Feeling Overwhelmed, Thinking About Quitting

[Billy Mahone]

Hi everyone,

I'm going through a phase where i feel overwhelmed with keeping chickens. I have only had them for roughly 7 months and thinking about just quitting.
I started with 7 chickens during the winter season and it was going all alright until just recently....
When i first got chickens, i was extremely into it and wanted to increase the numbers and so got into incubating.
I started watching videos and reading about how incubating eggs worked so after about couple weeks of full on researching, ended up buying my first Janoel12 incubator.
First forward 21 days, out of the 9 eggs i had put in, none hatched...turned out to be temperature issues with the incubator and returned it.

I then purchased a 24 egg incubator and made a second attempt and managed to get only 4 hatched out of 24 eggs
Not sure what happened as i monitored the temperature and humidity closely.

After taking a break and doing more research on how to perfect incubating, i purchased another incubator which could hold 48 eggs.
At day 6, something happened to the incubator and dropped temperature whilst i was away so came back to cold eggs :/

During all this time, i bought and sold chickens as i had been a complete failure in hatching my own chicks.

Currently its summer here in Australia, and recently noticed my chickens were quite itchy and upon inspecting, most had lice/mice.......
I bought diatomaceous earth and another white powder tube to treat my chickens, however it has gotten out of control. It seems they all have it on them.
I've been cleaning my shed constantly which i use as a coop and removed one of the peace of wood which had been lying there only to discover a huge section of them underneath it...

i completely removed everything from the coop and cleaned it , however when i go in at night, their still crawling around and ontop of my chickens.....
I came a cross a video on youtube where a lady recommended to mix 2 cups of water, 1 cup of oil and 1 tablespoon of washing up liquid in a sprayer bottle and spray it all around the coop but still no luck.

Now each time i go into the shed or near my chickens, i get the lice/mites on me.
I've been trying to wash them and use the diatomaceous earth on them and even made a dust bath, however nothing is helping.
I think the mites and lice is whats really pushed me to the edge and wanting to quit and run.
Maybe chickens are not for me :/

Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong thread.

 

[Fluffs_flock]

Hi everyone,

I'm going through a phase where i feel overwhelmed with keeping chickens. I have only had them for roughly 7 months and thinking about just quitting.
I started with 7 chickens during the winter season and it was going all alright until just recently....
When i first got chickens, i was extremely into it and wanted to increase the numbers and so got into incubating.
I started watching videos and reading about how incubating eggs worked so after about couple weeks of full on researching, ended up buying my first Janoel12 incubator.
First forward 21 days, out of the 9 eggs i had put in, none hatched...turned out to be temperature issues with the incubator and returned it.

I then purchased a 24 egg incubator and made a second attempt and managed to get only 4 hatched out of 24 eggs
Not sure what happened as i monitored the temperature and humidity closely.

After taking a break and doing more research on how to perfect incubating, i purchased another incubator which could hold 48 eggs.
At day 6, something happened to the incubator and dropped temperature whilst i was away so came back to cold eggs :/

During all this time, i bought and sold chickens as i had been a complete failure in hatching my own chicks.

Currently its summer here in Australia, and recently noticed my chickens were quite itchy and upon inspecting, most had lice/mice.......
I bought diatomaceous earth and another white powder tube to treat my chickens, however it has gotten out of control. It seems they all have it on them.
I've been cleaning my shed constantly which i use as a coop and removed one of the peace of wood which had been lying there only to discover a huge section of them underneath it...

i completely removed everything from the coop and cleaned it , however when i go in at night, their still crawling around and ontop of my chickens.....
I came a cross a video on youtube where a lady recommended to mix 2 cups of water, 1 cup of oil and 1 tablespoon of washing up liquid in a sprayer bottle and spray it all around the coop but still no luck.

Now each time i go into the shed or near my chickens, i get the lice/mites on me.
I've been trying to wash them and use the diatomaceous earth on them and even made a dust bath, however nothing is helping.
I think the mites and lice is whats really pushed me to the edge and wanting to quit and run.
Maybe chickens are not for me :/

View attachment 2497325View attachment 2497327

Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong thread.

If you do want to quit, I'm sad to hear that. Chickens are great fun.
It's not your fault that the eggs didn't hatch, sometimes things just go wrong inside the egg.
Having lice in your flock does suck, but there are things that you can do.
I hope you will give it another shot, I recommend asking around on here for advice on the lice.
For now, good luck on your future chicken endeavors, however long they may be.

 

[Bwc]

Hi everyone,

I'm going through a phase where i feel overwhelmed with keeping chickens. I have only had them for roughly 7 months and thinking about just quitting.
I started with 7 chickens during the winter season and it was going all alright until just recently....
When i first got chickens, i was extremely into it and wanted to increase the numbers and so got into incubating.
I started watching videos and reading about how incubating eggs worked so after about couple weeks of full on researching, ended up buying my first Janoel12 incubator.
First forward 21 days, out of the 9 eggs i had put in, none hatched...turned out to be temperature issues with the incubator and returned it.

I then purchased a 24 egg incubator and made a second attempt and managed to get only 4 hatched out of 24 eggs
Not sure what happened as i monitored the temperature and humidity closely.

After taking a break and doing more research on how to perfect incubating, i purchased another incubator which could hold 48 eggs.
At day 6, something happened to the incubator and dropped temperature whilst i was away so came back to cold eggs :/

During all this time, i bought and sold chickens as i had been a complete failure in hatching my own chicks.

Currently its summer here in Australia, and recently noticed my chickens were quite itchy and upon inspecting, most had lice/mice.......
I bought diatomaceous earth and another white powder tube to treat my chickens, however it has gotten out of control. It seems they all have it on them.
I've been cleaning my shed constantly which i use as a coop and removed one of the peace of wood which had been lying there only to discover a huge section of them underneath it...

i completely removed everything from the coop and cleaned it , however when i go in at night, their still crawling around and ontop of my chickens.....
I came a cross a video on youtube where a lady recommended to mix 2 cups of water, 1 cup of oil and 1 tablespoon of washing up liquid in a sprayer bottle and spray it all around the coop but still no luck.

Now each time i go into the shed or near my chickens, i get the lice/mites on me.
I've been trying to wash them and use the diatomaceous earth on them and even made a dust bath, however nothing is helping.
I think the mites and lice is whats really pushed me to the edge and wanting to quit and run.
Maybe chickens are not for me :/

View attachment 2497325View attachment 2497327

Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong thread.

Wow,thats brutal.

 

[azygous]

You aren't the first chicken keeper to think about tossing the entire endeavor because of coop mites. They are one of the worst things to befall chickens other than persistent predators.

Here in the US, we have two natural pesticides that are safe to use on and around chickens that work very well on coop mites and lice. One is permethrin and the other is spinosad. See if you can find either one of these in your country. They are commonly sold as gardening pesticides. Sometimes they are mixed with petroleum products, and that would make them unsafe to use on chickens so read the labels carefully.

DE is not going to do anything to get rid of the mites. I just did a quick Google search and this is available in Australia. https://www.elanco.com.au/products-services/poultry/products/poultry-elector It's pricey, but it works like a charm. I've used it and it's very safe to use directly on chickens. You can mix up a dip and dunk each chicken in it, then let them air dry on a hot day. Then spray down your coop, really drenching the cracks and get under boards as much as you can. I think you'll change your mind about keeping your chickens.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Take a deep breath and step back. It's stressful but being upset won't help you think clearly about it so going for a walk can help.

First. It's TOTALLY ok to not want to keep chickens anymore. Chicken keeping has losses and expenses and rough patches and it's not always easy. Even with disclosing lice it's not too hard to rehome otherwise healthy hens. That's an option if you want but you can also do what professionals do if you wanna put forth a bit more work.

You have lice. It will not get better with DE. I dust with DE as a preventative. Once the DE has failed and you see lice and have active problems you need to break out big guns and this is true of all health problems. Sure your tea with honey and lemon might help soothe your sore throat, but if you have strep or pneumonia you get treatment from medications (I hope), not supplements. Same thing here.
What you need is permethrin. I bought this. Some people use a dust. I watered it down according to the directions and sprayed EVERYTHING top to bottom. The coop, the chickens, the chicken equipment that wasn't for food and water. All of it. Do it again in 10 days. No more mites. Once you have a problem, you have a problem. And you can't fix it with chicken equivalents of chicken noodle soup.

For your incubation we'd have to do some troubleshooting. But I suspect that the internal thermometers are off. Incubators are notorious for this and you may have to adjust them manually. I would suggest forgetting the fancy incubators and going for an old fashioned styrofoam box incubator. Learn to incubate with that with your own sensors. You may have more luck and learn far more than a big box incubator will teach you. You will learn to manage internal VS external temperatures and more. Get a water wiggler and multiple high quality thermometers and check the eggs every 3-6 hours when it's not overnight. Turn by hand 5 times a day. Go in with low expectations and see what happens.

 

[Ebony Rose]

The DE isn't going to solve your problems and is more dangerous/harmful to your chicken's respiratory system than it's worth. Gonna need to do a deep cleaning in the coop, everything, absolutely everything out of it, and dust it with the poultry dust (chemicals) (same stuff you put ON your birds). Dust your birds well before allowing them back into your freshly scrubbed coop.
Find a space to put/install a large vessel (rubbermaid tote?) filled with wood ash for your flock to dust bathe in whenever they choose over the next month or more. Try to get one that's big enough for two or three birds to enjoy together, as many birds enjoy having company when they bathe. This will help you to naturally eliminate/kill the external parasites, and allow your chickens to help you with the work.
Don't blame yourself for this, it's not your fault; and for a new poultry keeper, you found the problem and should be proud of yourself for that!
As for the incubator problems you've been having, get a handful of thermometers to place inside the incubator in various locations to 'map out' the hot spots, cool spots, etc... and to determine how far off the temperature really is. I live in the tropics (read that as hot and humid, year-round), so I do not need to add humidity while incubating, and before I realized that, I had drowned a couple batches of chicks in their shell due to my efforts to add humidity to the incubator. How humid is it there? Another thing about incubating eggs is that the pointy end goes into the incubator tray, the fat end faces up. This puts the chicks in the best possible position for hatching.
Lean on us here on the forums, someone is always here to answer ANY questions you have or tag others that have more know-how for whatever the situation might be. You can ask anything at all about raising poultry here, big questions and little questions

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

I just wanted to say maybe incubating just isn't for you. And there is nothing wrong with that. I want NO part of it. I've been there, done that with game birds. I'm over it. So chickens can either reproduce the way "nature intended" or not at all! If you need more and your hens dont; raise any, just buy more.

 

[bobbi-j]

You are the only one who can make that decision. There is no right or wrong answer. If you truly feel that chicken keeping is not for you, then don’t do it. If you want to keep on, you have received advice from some very knowledgeable sources. It can be discouraging when nothing seems to go right. I hope things turn around for you if you decide to keep on keepin’ on.

 

[TillyPeeps]

DE will NOT solve your problem. I used permethrin 0.25% dust on my chickens and it worked great! I used this one:
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/y-tex-gardstar-garden-poultry-dust
It is the same as this one you can get on your Amazon, but you should be able to find a local brand:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Prozap-1499540-Garden-Poultry-Dust/dp/B001BM4JLM

I dusted every chicken at night time. Make sure you massage the dust into their feathers. Repeat in a week. In the mean time, clean out your bedding and dust your coop, especially their roost. Put new bedding in. I killed all the mites in this way. Didn't have any mites for a half year. I heard spinosad works even better yet, but I haven't tried it myself.

I can understand if you do want to quit. But it may worth to try the right treatments before you give up.

 

[Dollyparthen]

Sorry to hear this! I also had a total nightmare at the beginning and felt the same way as you. I had four hens and quickly realised they were sick , crawling with mites and one not breathing properly. One had mites so badly I had to keep her in the house to syringe feed she was so close to dying. Honestly, the advice I got here was good.

What we did (depends on what meds are available to you):
permethrin baths for all birds plus ivermectin spot on. Repeated once a week for a month.

Cleaned out the coop DAILY for three weeks.

Bought a hand sprayer and sprayed the ENTIRE coop with permethrin once a week for a month.

Antibiotics and acv in water for a week.

Probiotic in food for a week

DE plus fresh sand in bathing area once a week.

I won't lie, it was exhausting and I was terrified as I'd never had chickens and all this started three days after getting them home. I will now always treat with the big guns as soon as there's something amiss. But I can understand the feeling of wanting to give up did too it was awful. But, happy to say all gals survived and are super healthy now. It just takes perseverance. Maybe you're taking on a bit much with the incubator right now, no harm in leaving that out for a while whilst you deal with the other birds! Wishing you all the best!!! Keep going!!