Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[WhoDatChick]

Glad you are back Bob... and how exciting.. Italy! Your daughter sounds like a smart girl going that route!! I’m all for the small wedding and even eloping... that pic is so beautiful! I can just imagine how your gals were acting when you got back... I left on Saturday.. came back Sunday... you would have thought I was gone a month

 

[Ribh]

@LozzyR :I put stuff in their water Spring [just did it this week] & fall ~ but was going to check @ the produce store next time I go for feed. Ours is very knowledgeable. I don't think our wormer does gape worm [I can't actually read all the fine print even with my glasses]but I don't want to dose them again before checking & I've been trying to avoid pills. I have cats...

 

[WhoDatChick]

Hi Bob, I'm glad you had such a good trip and that little Eve is doing well. I hope you don't mind me asking a question here but I feel I've made some friends thanks to this thread. My question is; how often do people worm their flock? I've had a look on this site and there are so many threads that say different things, plus I found an article that doesn't really say how often you should administer throughout the year. I did read not to give them the really strong stuff too often as it can create resistance in the worms but rotate it with other wormers. I dosed my girls with Avitrol Plus (not sure of the active ingredient but it kills most worms and is really strong with a withholding period of at least 7 days and two doses required) at the beginning of winter (your summer) and I'm wondering if I should now put some piperazine in their water? I don't want to be running off to the vet every couple of months for a fecal float to check for eggs (or coccidia), should I give them a dose of different wormers each season and the strong one once a year (or every six months)?

I know lots of people go for natural remedies such as wormwood, pumpkin seeds, diatomaceous earth etc but my girls have told me in no uncertain terms what they think of pumpkin seeds and any DE I put in their food they seemed to eat around. The pullets ate the leaves off the wormwood tree but the Isas ignore it. So I just put stuff in their water, which they usually drink. Any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcome!

Hi Lozzy! It is nice to meet you... I seem to be meeting lots of Australians on BYC... I couldn’t be happier as I think yall are some Awesome Aussies .... my daughter plans to move there one day... she even has the voice for her Siri.. as an Australian gentleman
I do not worm so I cannot help with that...

 

[LozzyR]

@LozzyR :I put stuff in their water Spring [just did it this week] & fall ~ but was going to check @ the produce store next time I go for feed. Ours is very knowledgeable. I don't think our wormer does gape worm [I can't actually read all the fine print even with my glasses]but I don't want to dose them again before checking & I've been trying to avoid pills. I have cats...

Hi @Ribh, thanks for your message. You're in Oz so you might be able to get Avitrol Plus, which does kill gape worm. It doesn't list chooks when it gives the dosage for various different birds, I had to work it out myself. I think it was 50ml per two litres and you have to dose them two weeks apart and there is an egg-withholding period for at least seven days. The bottle was 50ml so I put 25ml in one litre and then two weeks later put the other 25ml in another litre. It seemed to do the trick, but just wondering how often I should use this stuff, or perhaps just use piperazine in between doses.

Regarding cats, I dose my two with pipettes purchased from Woollies. You squirt liquid on the back of the neck and it soaks in. They then hate you for the rest of the day. It says monthly, but you might be able to stretch it a bit longer than that.

 

[Kris5902]

I don’t worm regularly, or treat prophylacticly. I haven’t had to deal with worms yet, but with the unavailability of most medications here now without a vet prescription, it’s a little harder to do.

I didn’t need to treat my cats for fleas until we moved to our house in New Westminster (must’ve picked them up from the yard/neighbor pets, it became an awful infestation and I had th treat the whole house!) I had them on the flea meds drops regularly after that until we moved to the farm, haven’t needed them since we got here though.

Don’t worry @Ribh we can always see the sunset pictures when @BY Bob goes back for the wedding! It was just a scouting trip so...

 

[Ali James]

What has BY Bob been Up To?

I need to apologize for disappearing over the weekend. When I said my life had been crazy, it truly was. I do not do Facebook or Instagram or really any other social media outside of Backyard Chickens. I have always been a little private about our lives and really hesitated to post information on Eve. While I am really glad I did so, I did not paint the full picture of the challenges my wife and I were facing.

I did tell @WhoDatChick that life was up and down at the time and it really was. While we learned about Eve’s developing situation in late June, prior to that in the spring, my youngest daughter got engaged.

Joyous news indeed.

She informed me that she did not want a big wedding but rather wanted a small destination wedding for no more than 20 people. As long as the budget stayed the same we did not care what her wedding was so we readily agreed. The destination she chose was Italy. Where in Italy she was unsure but she wanted to go back to her mother’s homeland and celebrate her wedding.

At the time, things were all good and she proceeded to hire a wedding planner in Italy, find venues to tour and arranged everything months in advance. Non-refundable airline tickets were purchased and hotels prepaid (best rates) so that we could do a scouting trip on potential locations. The trip was scheduled for over Labor Day here in the US to save on the number of days of work to be missed.

I’m sure my US based friends are now starting to put this together. As precious little Eve’s surgery kept getting pushed it was heading straight for my other daughter’s wedding scouting trip. As you all know, Eve had surgery on Monday 8/26. We stayed there through Tuesday night when once we saw how well she was progressing we felt reasonably safe to leave and fly to Italy on Wednesday. Since last Wednesday I have been in Italy doing a whirlwind scouting trip on wedding locations all over the boot.

My only regret is that as I type this I realized I did not get a good Italian sunset photo for @Ribh I promise to do so next time.

We got back to our home last night around midnight and I promptly started posting about cyanide in Ali James’ thread. I am exhausted. It was a frantic dash from venue to venue and the travel really wears on you but I am back. The ladies were extremely excited to see me and in fact are waiting for me at the back door as I write this. I am going to leave you with a photo of Rivello Italy I have millions more to share of the beautiful Italian countryside and will sprinkle them in from time to time moving forward.
View attachment 1898661

That all sounds rather frantic Bob. And you still found time to educate us all about cyanide!

I love Italy and have been loads of times - whereabouts is your daughter thinking of having her wedding?

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

What has BY Bob been Up To?

I need to apologize for disappearing over the weekend. When I said my life had been crazy, it truly was. I do not do Facebook or Instagram or really any other social media outside of Backyard Chickens. I have always been a little private about our lives and really hesitated to post information on Eve. While I am really glad I did so, I did not paint the full picture of the challenges my wife and I were facing.

I did tell @WhoDatChick that life was up and down at the time and it really was. While we learned about Eve’s developing situation in late June, prior to that in the spring, my youngest daughter got engaged.

Joyous news indeed.

She informed me that she did not want a big wedding but rather wanted a small destination wedding for no more than 20 people. As long as the budget stayed the same we did not care what her wedding was so we readily agreed. The destination she chose was Italy. Where in Italy she was unsure but she wanted to go back to her mother’s homeland and celebrate her wedding.

At the time, things were all good and she proceeded to hire a wedding planner in Italy, find venues to tour and arranged everything months in advance. Non-refundable airline tickets were purchased and hotels prepaid (best rates) so that we could do a scouting trip on potential locations. The trip was scheduled for over Labor Day here in the US to save on the number of days of work to be missed.

I’m sure my US based friends are now starting to put this together. As precious little Eve’s surgery kept getting pushed it was heading straight for my other daughter’s wedding scouting trip. As you all know, Eve had surgery on Monday 8/26. We stayed there through Tuesday night when once we saw how well she was progressing we felt reasonably safe to leave and fly to Italy on Wednesday. Since last Wednesday I have been in Italy doing a whirlwind scouting trip on wedding locations all over the boot.

My only regret is that as I type this I realized I did not get a good Italian sunset photo for @Ribh I promise to do so next time.

We got back to our home last night around midnight and I promptly started posting about cyanide in Ali James’ thread. I am exhausted. It was a frantic dash from venue to venue and the travel really wears on you but I am back. The ladies were extremely excited to see me and in fact are waiting for me at the back door as I write this. I am going to leave you with a photo of Rivello Italy I have millions more to share of the beautiful Italian countryside and will sprinkle them in from time to time moving forward.
View attachment 1898661

Yay Bob! So glad for the good news all around. Hope you both can get a big rest before the wedding trip!

 

[BY Bob]

That all sounds rather frantic Bob. And you still found time to educate us all about cyanide!

I love Italy and have been loads of times - whereabouts is your daughter thinking of having her wedding?

She has narrowed to 3 venues. Each had their own pluses and minuses.

A villa on Lake Como. A former monastery in Amalfi. A villa in Rivello.

None of them will be bad. They have to decide which is this best match for them.

 

[BY Bob]

As I write that last post I am doing it one handed. Maleficent has had me feeding her corn for the last 15 minutes so she can pick out the purple ones. How did she ever survive over a week without me.

 

[BY Bob]

Purple Corn Please