she is gorgeous and such perfect posture. Her mom probably had her to learn to walk with a book on her head.
Derperella, the (weird) Faverolles, & Friends
- Thread starter Nambroth
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #3,042
- Thread starter
- #3,043
Hello everyone! It has, indeed, been quite a long time since I made one of these. I regret that after Trousers died, I felt pretty miserable when trying to put one of these posts together. Then Derp got wry neck, and in July everyone!!! got bumblefoot. I love my chickens but was just so worn out from working and taking care of all of life's nonsense that I just had no drive to post about them.
But, here I am! Back again to tell you about chickens.
Spring sprung. Sort of. Here in WNY we had a very late spring, with snow and freezing temperatures through the better part of May. Spring took forever to realize itself and only after a small heat wave did the ground become workable for my garden.
Whoa. Wait! This is a chicken post, why the heck are we talking about gardens?
Chickens and the garden are now strangely living in symbiosis. Anyone that keeps chickens understand this. My chickens create lovely poop, and that poop goes into the compost pile. It cooks and microbiology happens in a giant explosion of wonder, and soon I have amazing compost for my garden. Who wouldn't be excited to grow tomatoes in chicken poop?
So finally, June allowed me to plant my garden.
It was a slow start. The only thing that enjoyed the cool weather were the snap peas.
We popped over to visit Fud Guy's family for a weekend. When we got back, slugs had eaten nearly everything, and Derperella had wry neck. Augh!
For those that are not familiar with it... wry neck is a condition where the neck of the bird is twisted, and they cannot hold their head upright. This ranges anywhere from minor and strange looking, all the way to the head being twisted entirely upside-down and it just looks horrid. Derp was in-between.
What caused it?
Of course, we were away. Was she injured? A vitamin deficiency? ... Marek's??
We weren't sure. We decided to treat her carefully as if it were a deficiency, and gave her a B complex, Selenium, and A. These are the things that are the biggest culprit for the symptoms. If it was Marek's... well. There was little we could do other than make her comfortable. So we treated, hoping to help. We had to be careful with the A as it's a fat soluble vitamin. We did the recommended therapy (both recommended here on BYC and by my vet) and then stopped giving it to her, hoping that over time her body would take it up and help fix her ailment.
To make things worse, she could no longer navigate the ramp into or out of the coop. The coop is where they sleep, eat, and lay eggs. Not being able to get in and out was troublesome.
We couldn't really leave. Many times a day I would venture outside to help Derp into or out of the coop. She soon learned to call for me if she needed assistance with this task, and her needs were not always convenient. Hearing the Derp alarm meant I'd have to drop what I was doing, go out, help her, and then come in and wash up. Sometimes the Evil Lorp would push her right back outside (resulting in her crashing since she couldn't walk on the ramp) and I'd have to go right back again.
This got... old pretty quick. Still, we did it for some months.
She didn't improve.
She didn't get worse.
Other than the ramp, she was a happy perky Derp.
Finally, FINALLY, just this month, her neck has straightened. She can go up and down the ramp. We still don't know why it happened.... maybe the vitamin therapy just caught up? Maybe she is just Derp? Goodness knows that her body is not quite right!! It never has been. I think she hatched with deficiencies.
One of the other chickens has eaten her beard off. She lets it happen without a complaint. It's as if the others realize that it's weird for them to have a beard. It makes her look even crazier without it.
Derp, straight-necked again.
Derperella, you are so strange and crooked.
"FUD LADY I LUFF YOU DID YOU NOTICE THAT I LUFF YOU HEY YOU HAS A FINGER"
"HAY I SAW A THING IT WAS NICE"
Come June.
June was our wettest June on record. I think it rained nearly every day, if not every day, and the yard turned into the bog of eternalstench squish. We added gravel and added gravel and then added some more to the chicken run. We raked and slogged and tried to keep things clean. Some of my veggies started to rot. The squash stems split right open in protest to the overabundance of moisture. It was wet, warm, wet. Fud Lady wrung her hands because wet+warm=problems when you have outdoor animals....
So we went to a show over the 4th of July weekend.
And so we came home, and always check on the critters head to toe.
Every chicken had bumblefoot in each foot.
That's 14 feet, each with a bumble.
Some of you may not have heard of bumblefoot. Bumblefoot in chickens is essentially a staph infection in the foot. The staph enters the foot when the chicken gets a tiny cut, scrape, or poke. Some chickens get it from thorns. Some from having very tall roosts and jumping down onto pokey litter. Or, sometimes, you have a supremely wet June and it's also warm and chickens dig in the dirt with their feet and all get bumblefoot.
The infection forms a very distinct black scab that remains on the bottom of the foot. Initially, the infection is mild, with perhaps just a little bit of pus. Over time though, the foot walls the infection off and it turns into a hard kernel of sorts, and is sort of shaped like a small piece of corn, pointing upward. Into the poor chicken's foot, and stabbing it. If left unchecked, the infection can go systemic and kill the bird.
Fortunately, I am vigilant and caught all the bumblefeet early, before the hard kernel stage. Seething with rage, I turned to research. I had taken care of Coho with a bumblefoot once before, and did a minor surgery in my kitchen to dig the infection out of her foot, and then kept her inside and cleanly bandaged until she was healed. It was a nightmare having her in the house all the time.
I. could not. keep. seven. chickens. in. my. house.
There had to be something I could do.
What I found out is that there is a medication for fish-- mostly used for Koi-- used to treat bacterial infections via a medicated water dip. I guess that people have been using this on minor cases of bumblefoot by dipping the chicken's feet into it, and have had some success. This is obviously an off-label use of a drug and so I cannot condone it, but I was willing to try it. My method was to dip each bird's feet in a bucket of warm epsom salt for 5-10 minutes, scrub the foot clean with an old toothbrush, then soak them in the medication for another 5 mintues. Then straight onto the roost with them so that the medicine could work overnight.
Dipping seven chickens in buckets in your driveway, in the evening (they are more calm) every day gives you an upgrade from the title of "the strange chicken people" to the title of "the really crazy chicken people", I guess.
The process takes about two hours each night, so there is plenty of time for people to look.
Chickadee is pretty okay with this.
The chickens, for the most part, were not overly fond of the procedure, but only one regularly hated it. I bet you can't guess.
That's right. None other than our rotund Victorian Lady, Moa. Dipping her in a bucket was NOT PROPER.
"It's not propah" - Moa, July 2013
Well, after about a week of dipping chickens, it was pretty clear which chickens had a super minor (probably very fresh) case of bumblefoot. The infection shrunk, the scab fell off, and beautiful clean healthy scaled skin appeared. We continued soaking them for another week, just to be sure.
Then there were the moderate bumblefoot chickens.
Derp, Coho, Chickadee, Kua.
They had stubborn infections, and while they shrunk considerably and there was no limping or apparent discomfort, there was still a wad of infection in the foot. Continuing to just soak this and hope it would go away would be foolish. I knew I had to get the infection out sooner rather than later. I have sort of developed an eye for this problem, and the treatment made the infection push toward the surface of the skin. One at a time, when the infection looked ready, I popped the scab off and dug out the cheesy goo inside. This sounds terrible, but trust me. It is much less horrible for the chicken than using a scalpel to go in and remove and chase the infection. Everything was near the surface and oh so much easier to clean out!
The de-scabbed feet were then bandaged, vet-wrapped, and then monitored twice a day.
At the time of writing this, I think I have all of the infection removed. We're still dipping the four above once every other day until healed. This allows me to fully keep an eye on their feet and make sure that they are healing nicely (they are). My chickens probably have the cleanest feet of any outdoor chickens around. The epsom salts just make them newly-hatched pink and pretty!
Meanwhile, the chicken poop and the tomatoes had a heart to heart. Despite our short as heck growing season, my garden has started to rage out of control.
My chickens also are making me fantastic and delicious food.
Moa pauses dramatically in front of part of the garden. She'd like those tomatoes very much.
The other chickens continue to do well.
The evil Lorp continues her evil rampage. I have plans that I hope will help to curb her evilness... (a new rooster), as ever since Trousers died, she has targeted Willow and has attempted to pull out all of Willow's feathers.
Lorp, the evil Queen Malificient. And Chickadee Boop Boop.
Despite her lack of feathers, Willow continues to be a thinkful and gentle chicken.
However, of course, nothing can ever go perfectly.
Do you recall that extra wet and warm June? The one that I am cursing?
Well, there is a fungus that can live on chicken's combs. It mostly finds its way into pea and rose combs, because there are fun little nooks in there to grow in.
It is called favus. Do you see the little white crumbles in her comb? That's fungus.
Dipping seven chickens in buckets in your driveway, in the evening every day, while applying athlete's foot cream to their combs very carefully upgrades your title from ""the really crazy chicken people", to "Avert eye contact with the neighbors because maybe they are insane," I guess.
SIGH.
Still. Willow's comb funk is disappearing, the bumblefoot is going away, and Derperella is straight again.
Things... are getting better.
"boop boop boop?"
That's Chickadee, above. She must weigh 8 pounds now, and she still loves to jump up on my shoulder/head/arm and perch like a falcon.
She does love us quite a lot. Look how happy she is to be with Fud Guy..
Coho and Chickadee are still best friends forever.
Coho has to (HAS TO) bury underneath Chickadee. Coho has issues.
Chickadee is always very tolerant and patient with this, despite the fact that with the other weird chickens she, will chase them just to get a rise out of them.
Free range time is always the best time.
Kua loves to eat, and will try to eat nearly anything.
She is also turning into a rooster.
No, really.
Her comb has expanded in size immensely.
Her spur nubs are growing... turning into tiny little spurs.
She... well. She mounts the other chickens and pretends to mate with them the way a rooster would.
She hasn't tried to crow-- yet.
She still lays her daily egg.
(Fingers crossed for a rooster soon...)
GUYS I LOVE CHICKENS OK.
(Chickadee put herself there. Heaven help me if her feet are dirty...)
Here is a short video, a few people kind of asked me what it was like to be in the yard with the chickens. A lot of people (er, like my relatives) seem surprised that the chickens don't "run away" or "escape".
But, here I am! Back again to tell you about chickens.
Spring sprung. Sort of. Here in WNY we had a very late spring, with snow and freezing temperatures through the better part of May. Spring took forever to realize itself and only after a small heat wave did the ground become workable for my garden.
Whoa. Wait! This is a chicken post, why the heck are we talking about gardens?
Chickens and the garden are now strangely living in symbiosis. Anyone that keeps chickens understand this. My chickens create lovely poop, and that poop goes into the compost pile. It cooks and microbiology happens in a giant explosion of wonder, and soon I have amazing compost for my garden. Who wouldn't be excited to grow tomatoes in chicken poop?
So finally, June allowed me to plant my garden.
It was a slow start. The only thing that enjoyed the cool weather were the snap peas.
We popped over to visit Fud Guy's family for a weekend. When we got back, slugs had eaten nearly everything, and Derperella had wry neck. Augh!
For those that are not familiar with it... wry neck is a condition where the neck of the bird is twisted, and they cannot hold their head upright. This ranges anywhere from minor and strange looking, all the way to the head being twisted entirely upside-down and it just looks horrid. Derp was in-between.
What caused it?
Of course, we were away. Was she injured? A vitamin deficiency? ... Marek's??
We weren't sure. We decided to treat her carefully as if it were a deficiency, and gave her a B complex, Selenium, and A. These are the things that are the biggest culprit for the symptoms. If it was Marek's... well. There was little we could do other than make her comfortable. So we treated, hoping to help. We had to be careful with the A as it's a fat soluble vitamin. We did the recommended therapy (both recommended here on BYC and by my vet) and then stopped giving it to her, hoping that over time her body would take it up and help fix her ailment.
To make things worse, she could no longer navigate the ramp into or out of the coop. The coop is where they sleep, eat, and lay eggs. Not being able to get in and out was troublesome.
We couldn't really leave. Many times a day I would venture outside to help Derp into or out of the coop. She soon learned to call for me if she needed assistance with this task, and her needs were not always convenient. Hearing the Derp alarm meant I'd have to drop what I was doing, go out, help her, and then come in and wash up. Sometimes the Evil Lorp would push her right back outside (resulting in her crashing since she couldn't walk on the ramp) and I'd have to go right back again.
This got... old pretty quick. Still, we did it for some months.
She didn't improve.
She didn't get worse.
Other than the ramp, she was a happy perky Derp.
Finally, FINALLY, just this month, her neck has straightened. She can go up and down the ramp. We still don't know why it happened.... maybe the vitamin therapy just caught up? Maybe she is just Derp? Goodness knows that her body is not quite right!! It never has been. I think she hatched with deficiencies.
One of the other chickens has eaten her beard off. She lets it happen without a complaint. It's as if the others realize that it's weird for them to have a beard. It makes her look even crazier without it.
Derp, straight-necked again.
Derperella, you are so strange and crooked.
"FUD LADY I LUFF YOU DID YOU NOTICE THAT I LUFF YOU HEY YOU HAS A FINGER"
"HAY I SAW A THING IT WAS NICE"
Come June.
June was our wettest June on record. I think it rained nearly every day, if not every day, and the yard turned into the bog of eternal
So we went to a show over the 4th of July weekend.
And so we came home, and always check on the critters head to toe.
Every chicken had bumblefoot in each foot.
That's 14 feet, each with a bumble.
Some of you may not have heard of bumblefoot. Bumblefoot in chickens is essentially a staph infection in the foot. The staph enters the foot when the chicken gets a tiny cut, scrape, or poke. Some chickens get it from thorns. Some from having very tall roosts and jumping down onto pokey litter. Or, sometimes, you have a supremely wet June and it's also warm and chickens dig in the dirt with their feet and all get bumblefoot.
The infection forms a very distinct black scab that remains on the bottom of the foot. Initially, the infection is mild, with perhaps just a little bit of pus. Over time though, the foot walls the infection off and it turns into a hard kernel of sorts, and is sort of shaped like a small piece of corn, pointing upward. Into the poor chicken's foot, and stabbing it. If left unchecked, the infection can go systemic and kill the bird.
Fortunately, I am vigilant and caught all the bumblefeet early, before the hard kernel stage. Seething with rage, I turned to research. I had taken care of Coho with a bumblefoot once before, and did a minor surgery in my kitchen to dig the infection out of her foot, and then kept her inside and cleanly bandaged until she was healed. It was a nightmare having her in the house all the time.
I. could not. keep. seven. chickens. in. my. house.
There had to be something I could do.
What I found out is that there is a medication for fish-- mostly used for Koi-- used to treat bacterial infections via a medicated water dip. I guess that people have been using this on minor cases of bumblefoot by dipping the chicken's feet into it, and have had some success. This is obviously an off-label use of a drug and so I cannot condone it, but I was willing to try it. My method was to dip each bird's feet in a bucket of warm epsom salt for 5-10 minutes, scrub the foot clean with an old toothbrush, then soak them in the medication for another 5 mintues. Then straight onto the roost with them so that the medicine could work overnight.
Dipping seven chickens in buckets in your driveway, in the evening (they are more calm) every day gives you an upgrade from the title of "the strange chicken people" to the title of "the really crazy chicken people", I guess.
The process takes about two hours each night, so there is plenty of time for people to look.
Chickadee is pretty okay with this.
The chickens, for the most part, were not overly fond of the procedure, but only one regularly hated it. I bet you can't guess.
That's right. None other than our rotund Victorian Lady, Moa. Dipping her in a bucket was NOT PROPER.
"It's not propah" - Moa, July 2013
Well, after about a week of dipping chickens, it was pretty clear which chickens had a super minor (probably very fresh) case of bumblefoot. The infection shrunk, the scab fell off, and beautiful clean healthy scaled skin appeared. We continued soaking them for another week, just to be sure.
Then there were the moderate bumblefoot chickens.
Derp, Coho, Chickadee, Kua.
They had stubborn infections, and while they shrunk considerably and there was no limping or apparent discomfort, there was still a wad of infection in the foot. Continuing to just soak this and hope it would go away would be foolish. I knew I had to get the infection out sooner rather than later. I have sort of developed an eye for this problem, and the treatment made the infection push toward the surface of the skin. One at a time, when the infection looked ready, I popped the scab off and dug out the cheesy goo inside. This sounds terrible, but trust me. It is much less horrible for the chicken than using a scalpel to go in and remove and chase the infection. Everything was near the surface and oh so much easier to clean out!
The de-scabbed feet were then bandaged, vet-wrapped, and then monitored twice a day.
At the time of writing this, I think I have all of the infection removed. We're still dipping the four above once every other day until healed. This allows me to fully keep an eye on their feet and make sure that they are healing nicely (they are). My chickens probably have the cleanest feet of any outdoor chickens around. The epsom salts just make them newly-hatched pink and pretty!
Meanwhile, the chicken poop and the tomatoes had a heart to heart. Despite our short as heck growing season, my garden has started to rage out of control.
My chickens also are making me fantastic and delicious food.
Moa pauses dramatically in front of part of the garden. She'd like those tomatoes very much.
The other chickens continue to do well.
The evil Lorp continues her evil rampage. I have plans that I hope will help to curb her evilness... (a new rooster), as ever since Trousers died, she has targeted Willow and has attempted to pull out all of Willow's feathers.
Lorp, the evil Queen Malificient. And Chickadee Boop Boop.
Despite her lack of feathers, Willow continues to be a thinkful and gentle chicken.
However, of course, nothing can ever go perfectly.
Do you recall that extra wet and warm June? The one that I am cursing?
Well, there is a fungus that can live on chicken's combs. It mostly finds its way into pea and rose combs, because there are fun little nooks in there to grow in.
It is called favus. Do you see the little white crumbles in her comb? That's fungus.
Dipping seven chickens in buckets in your driveway, in the evening every day, while applying athlete's foot cream to their combs very carefully upgrades your title from ""the really crazy chicken people", to "Avert eye contact with the neighbors because maybe they are insane," I guess.
SIGH.
Still. Willow's comb funk is disappearing, the bumblefoot is going away, and Derperella is straight again.
Things... are getting better.
"boop boop boop?"
That's Chickadee, above. She must weigh 8 pounds now, and she still loves to jump up on my shoulder/head/arm and perch like a falcon.
She does love us quite a lot. Look how happy she is to be with Fud Guy..
Coho and Chickadee are still best friends forever.
Coho has to (HAS TO) bury underneath Chickadee. Coho has issues.
Chickadee is always very tolerant and patient with this, despite the fact that with the other weird chickens she, will chase them just to get a rise out of them.
Free range time is always the best time.
Kua loves to eat, and will try to eat nearly anything.
She is also turning into a rooster.
No, really.
Her comb has expanded in size immensely.
Her spur nubs are growing... turning into tiny little spurs.
She... well. She mounts the other chickens and pretends to mate with them the way a rooster would.
She hasn't tried to crow-- yet.
She still lays her daily egg.
(Fingers crossed for a rooster soon...)
GUYS I LOVE CHICKENS OK.
(Chickadee put herself there. Heaven help me if her feet are dirty...)
Here is a short video, a few people kind of asked me what it was like to be in the yard with the chickens. A lot of people (er, like my relatives) seem surprised that the chickens don't "run away" or "escape".
Yes! Derp returns!
Our family has tried to maintain a garden, but our chickens would make that very hard. There are two spots in our yard that used to be gardens, from before we got our hens. One of them is Weed Central, right by the coop. This is heaven on earth to our chickens.
The other is the perfect dust bathing spot, as long as its not overgrown with tall grass that makes me worry about snakes.
All I can say is wow...
Our family has tried to maintain a garden, but our chickens would make that very hard. There are two spots in our yard that used to be gardens, from before we got our hens. One of them is Weed Central, right by the coop. This is heaven on earth to our chickens.
The other is the perfect dust bathing spot, as long as its not overgrown with tall grass that makes me worry about snakes.
All I can say is wow...
- Thread starter
- #3,045
Yes! Derp returns!
Our family has tried to maintain a garden, but our chickens would make that very hard. There are two spots in our yard that used to be gardens, from before we got our hens. One of them is Weed Central, right by the coop. This is heaven on earth to our chickens.
The other is the perfect dust bathing spot, as long as its not overgrown with tall grass that makes me worry about snakes.
All I can say is wow...
You'll notice the fence around the garden! The deer would also make short work of it if I didn't fence. I hope to expand it next year. I have a few more beds that are up against the house.
I feel like there is a deeper, esoteric sign in this.
LOL... my husband refers to last year as the year we spent our summer building fences. First we built a white picket fence to keep the girls out of my veggie garden. Then they got more adventurous than we wanted (heading towards the road and visiting the neighbors flower beds) so we had to partition off a part of the yard for them, they still have a huge place to roam.
:cd DERP HAS RETURNED!!! Nambroth, WONDERFUL newsy post. Just loved seeing the whole crew at work on your lush green lawn. So glad to hear Derp can go up and down the coop ramp. She is so silly with her nesting habits and Willow is ADORABLE on her nest..
Does Derp still like CHAIR and GRILL or is she starting to FINALLY figure out what chickens are supposed to do when they get let out of jail.
so great to see the cast of characters again - and wondering when a prince will come
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