d'anver lovers,discuss the breed and post some pics!

[OR4-hmom]

Hey, JJ! @Backwoods Bntms
! Boggy Bottom Bantams! Or anyone else with this issue. Ever had one of your D'Anver hens act weird during broody period? Carly is acting very odd. About Day 8, I noticed her acting almost dizzy, her head shaking back and forth and it only lasted a moment. It was exactly like my very first ever broody who wasn't eating or drinking even though we took her off the nest daily and saw her at least pretend to be doing it. That one was doing the head thing at 3 weeks in, though (no eggs, no rooster at the time), so WesinTx on the old BYC told me to get her in a cage and squeeze a vitamin E gel into her mouth and start syringing water. She recovered and snapped out of her broody spell finally in a day or two. This was a LF Orp hen.

Carly has been ewating and I made sure she was drinking. When she did the head thing a couple of days ago, I even started giving her extra food like scrambled eggs with vitamins in it. She was broody about 3-4 days before I gave her eggs and today is Day 10 so not one of those protracted broody spells at all. And she is very experienced with hatching chicks and taking care of herself during the incubation.

Today, I got her off for the second time-the first time, she got scrambled eggs, watered down a bit so she had extra moisture. She ran out and jumped on the outside roost bar and her head suddenly began going back and forth, tremors, I guess you'd call it, and she fell off the roost and for a few seconds, could not get back up. DH and I rushed to get Polyvisol, plus an extra vitamin E capsule and several syringes of water into her but I have no idea what's going on here. She's 4 years old and it is very warm but not that bad, about 80* or so and the nights are fairly cool, being in the mountains as we are. I've had a bad run of luck lately, lost four birds in the last week or so to different issues, and this just takes the cake. I adore those original hens I got from Aubrey and Carly is head hen in there.

I've been in contact with Dawg53 when issues came up that had me scratching my head. A PM can't hurt and may provide some help.

 

[speckledhen]

I've been in contact with Dawg53 when issues came up that had me scratching my head. A PM can't hurt and may provide some help.

Jim and I are friends. I may shoot him a PM. Haven't checked on her this a.m. yet. Hoping vitamin therapy and extra attention to her hydration and nutrition will help her some.


ETA: Ladyhawk and I were discussing Carly and we think it's possible she's had a stroke. It does seem neurological. She's not that old, but it happens, and both of us have had chickens who've had strokes, though mine have been older than this. Well, I did have a little crossbreed hen who had a massive stroke and was gone the very next day-she was 4 years old, if I recall. The others were a couple years older than that.

 

[speckledhen]

Aimee is full-on broody now. No eggs under her. No one was laying except her and the last three eggs I had collected from her were too old and were put in the fridge. She is technically on her very first full day since she spent a lot of time yesterday off the nest. If Carly passes away while setting, I'm sure Aimee would hatch the chicks but I doubt she'd mother them-she's been tested before on that when she'd only been broody for a week or so. She hatched the egg but ignored the chick in favor of going back to the nest. She knew it was too soon.

I may end up with four chicks I don't need or want to brood. I know Lisa wanted whatever pullets I got and Karen wants a clean legged cockerel but if I have motherless chicks, I'll have no idea which is which (except if all have feathers on the legs, then Karen obviously won't be getting her clean legged chick). So, I'll either have to sell them newly hatched as a group, sexes unknown, or brood them for a few weeks until it becomes plain who is who. Naturally, that won't be a problem if Aimee steps up to the plate and takes them, but I have to think about what I'll do if Carly is terminal.

Karen, since you live neare me, thought I'd mention that coyotes were all over behind the coops last night, way too close. I didn't catch any in the actual yard in front of the coops on the game camera so they stayed out on the lot we are clearing/cleaning up or near the line that goes onto our main property. The back fence is temporarily down until my land guy can fully scrape the line and we can reintstall it. It won't stop them entirely but it makes them have to jump over and provide a visual warning to the birds. I was free ranging all the groups yesterday but none may get out of their pens today.

 

[K Epp]

Something is crashing around in my woods now and has the dogs barking. I'm thinking its the 2 legged varmints though. I've got everyone locked up tight.

If you need me to brood chicks I can. I have two brooders going right now. I also have eggs if you want those. LOL.

 

[speckledhen]

Something is crashing around in my woods now and has the dogs barking. I'm thinking its the 2 legged varmints though. I've got everyone locked up tight.

If you need me to brood chicks I can. I have two brooders going right now. I also have eggs if you want those. LOL.

Aw, you're a peach, Karen, thank you. I honestly don't want Aimee to have chicks, but I don't recall ever being able to break her up, or even trying. I could give her a couple of LF Barred Rock eggs from Atlas's hens, though in that group, only Ida is laying right now.

We'll see what happens with Carly. Even though that group was wormed in April with Safeguard, I saw roundworms and tapeworm segments in her poop day before yesterday, so I rewormed her and all the bantams with the big stuff, Valbazen, that I finally was able to buy by splitting the cost and the product with Ladyhawk. It should kill off all that stuff within three days time. I'm not sure that has anything to do with her imbalance issues, could be she got such a worm load because something was already wrong with her and her defenses were down. She is such a tiny hen, even for a D'Anver, and I think problems with the smallest birds are amplified due to their diminuitive size.

 

[speckledhen]

Carly has improved, thank goodness. No worms visibly wiggling in her poop anymore. Looks like she may be okay, no dizziness, stayed on her feet, even ran across the yard w/o stumbling. It's hot as blazes here and I hate for a hen to sit in the summer heat. One of the eggs was a quitter so she has three left, on Day 14 Tuesday. I gave Aimee the only BR egg I had and if someone lays one any time at all today, I'll add that, but she can't cover more than that comfortably, not the bigger eggs.

 

[SchipAlong]

Ack, this morning when I was bringing my one-day-shy-of-10-week-old cockerels out to their pen one of them attempted to mate with one of the other cockerels. The whole shebang. Tidbitted for a few seconds, grabbed him by the hackles, did the screaming rodeo ride around the pen, then looked confused as to why his advances were rejected.

Edit: As much as I don't want to go through having cockerels/roosters again, seeing the difference between the pecking order of males vs females is very neat. With my girls the pecking order isn't very clear-cut. Sometimes one seems more dominant than the other, and it can be very hard to tell which one is actually head hen (I think it's Sel). With these guys it's not hard to tell which chicken is in what position.

The one on the ground is the stand-in hen. He even follows the other two (particularly the top guy) around. They'll peck at the ground and the bottom guy will peck at what they're pecking at, like a hen will when the rooster is foraging for them.

 

[drumstick diva]

Cynthia, it sounds like a stroke to me. I don't know if worms can bring that on. I hope she'll be fine.

 

[HotDesertChick]

We were a whopping 106 degrees here, both yesterday and today, making it difficult to "air out" the 34 d'Anver chicks in the garage, without cooking them. One day shy of three weeks old.

Any opinions on turning off their 45 watt incandescent light for part of the daytime hours? Unfortunately two cars come and go, occasionally, letting in heat AND extra light as the garage doors open/close. As we can not get the internal temps inside the garage to drop below 85, even during the coolest part of the night, I nixed the red "reptile light" which gave off even more heat than the 45 watt bulb. I open the garage briefly every evening, as the temps finally subside outside (cools off to around 65-70 at night). We can not leave the doors open without a "lookout patrol", as rattlesnakes have been known to wander inside the garage as the evening temps fall. Many chick owners fight to keep the temps up for the first 8 weeks. We fight to keep the temps down.

Any ideas?

Here are three shots of the partly feathered out, motley crew. WHAT is the color of the one chick that has a white head (with black spot) and totally black back. A Splash? I'm hoping it is a hen (looks good so far...). The white/black chick is shown in two of the photos:

 

[speckledhen]

Cynthia, it sounds like a stroke to me. I don't know if worms can bring that on. I hope she'll be fine.

She was lots better two days after the Valbazen, though many birds rally after a good worming if they have a big worm load. I noticed yesterday that she did the head tremor thing briefly again, so as I dreaded, she may have had a mini-stroke. Time will tell. Today is Day 20 on her 3 remaining eggs and I haven't gone out today yet because I woke with a headache but there was one chick in the aircell yesterday so could be a baby or two hatched already.

@HotDesertChick I'd say at that temp, they don't need any heat at all on them during the day! Wow.


ETA: Carly has one D'Anver chick hatched. Definitely Aimee's, but it has only a few minor feather stubs on the legs, not actual furry "leggings" like her cockerels seem to always have. Maybe it's a pullet, @lisa67steve99 . One other egg is pipped and the last one has a chick in the air cell. @K Epp , Karen, if I get a clean legged cockerel, I will hold him for you.