Consolidated Kansas

[mommahen10]

I'm so sorry ChicknBaron.

 

[medawinks]

Danz, this little chick is eating and pooping fine.... Just can't stand up! She eats and drinks if I just support her body. Oddest thing!! No crackly sounds, puffy eyes, loose poop or bloody poop... nothing. The others all seem to be just fine too, except they are hopping around.... Poor thing watched everything going on in my classroom today and cheeped away, very intently looking at all who were interested in her. I made sure she drank and ate. I have electrolytes and Duramycin in her water along with corn syrup and she ate baby parrot food, wet. I added a bit of corrid and powdered milk in all of their water just in case it is early coccidiosis, without it showing up as blood in her poop.
Drat it all.... She is so sweet!

 

[notiones]

1) My hens just stopped laying. Or almost. I went from 10-12 eggs a day to 3-5. Has anyone else experienced this recently? I have 14 layers, with one rooster, and they all seem quite happy and look healthy enough. I visit them at least twice a day and haven't noticed anything unusual and I can't find the eggs anywhere else. I thought maybe they had started laying somewhere else. Anyway, there isn't anything I am aware of that could be stressing them out. One day I spent most of the day out back and never noticed anything unusual. These are all young pullets too. Except for three that are on their second year.

Layers
(4) black sex links
(3) Buff Orphington
(3) unknown
(1) Brahman (sp?)
(3) RIR

2) The Brahma hen doesn't lay any more as far as I can tell. She was the big kahuna and ruled the roost until I got a rooster this Spring. Now she stays by herself mostly. The other hens follow the rooster around, though she does not. In fact the rooster will chase her off. It's probably pay back for her picking on him when he was little. Is there any way to get her back into the fold without having the rooster for dinner?

 

[Trish44]

My chickens definitely have cut back on laying, but I had felt that they were molting, at least the oldest ones were, my younger ones haven't started laying yet. I wish they would get with the program since the others aren't laying much so they could fill in the slack some. I did get the wazine in the mail yesterday & gave the general flock some, the Ameraucana pen, & the turkeys. I didn't want to worm the ones in the grow-out pen while they're still being treated with an antibiotic. I will wait until they're done with that & then treat them. I'm going to have to read about what I need to get to worm the peafowl with because I read wazine wasn't effective for them, so I'll go back to the peafowl thread & see what everybody uses there for them.

I went & picked up my other window & this one is missing glass on the top, so I don't know if they gave it to me for parts for the other one or what, it's so aggravating! I was looking at it & I'm not sure it's going to be really easy to take the parts off of it. Just one more aggravation.

 

[tweetysvoice]

Notiones, Mine slowed way down this past week. I'm getting 1 or 2 out of my four, instead of the solid 4 a day. The ducks are still laying daily, but I don't think they are as affected by the daylight change since they seem like they stay up all night anyways.

Trish, speaking of molting, when do they start that? Since mine were just hatched in March, they won't molt this fall already, will they?

Mommahen, What were you taking Reglin for? It really is nasty stuff. I couldn't handle the side effects at all and didn't take it long enough to see if it was helping or not.

 

[Trish44]

tweety, well I have read that they molt about a year from when they started laying & it takes them awhile to lose feathers & grow them all back. Mine had lost a lot of feathers on their backs anyway from the darned mean rooster I had that I finally re-homed & since then most of them have been working on re-growing feathers. Some of the hens almost have their backs covered now & there are a couple that still need to grow some. It's strange looking when they start growing them because they start getting pin feathers & then they develop into full blown feathers. I'm sure that's why mine were just acting starved for awhile there because they were needing the extra food for growing the feathers. They were about to eat me out of house & home. I think they're slowing down a bit now, but still eating more than they used to. I think they're liking this feed a lot better that I'm getting from the other CO-OP now, so I'm glad about that because it's a little cheaper. It's bigger than the usual crumbles, but smaller than the pellets. I had been buying pellets at Orschelyn's or TSC, whichever I could get to, but after the prices went up so drastically I checked around & found out this CO-OP here in Winfield is cheaper & has better feed than the one in Arkansas City. That makes me happier too because I don't have to go far for feed now.

 

[sharol]

I'm only getting 4 eggs a day after getting 6 all summer. maybe it is the diminishing light. I need to rethink my coop light hours I guess.

Notiones, Mine slowed way down this past week. I'm getting 1 or 2 out of my four, instead of the solid 4 a day. The ducks are still laying daily, but I don't think they are as affected by the daylight change since they seem like they stay up all night anyways.

Trish, speaking of molting, when do they start that? Since mine were just hatched in March, they won't molt this fall already, will they?

Mommahen, What were you taking Reglin for? It really is nasty stuff. I couldn't handle the side effects at all and didn't take it long enough to see if it was helping or not.

 

[sunflowerparrot]

What do you all do with your chickens when they're done laying..? Do they become dinner?

 

[sharol]

Good question. They are all my pets. They have names, and I know their personalities (chickenalities?). I suppose they will become insect control. I was just talking to my DH last night about that. REalistically, I'll probably lose a couple over the winter. I have a Delaware with a messy bottom that I have to bathe periodically and a couple with chronic bumblefoot that I haven't been able to cure (out of my original 7, I have lost 2 to internal problems), so that would get me down to 3 of the original group. The 5 from last summer are all pretty healthy at this point. I guess I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it.

What do you all do with your chickens when they're done laying..? Do they become dinner?

 

[lizzyGSR]

All of this talk about eggs has me wondering about my birds. I have 3 ducks (2 swedish and one that I think is a rouen) that are last summer's hatch. I got them this past June and have only gotten 1 egg from them since. I also have a swedish cross drake that is this summer's hatch that I got at the same time as the other 3. Then, 3 weeks ago, I picked up 5 khaki campbell ducks. They are probably this year's hatch, but a couple of them might be last year's hatch. At least one of them was laying before I got them. Again, I have only gotten 1 egg from them since I got them. I do NOT yet have a light in the coop for them (working on getting a timer and trying to figure out a way to rig everything that it won't be a tripping hazard and my birds won't be able to reach it). Is this lack of egg-laying normal? I hear about others who have ducks laying eggs and am curious why I'm not getting any.

Thoughts or ideas would be much appreciated.