinet incubator that I'm getting rid of. It's functional, but could use some improvements. It's plywood, about the size of a dorm fridge, has multiple cords for heating elements and turners coming out of it. It needs another fan or a larger one to be more consistent. I have the ancient Sportsman I always wanted, so this one has gone unused for months and I figure someone could use it. I'd like to offer it to you all before I toss it up on Craig's List. I'll ask $100, as it comes with 2 turners worth nearly that new. If I can find the other turner for the third shelf, I'll toss that in, too! If you want it and you live on my path to OK, let me know so I can bring it with me on the way.

I was calling it the 'FarmGirl NQB8R.' I'm soooooo going to use that on my license plate (NQB8R) so don't you dare steal it, folks! I will hunt you down if I find out you did!!

Okay, off to fight with the virtual school some more. It's been a technical challenge from the outset, because of the way we get our internet and the programming on their software has had issues this year...catching up on things like honors physics and biology when you get behind STINKS!!

 

[ChooksChick]

I just went out and found one of my buff laced brahma pullets dead in the coop.

I am so sad, she was so young and beautiful, how could this even happen to such a young bird. She looked fine last night while I was out doing chores.....

{{{JosieChick}}}

 

[averytds]

JosieChick Our lost fair bird was one of DD's spring pullets. I'm honestly

her death had something to do with the onset of laying (an abnormality or something) vs disease. IME to date, disease usually is proceeded by at least some symptoms and you have a bit of time to at least make a treatment attempt if you want to. Sudden death around here (perfectly fine then just drops dead for no apparent reason) is usually from an injury or often happens when hitting that point of lay/hormonal shift stage. We've lost several roos over the years at just such a time.


Renee-I fully intend to report them to the KAHD if/when they return my call. It's the guy in charge who is doing it and everyone else defers to him. It's practices like that, that cause outbreaks and hopefully they can get that across to him.

DD is happy that it's one of her untried pullets vs one of her good hens. The kids know that symptoms during quarantine is going to get their bird culled and they might lose one or worst case two. It's not a given that your bird will contract anything, even if the bird in the next cage is ill. When you start swapping them out so they are sharing the infected litter and waterers though.........

If I have a cold and we sit beside each other, yet never touch, you're not likely to get sick. If I'm sick and we share a drink, you'll likely come down with the same thing.

 

[HEChicken]

Avery and Josie, so sorry about your lost hens. Josie - any thoughts as to what caused this death? It hasn't been a good news day around here, with Danz, Avery and Josie all losing a bird unexpectedly.

Renee - always good to hear from you when you get a chance to check in. The NQB8R sounds like an awesome deal but I can already picture DH's face if I came up with a way to incubate even more eggs than I can now. He's pretty tolerant of me setting a dozen eggs here and there (although he does like to warn that we'll run out of space to keep birds eventually) but I'm pretty sure he'd start looking into committing me involuntarily if I came up with a way to incubate a hundred or more at a time.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, no we didn't get to go to Legg's, I had called him on Friday to see if he had any peachicks left & he was totally sold out, I couldn't believe he had sold all of those chicks. He wasn't going to be in town & he said he doesn't allow people to come just to look at birds anyway due to a theft this summer. I guess nobody is immune to that if you let people come to your place. Anyway, that was kind of disappointing because I was looking forward to seeing all the colors he has, maybe in the spring he will have some but I don't know if they will be hatching in March or not, that's when I'll be going back up there to the Dr. again. I normally only go once a year, but he wanted me to come back in 6 mo. this time, I'm trying a new medication & he's talking about maybe putting me in a medical trial too, we'll see. I didn't get to meet the gal either with the little buck rabbit I wanted, she sold it to someone else when she knew I was coming up & I was planning to make arrangements to meet her, it made me angry. So now I'm in search of another buck for breeding, grrrr.

Chooks, those Orps are beautiful, I just looked at that guy's website! But man are they expensive too, I can't afford any more pricey birds this year, maybe next year. BTW, did you get your Ameraucanas from KarenS? I still can't tell the sex for sure on two of the ones I kept from this year. The black is really hard to tell sex on.

I was out looking at my little Swedish Flower Hen chicks earlier & I have several that are developing crests, they're so cute! I have one non-crested one that I think is really going to be pretty too, it's white with all the colors of spots on it. I keep forgetting to go out there with my camera & take some new pics.

 

[sharol]

That sounds like a better idea. Mine looked nasty too. I picked up all the scraps so the chickens wouldn't eat them, and my hands got really itchy. Truly toxic stuff.

I had a very similar experience! This rope I'd used was clearly not UV protected...and it looked all powdery and toxic in its decomposing form, too. I have switched to using the really thin household wire that runs $.99 at Orschelns for 25 ft. It won't go bad no matter the sun...and if it rust apart it will be a decade or more from now, according to the stuff I used on my fencing when we bought the house in 2001. That's rusty, but still holding firm.

 

[sharol]

He is really special. I watched what the vet did, and I could have done that, but not without different tools. I put really good tweezer thingys on my list for the weekend. I'll be unwrapping the foot on Thursday (if the tape holds -- he used white tape, so it will have to be cut off), and I'll try packing it again. He used iodine on the padding. He said he had had better luck with that than with antibiotic ointment.

He is doing fine today, but of course I can't see the foot for the tape.

I'm glad to hear that you love Butch as much as I loved his papa. I hope he clears up quickly for you. I generally pack a bumblefoot with ointment, gauze it, then vetwrap it. I don't open it to look but once a week, and they usually heal up really nicely. We have Honey Locusts, and that works great for predator prevention, but I have to be ultra diligent about thorn cleanup or bumblefoot abounds...

 

[JosieChick]

I went out later to hear the peafowl yelling, the geese chatting, and see the red stars running for cover. Something obviously had just swooped down on that side of the yard. I really don't have any more birds I care to loose to predation!!!

Geez! You need some balloons and a radio. I have been blasting the oldies out there, the hawks hate that!

Josie, I meant to say I agree that was smart of Molly to look up when you pointed. Dogs usually don't "get" pointing.

I thought that she was quite clever. When I pointed I thought to myself "Like the dog is gonna get that I mean for her to look up" and then she did!

I went out about 7:30 and found one of my big ole buff orpington hens laying on the ground by her pen. I don't know if she broke her neck or what. No obvious trauma. It worries me though with the owls an hawks coming around. One might have grabbed her and dropped her. I don't have netting over that pen but most of them go inside the building to sleep so I have no idea what happened.

Oh, so sorry Danz, today is a bad day.

As I was cleaning up the yard (now that it is cool enough to do so), I noticed that the nylon rope stuff I used to tie down the netting over the run was getting a bit faded. When I went over and really looked at it, it was falling apart. I threaded it through the edges of the netting and then fastened the netting/rope to the upper part of the fence with zip ties 2 years ago. I had a couple of places where the rope had broken, and so I decided to patch it for the time being. No such luck. The stuff fell apart in my hands. Yikes. Two sides of the run adjoin a pasture, and so the threat from those sides is very real.

This happened to me as well. I bought string with uv protection at TSC and found some at wally world that was much cheaper. Well, I thought it was the same stuff but within a couple weeks the wally world deal was snapping and falling all over my pens. SO disappointing to do all that work and go out to find all that netting on the ground. Sigh.

Well after being gone for two days out of town it has taken me awhile to read & catch up on all of the posts since I left. The weather up in Kansas City was just gorgeous for those two days, it was wonderful! We went yesterday to this farm that was supposed to be set up like an 1800s farm & they had chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, horses, goats, & sheep there. They had a really interesting brooder that I took a pic of, so when I get it loaded into my computer from my camera I'll share it with you all. We took our two little dogs with us & they were able to walk around the farm with us & of course my Yorkie Satin heard the chicks & wanted to be picked up so she could see them, she just loves watching little chicks. They had these huge piles of pumpkins & different kinds of squash & gourds that I took pics of too. The turkeys they had were Bourbon Red, Bronze, & Royal Palm. It was kind of a nice little diversion for awhile. We then went on to Weston, a quaint little Irish town that I really like, but sadly most of the shops were closed on Monday, so we just wandered around & then ate lunch at the Irish Pub there. My Dr. appt. wasn't until 3:00 in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to mess around until time to go to that.

Sounds like a fun trip!

I don't know why she died. She was fine thru Sunday. The woman who called said she was told she seemed off Monday, they pulled her, put her under a heat lamp (???) and a couple hours later, she was dead. They didn't have any of the vets look at her or do anything else for her since they were already medicating all the water. She could have died from anything. She could have choked on a Pronto Pup stick for all I know.

JosieChick Our lost fair bird was one of DD's spring pullets. I'm honestly

her death had something to do with the onset of laying (an abnormality or something) vs disease. IME to date, disease usually is proceeded by at least some symptoms and you have a bit of time to at least make a treatment attempt if you want to. Sudden death around here (perfectly fine then just drops dead for no apparent reason) is usually from an injury or often happens when hitting that point of lay/hormonal shift stage. We've lost several roos over the years at just such a time.

I am not sure if this was the girl that was laying yet or not. There is one roo and two pullets in the pen and one is laying of the two. I guess I will know in a few days if the other is laying or not yet. I am heartbroken over the loss of this bird. Not to mention she was a fifty dollar purchase just 5 weeks ago.

Avery and Josie, so sorry about your lost hens. Josie - any thoughts as to what caused this death? It hasn't been a good news day around here, with Danz, Avery and Josie all losing a bird unexpectedly.

I haven't the foggiest what happened. She seemed fine the other night, out with the others pecking and scratching. So frustrating.

Renee- Glad to hear you are doing well.


I just got back from the PO to drop off my pullet to send to K State for a necropsy. I just can't imagine what did her in. They have all been fine. I did lose my favorite serama hen this past weekend but she was an old girl, maybe almost five years old so I assumed it was old age. Maybe she caught a bug and this hen had it too...

Danz-I will send you a PM about the ducks. I thought I had copied your post because you asked me about something else but now I can't remember what it was....