strangeanimal
Songster
This story is a brief story about a hen who recently had gone broody , she was a red sex link ( An isa brown or a golden comet or .... anyway she was a hybride ) . It is the story of a (too ) young hen named Isabella ...
Every now and then , after my dad passed away some chickens got culled , ofcourse not for sport , no just if they were in severe pain , if they had stopped laying and were about a year or five , six sometimes , for food .
So one day I decided to adopt a few older hens , meaning hens that were older than a year or one year ( many people only want their chickens untill they have aged to the one year or max two year , reason of this is usually the fact they like more laycapacity yet not spending more money / food / grit and certainly not any medicins , usually after they have their chicks eating independent )
So one day two hens were brought to me , both the same kind of breed , the typical brown chickens , hybrides ...
I gave them both names after a few days , one got called ' star ' and one hen , the youngest got the name Isabella , they both looked in fact not taken care of as it should in fact , their bums were dirty , feathers were missing on several spots and they had never been in a flock .
Noticed after five days all they knew was in fact this routine :
early morning ? going to a nestingbox and starting to lay one or two big brown eggs , they did not even use the box many times because it was totally new to them , they got used to lay their egg on the floor if there was grass or hey , they never saw sawdust before and stayed away from it so those nestingboxes were at the first days not really ' their thing ' , they just followed the other hens into the boxes and every now and then layed there but mostly on the floor in a bunch of hey or outside looking for a spot of grass .
about two weeks later my entire flock had something going on , everyone scratching everywhere and biting their legs and toes .
Obviously MITES !
I took a closer look at all my chickens and it turned out the two new ones were just covered up in the mites , it took me about three weeks to get the mites out of the coop as well . They were E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E !!!! So to stop this I had to use a lot of bottles anti mites etc and the coop stayed clear for those weeks . All hens got a bath every day with dettol , desinfecting their legs , they had to stay in for a while to soak their legs untill it was desinfected , now after bathing each chicken into dettol they got treated and after their legs got totally done with vaseline to prevent any more to come and to sufficate the mites .
Now I looked at Isabella and star , their legs were extremely damaged due the mites !
so no further looking for any cause ofcourse but now what ?
Back then I already worked with a vet and I called him right away , he asked me to get the hens into his practice , so I did .
Once arrived a highly dosage of a product that usually is used for severe cases had to be used to desinfect but that turned out not to be enough , so now we had to start getting of all dead skincell with scalpels we both cutted of the dead tissue of their tiny legs and toes , after some big time of work it was obvious Star had one toe that was going to just fall of due the mites so it got removed , she managed fine but those mites were into their legs already for a way too long time to really get it away . Once all tissue gone it was clear to us their legs were just tiny bones left with some tissue , very fragile . But luckily Isabella was a bit better off than star .
at home we used vaseline in the coop on every roosting bar and on all hens legs , the entire flock stayed quite clear of it but not Isabella and Star .
Today Isabella was complaining the entire day but I did not give it too much of attention because she had gone broody and I assume we all know how broody hens are , their hormones can be perfectly compared to a wamon getting the time of the month so being cranky and complaining was in my eyes just all part of it .
Suddenly she doesn't stand up if I try to get her of the nest to get some food , water and do her ' thing ' , it looked obvious this had nothing to do with a broody hen , she was in pain and I just couldn't figure it out untill that moment ...
She stood up to go for her droppings and get some water but not the food , I look at her closer and at the nest I saw a weird color of dropping so I got in and take a look , this spooked me !
I just find her TOE !!! she is not bleeding hard , just a blood stain on the leg and no further blood . Took her out and went right to my friend , the vet .
After bathing her suddenly her entire leg falls of , just like that , unable to stand up she was in pain this time and breathing heavily , under the microscope I am not willing to ever go check on that again .
We could see the mites just inside of the leg biting of her tissue and just living in there , he told me she was unable to walk ever again and the second leg was in same condition ... Now I think you all agree with me that I decided to end her life due the fact she was not only suffering but was anyhow going to die being unable to do anything at all ...
Before we did end her life she saw a ceramic egg and started making that very known sound again , she wanted still to hatch so I gave the ceramic egg which she still saw as her child , the situation almost got me into tears now and I said " D " , it is fine , I take her home and do it myself .
He knows I would keep that promise so once home I gave her a nice bath , not one she felt aching to the leg but a nice warm one ( she always liked that ) and while drying her of I went to the youtube and showed her some clips of chicks , she even replied to my computer the poor thing , silly girly
, she had been sitting in a towel on my lap being petted and watching what she was going to hatch and really loved it but now she has to ' go ' . which happened without pain .
This hen would have been a great mum I think and I hope to remind all of you that one simple mite can make the life of your hens ending up like this .
Prevent this please , use vaseline if you spotted them , this will sufficate them and keep your flock safe ...
Thanks to Isabella who is a good example of people that had in their minds " it will never ever turn out so bad , it is just ok " , I hope to bring you all that message in case of being new to raising chickens , or just do not pay a lot of attention to mites .
It ends up ... like broody Isabella .
edit : This post will be followed with photograps including a closer look at a leg that has mites ... but ' not now ' plse . ( Star is the next one to go )
Every now and then , after my dad passed away some chickens got culled , ofcourse not for sport , no just if they were in severe pain , if they had stopped laying and were about a year or five , six sometimes , for food .
So one day I decided to adopt a few older hens , meaning hens that were older than a year or one year ( many people only want their chickens untill they have aged to the one year or max two year , reason of this is usually the fact they like more laycapacity yet not spending more money / food / grit and certainly not any medicins , usually after they have their chicks eating independent )
So one day two hens were brought to me , both the same kind of breed , the typical brown chickens , hybrides ...
I gave them both names after a few days , one got called ' star ' and one hen , the youngest got the name Isabella , they both looked in fact not taken care of as it should in fact , their bums were dirty , feathers were missing on several spots and they had never been in a flock .
Noticed after five days all they knew was in fact this routine :
early morning ? going to a nestingbox and starting to lay one or two big brown eggs , they did not even use the box many times because it was totally new to them , they got used to lay their egg on the floor if there was grass or hey , they never saw sawdust before and stayed away from it so those nestingboxes were at the first days not really ' their thing ' , they just followed the other hens into the boxes and every now and then layed there but mostly on the floor in a bunch of hey or outside looking for a spot of grass .
about two weeks later my entire flock had something going on , everyone scratching everywhere and biting their legs and toes .
Obviously MITES !
I took a closer look at all my chickens and it turned out the two new ones were just covered up in the mites , it took me about three weeks to get the mites out of the coop as well . They were E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E !!!! So to stop this I had to use a lot of bottles anti mites etc and the coop stayed clear for those weeks . All hens got a bath every day with dettol , desinfecting their legs , they had to stay in for a while to soak their legs untill it was desinfected , now after bathing each chicken into dettol they got treated and after their legs got totally done with vaseline to prevent any more to come and to sufficate the mites .
Now I looked at Isabella and star , their legs were extremely damaged due the mites !
so no further looking for any cause ofcourse but now what ?
Back then I already worked with a vet and I called him right away , he asked me to get the hens into his practice , so I did .
Once arrived a highly dosage of a product that usually is used for severe cases had to be used to desinfect but that turned out not to be enough , so now we had to start getting of all dead skincell with scalpels we both cutted of the dead tissue of their tiny legs and toes , after some big time of work it was obvious Star had one toe that was going to just fall of due the mites so it got removed , she managed fine but those mites were into their legs already for a way too long time to really get it away . Once all tissue gone it was clear to us their legs were just tiny bones left with some tissue , very fragile . But luckily Isabella was a bit better off than star .
at home we used vaseline in the coop on every roosting bar and on all hens legs , the entire flock stayed quite clear of it but not Isabella and Star .
Today Isabella was complaining the entire day but I did not give it too much of attention because she had gone broody and I assume we all know how broody hens are , their hormones can be perfectly compared to a wamon getting the time of the month so being cranky and complaining was in my eyes just all part of it .
Suddenly she doesn't stand up if I try to get her of the nest to get some food , water and do her ' thing ' , it looked obvious this had nothing to do with a broody hen , she was in pain and I just couldn't figure it out untill that moment ...
She stood up to go for her droppings and get some water but not the food , I look at her closer and at the nest I saw a weird color of dropping so I got in and take a look , this spooked me !
I just find her TOE !!! she is not bleeding hard , just a blood stain on the leg and no further blood . Took her out and went right to my friend , the vet .
After bathing her suddenly her entire leg falls of , just like that , unable to stand up she was in pain this time and breathing heavily , under the microscope I am not willing to ever go check on that again .
We could see the mites just inside of the leg biting of her tissue and just living in there , he told me she was unable to walk ever again and the second leg was in same condition ... Now I think you all agree with me that I decided to end her life due the fact she was not only suffering but was anyhow going to die being unable to do anything at all ...
Before we did end her life she saw a ceramic egg and started making that very known sound again , she wanted still to hatch so I gave the ceramic egg which she still saw as her child , the situation almost got me into tears now and I said " D " , it is fine , I take her home and do it myself .
He knows I would keep that promise so once home I gave her a nice bath , not one she felt aching to the leg but a nice warm one ( she always liked that ) and while drying her of I went to the youtube and showed her some clips of chicks , she even replied to my computer the poor thing , silly girly
, she had been sitting in a towel on my lap being petted and watching what she was going to hatch and really loved it but now she has to ' go ' . which happened without pain .This hen would have been a great mum I think and I hope to remind all of you that one simple mite can make the life of your hens ending up like this .
Prevent this please , use vaseline if you spotted them , this will sufficate them and keep your flock safe ...
Thanks to Isabella who is a good example of people that had in their minds " it will never ever turn out so bad , it is just ok " , I hope to bring you all that message in case of being new to raising chickens , or just do not pay a lot of attention to mites .
It ends up ... like broody Isabella .
edit : This post will be followed with photograps including a closer look at a leg that has mites ... but ' not now ' plse . ( Star is the next one to go )
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