Hands on hatching and help

[WVduckchick]

Happy Birthday @wvduckchick !!!!!!! Hope you have a great day!

Thank you!!! I'm at work this morning, but hopefully taking the afternoon off to spend with my birds!

 

[RubyNala97]

Everything else "tastes like chicken" it'd be funny if silkies didn't...lol. What I read was talking about the toughness I think it was. I'll have to find it again, not that I plan on trying it...lol

If you start breeding them and get enough over-anxious teenage boys harassing your sweet girls you might think about eating them!
At least just think about it!

Thank you!!!  I'm at work this morning, but hopefully taking the afternoon off to spend with my birds! 

 

[WVduckchick]

If you start breeding them and get enough over-anxious teenage boys harassing your sweet girls you might think about eating them!

At least just think about it!

Thank You!!

(and I agree with that other statement! I love my ducklings, but when I saw them over-mating (putting it nicely!) the female, I got a whole different perspective!)

 

[Laurel Meadows]

So I had an odd eggtopsy that I thought I would share. It is one of the lavender orpington eggs that my girl was sitting on that I could tell was DIS. It was still moving on day 18, but by the time the other 2 hatched, I could tell this one had quit. I opened it to find an undeveloped skull and a hole in its spine. The top beak was shorter than the bottom. The abdomen was totally swollen, but yolk was 99% absorbed. Very strange, but I'm glad this chick didn't make it! I've hatched dozens of these babies with none of these issues! Warning - Eggtopsy photos below.

Spoiler: Warning: Eggtopsy photos

Looks fairly normal late death from this angle, but the dark blob below the chick seemed to be a dried blood mass (not attached to the chick, although the pic kinda looks like it) Sat the chick up, that's the top of its head, between my fingers! See the beak? Shorter on top than the bottom, and may have been crossed. This is a view from the back. Head on top (I guess that's the brain, no skull!), the bare spot in the center is its spine.

So sorry

Ok so update. 2 big chickens in the coop are acting sick. They have diarrhea and are acting droopy. Chicks are having trouble pooping and acting droopy. I'm thinking my daughter has brought something in from the coop. I'm feeling so frustrated with her because she knows the hand washing rule after leaving the coop but obviously has been to relaxed somewhere. This chicken we got from a friend constantly gets sick. I don't know why and it's only her. I wish we could give her back. I feel like she is always compromising the rest of my flock. Ugh. Everyone's going on to antibiotics. Here is to 2 weeks of hell taking care of sick everything..

sounds like you're doing everything you can. Birds can be carriers of all sorts of things that may never cause illness in one bird but can make another show symptoms. If you're dealing with something viral, antibiotics can help prevent/treat secondary infections, but the virus will run its course. The affected birds often remain carriers of the virus and shed it into the environment. Extreme weather, stress or other health problems can cause the illness to start up again. Glad to hear the antibiotics are helping with your birds though, that's good news! Hope they all make a speedy recovery!

That's ok! I'm still learning something new every day. I have 3 kids at home and they take a lot of my time. I realized a couple weeks ago that I needed to downsize my flock. I sold 3 trios last week. I'm happy because I agree with what you're saying and I can manage my flock better now that it's smaller. I feel bad because I noticed that one of my pullets that has the wry neck was not acting normal for a week or so and I feel bad because I choose just to keep an eye on her instead of starting supplements right away. Lesson learned. But I do think medications are ok, when used in moderation (also I don't eat my eggs, I use them as hatching eggs, so that kinda plays into it too). Speaking of sick chickens, I will update on my 2 sick girls. The one that was worse is on the mend!! No more spoon feeding. She eats and drinks all day by herself. She's preening herself and clucking and acting like a chicken. But her neck is still tilted to the side. I wonder if that is going to be permanent?? The other one has to be put down. If I was not going away, I might give her more time (I've read it can take 2-3 weeks) but her head is totally curled down, up, and under. She can't eat or drink on her own at all. So I can not let it starve to death while I'm away. Wish I would have started treatment sooner!

I think we all do the best we can we all have other obligations and sometimes a watch and see approach is the option that makes sense at the time. So sorry you are going through this with your sick birds. I took the same watchful approach with one of my roosters in the layer flock who came up limping and it has also backfired on me. I've been treating him a week but no improvement and he hasn't stood or walked in 2 weeks

He's on antibiotics on advice from a vet and aspirin for pain, but I feel like I should have done more sooner.

 

[RubyNala97]

Thank You!!  

(and I agree with that other statement!  I love my ducklings, but when I saw them over-mating (putting it nicely!) the female, I got a whole different perspective!) 

Yes, that's what I saw here about 2 weeks ago (Silkie's take a long time to sex and it was like all of a sudden a whole batch of grow outs came of age) and I saw one mate a very, very young one (whom I'm now assuming is a girl) but it just did not look right! She's to young & little and I got so mad at him. Lol. I sold 4 boys in the last week and I'm so happy about it now. It's so peaceful out there!

So sorry
sounds like you're doing everything you can. Birds can be carriers of all sorts of things that may never cause illness in one bird but can make another show symptoms. If you're dealing with something viral, antibiotics can help prevent/treat secondary infections, but the virus will run its course. The affected birds often remain carriers of the virus and shed it into the environment. Extreme weather, stress or other health problems can cause the illness to start up again.
Glad to hear the antibiotics are helping with your birds though, that's good news! Hope they all make a speedy recovery!

I think we all do the best we can we all have other obligations and sometimes a watch and see approach is the option that makes sense at the time. So sorry you are going through this with your sick birds. I took the same watchful approach with one of my roosters in the layer flock who came up limping and it has also backfired on me. I've been treating him a week but no improvement and he hasn't stood or walked in 2 weeks

He's on antibiotics on advice from a vet and aspirin for pain, but I feel like I should have done more sooner.

Thank you. I agree with both your above posts. And I know how you feel. I did the same thing and ended up putting her down last night. I kept thinking maybe if I had just started nutridrench sooner it would have been a totally different outcome. But like you said, I had other things going on and I just made a mental note to keep an eye on her. We do what we can and learn from each situation. I hope he improves for you! back!

 

[jenniferlamar70]

Happy Birthday @wvduckchick !!!!!!! Hope you have a great day!

X2

So sorry
sounds like you're doing everything you can. Birds can be carriers of all sorts of things that may never cause illness in one bird but can make another show symptoms. If you're dealing with something viral, antibiotics can help prevent/treat secondary infections, but the virus will run its course. The affected birds often remain carriers of the virus and shed it into the environment. Extreme weather, stress or other health problems can cause the illness to start up again.
Glad to hear the antibiotics are helping with your birds though, that's good news! Hope they all make a speedy recovery!

I think we all do the best we can we all have other obligations and sometimes a watch and see approach is the option that makes sense at the time. So sorry you are going through this with your sick birds. I took the same watchful approach with one of my roosters in the layer flock who came up limping and it has also backfired on me. I've been treating him a week but no improvement and he hasn't stood or walked in 2 weeks

He's on antibiotics on advice from a vet and aspirin for pain, but I feel like I should have done more sooner.

Is there any way to tell what it is without dragging them all to the vet for testing? I hate to think that any future birds I bring in could be compromised or vice versa..

 

[Pyxis]

Is there any way to tell what it is without dragging them all to the vet for testing? I hate to think that any future birds I bring in could be compromised or vice versa..

You may be able to get a vet to run a blood test but it's expensive. The only other, and cheaper, way would be to cull one and send it for necropsy - but of course that means you'd have to kill one.

 

[jenniferlamar70]

You may be able to get a vet to run a blood test but it's expensive. The only other, and cheaper, way would be to cull one and send it for necropsy - but of course that means you'd have to kill one.

Yeah I couldn't cull one unless it was a last resort like it was suffering or something. The vet is last resort right now too unfortunately. My son's birthday is coming up plus back to school shopping.

 

[casportpony]

You may be able to get a vet to run a blood test but it's expensive. The only other, and cheaper, way would be to cull one and send it for necropsy - but of course that means you'd have to kill one.

Yeah I couldn't cull one unless it was a last resort like it was suffering or something. The vet is last resort right now too unfortunately. My son's birthday is coming up plus back to school shopping.

Maybe you could drive one to one of the UCD labs and have them draw blood to test? That would be cheap.

-Kathy

 

[jenniferlamar70]

Maybe you could drive one to one of the UCD labs and have them draw blood to test? That would be cheap.

-Kathy

Ucd?