Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RebeccaBoyd]

Final count is 2 chicks. 1 from Henrietta and 1 from my marans pair Drumstick x Daisy. I had to assist the little maran as she was horribly malpositioned and starting to shrink wrap. She's alive and getting stronger but i really wont breath a sigh of relief untill the 48 hour mark. The other egg i thought had pipped was a quitter on the verge of exploding. And since nugget was a angel and very tolerant of me messing with the eggs/chicks last night i was able to candle the other 3 eggs properly. all early quitters. I don't know if the poor hatch rate was due to the fact that she chose to sit in the middle of our hottest time of the year had anything to do with it. Or if i was just due for a poor hatch.
Meet Clover.

 

[Shadrach]

View attachment 2284223View attachment 2284224View attachment 2284226
Henrietta and Toothless's little baby. One of Daisy's eggs has a good sized pip and the baby is chirping away. Hoping it starts zipping soon.

Love the picture.

 

[Shadrach]

I am going to have to do something. What does someone do with a pooppy towel then?

Let it dry then whack it on a wall. Chicken poop, except cecal poop is very easy to clean up.

 

[Shadrach]

Ok, a wee bit of venting here. I have had chickens for only a year and a half, but the medical maladies we have treated have been insane! Frostbite, wry neck, scaly leg mites, poopy butts, coccidiosis, round worm, a spur somehow being lost, and now body lice. We lost 2 SF hens in a week, one euthanized even after trying to treat her mysteriously necrotic skin and the other to unknown causes. Has anyone else EVER had experiences like this raising chickens? All these maladies in such a short timespan? Just gets a bit discouraging, it seems to never end!

Where did you get your chickens from?

 

[Shadrach]

Anything is helpful, but it seems due to where I live, unless I can keep all wildlife away I just may have to face reality that my flocks are susceptible to all the things wild birds can transmit to them. I just don't understand how it all happens so quickly while some folks have chickens for a decade and don't encounter half of this. We use sand in the main living areas of the coop, we stopped free ranging last summer after losing 2 to predation, and clean the coops daily, as well as do periodic health checks.

Wildlife often gets the blame. It's rarely the case. I have lots of wildlife here and while I get injuries and predation, mostly the chickens stay healthy.
Cocciiosis is almost always a ground management problem.
Scaly leg mite is just one of those things one learns to live with and try to keep on top of.
Pasty butt is another thing that most who have chicks have to deal with at some point. If you catch it quickly, it's not a long term problem.
There is constantly promoted falsehood that chickens are easy to keep. They may be if you stuff a few in a coop and run, collect their eggs and kill them at the slightest sign of sickness or reduction in egg laying. For the rest of us; I'll speak for myself here, I've found keeping chickens harder work, more stressful and more upsetting than any of the other creatures we have and have had here. The list is long.
Tonight I have one hen missing, probably killed while sitting on egg on an outside nest. I have one rooster that needs an injury cleaned and bandaged every day. I have three hens and one rooster with ongoing SLM issues. I have one hen with physiological issues who needs keeping an eye on and another having a summer moult which means she is reluctant to stay close to her tribe in case one of the roosters jump on her. I have one hen who thinks she should move in with me and needs 'secorting' to her tribes coop at night and another senior hen who thinks that given her age (10y) she is entitled to be carried from the coop to the nearest feed station in the morning.
Did I mention the fights?
On top of all this there is all the day to day stuff, feeding, watering, coop cleaning etc.
Are they worth all the trouble? OH YES!

 

[Shadrach]

Good for preventing & treating intestinal parasites (round worms, coccidia, Giardia etc

Here on this thread most like to read advice with some science behind it. DE doesn't do any of the things you claim, nor does adding vinegar to their water.
As you write, you're very new to chickens and it seems you've read a lot of stuff from the Internet without checking if the information has any validity.

 

[Shadrach]

Things that go bump in the night
It is scary out there in the dark!
I had just gone to bed and checked in on the Palace-cam (mainly because I find seeing them all settled on their big branch very soothing). Imagine my horror when I saw this:

Naturally I leapt out of bed and rushed (rather bravely I feel!) over to the Palace.
What is it? Any ideas anyone?!
And yes, I have been talking about it for months, but now I really, really must research getting an electric wire (I keep being put off as I fear it might be too complicated).

A bear outside?

 

[Shadrach]

No sign of Tack today. I did find two abandoned nest with broken eggs, maybe Tack's maybe not. It's hard to tell unless they are in one piece. She may have just sat the day out. I'll be keeping an eye out for her tomorrow.

 

[LozzyR]

It can be a scary moment. They are very intimidating and many use colorful language. Fortunately my Navy training has made immune to that kind of crap.

I got treated very badly by a doctor who thought he was God.

 

[LozzyR]

He passed away in my basement right after I brought him in and started to give him Corid. He died in my arms.

That’s so sad, I’m really sorry.