Idaho?

[Mo5C]

Last March a friend & I purchased 18 just-started-to-lay hens from a seller that had about 50 hens and was overwhelmed with eggs. We went in the coop & caught a few of these & a few of those. Put them all in 3 or 4 crates/boxes.

When we got home one of the hens had reopened an obvious old compound fractured toe. It had "healed" with the fracture & a good bit of bone exposed, no doubt from continuous re-injury of the toe. I had no choice but to amputate her toe. I did it at the fracture so I was only cutting through tissue, not bone.

I bandaged it up which stayed on for about a week. After she lost the bandage bone was still exposed and I feared I was going to need to cut the bone back so that hopefully tissue would heal over the end of the toe. But I dreaded doing it and kept waiting to see. Tissue eventually healed over the bone.

I used a pair of dog toenail trimmers (like these http://www.amazon.com/Safari-Professional-Large-Nail-Trimmer/dp/B0002ARQV4 ) to amputate her toe. I have photos of before & after the amputation, should update with a healed photo. I could post them if they wouldn't be inappropriate for the group.

I will have to look and see where ours is, we used to have one just like that.

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

Good person to ask questions about feet/legs/toes---"Speckledhills" You could pm her, she has a podiatry page with lots of info. If you can get to her user page, it is in her siggie.

 

[Mo5C]

I will only have to snip some skin to get the toe off so way easy fix.

 

[Kalalyn21]

Anyone going to have some hatching eggs available in the next few weeks? Just got myself an incubator and anxious to try it out

 

[Mo5C]

Well he survived the toe removal, but I discovered hehas a major case of Lice and I do mean Major, everywhere I looked whe I was checking him over there was bugs crawlig on him and don't even get me started on hw many eggs I found and smothered...he looks like a greased pig...some spots were so bad that they had his feathers stuck together and it felt like sand. Next trip to the feed store I am adding lice spray and Poultry dust to t list, also some DE and grit.

 

[Daloorashens]

Anyone going to have some hatching eggs available in the next few weeks? Just got myself an incubator and anxious to try it out

PM'd you....

 

[cracked egg]

So... need to vent....

We have ten acres east of town where we have all the animals.. It is in the county, zoned agriculture, etc... Since we have coyotes out there and raccoons plus the occasional black bear or mountain lion... we got a great pyrennees LGD..  We would take him out everyday before the fence was finished and since last fall when the fence was completed, he has been out there full time..  We have been transitioning him gradually into full time LGD mode so kept him in the barn except for when we were out there..  The last week or so, coyotes have been seen in the field next to us and since the goats, ducks and pigs are all outside, I decided Porter had "graduated" and started leaving him outside all the time on Saturday. 

Last night I got a call from a sheriff's deputy, seems the neighbor to the north... (their house is at least 700+ feet from our barn) called to complain about Porter barking.  He was going to issue a citation for disturbing the peace!!  I informed him that Porter was an LGD doing his job and that his barking was exempted by the State Right to Farm laws even if there was a county ordinance against barking (which there isn't)..  He backpedaled a little saying he didn't know anything about ag law and would send it to the county prosecutor for review..

I texted the neighbor and apologized but reminded them about Porter being an LGD etc... ( I had taken Porter over to introduce him to the neighbors a year ago)  they texted back complaining that about all the noise at "our ark" from the ducks and pigs.. said it wasn't fair that we built an ark and didn't live there to hear all the noise.  (these same neighbors complained to my inlaws about our roosters crowing last summer).  I told him that we wanted very much to build and move out there.. he responded that he couldn't wait to creat a lot of noise for our housewarming..

I took a copy of the State Right to Farm act, an actual case in Oregon where LGDs barking were upheld as being covered by the Right to Farm act and a brief summary of LGDs to the Sheriffs office this afternoon.  We'll see what happens.. 

I don't want to be a bad neighbor or annoy the neighbors, but I don't want anything to happen to our livestock.  We lost over a dozen chickens last year before taking Porter out there.  We'll be having baby pigs & baby goats starting next month and definitely don't want to lose any of them.  Our property is surrounded by farms.. cows in every direction (which will be noisy again this spring when they wean the calves), dogs, horses, emus, sheep, pigs, llamas, goats... just about everything you can imagine animal wise.  With that comes periodic noise, smells etc.. but is a big part of why we want to live out there..  It just chafes me that someone would move out there and then complain about the noise or smell!!

Anyway.. thanks for letting me vent!!

I should have peafowl eggs or better yet guinea eggs. People like that bring out my ornery side. I will donate them to you just for the sake of it.
I am so glad to have a whole neighborhood who loves to have the birds pass thru their yards occasionally.

 

[Mo5C]

I need some advice... I have a bug problem in my coop, a very bad bug problem and was wondering if using Killz paint would work to "whitewash" the inside of the coop with?

 

[pawtraitart]

I need some advice... I have a bug problem in my coop, a very bad bug problem and was wondering if using Killz paint would work to "whitewash" the inside of the coop with?

You can use Killz but it won't help with the bugs. If it was my coop, I'd dust all of the birds for lice and then remove them from the coop and put them in a temporary pen for a few days. Remove all of the litter and clean every square inch. Spray all of the perches and crevices with bird mite/lice spray. Put in new shavings dusted with a good amount of DE in it. Make sure the DE gets into the crevices/corners. Let the coop sit empty for a couple days. Dust your chickens before you add them back to the coop. You might have to repeat this process in two weeks. Oh, and DE their run as well. The lice come from wild birds so make sure you don't have any wild bird feeders near your coop.

 

[BeccaSmith]

I need some advice... I have a bug problem in my coop, a very bad bug problem and was wondering if using Killz paint would work to "whitewash" the inside of the coop with?

You can use Killz but it won't help with the bugs. If it was my coop, I'd dust all of the birds for lice and then remove them from the coop and put them in a temporary pen for a few days. Remove all of the litter and clean every square inch. Spray all of the perches and crevices with bird mite/lice spray. Put in new shavings dusted with a good amount of DE in it. Make sure the DE gets into the crevices/corners. Let the coop sit empty for a couple days. Dust your chickens before you add them back to the coop. You might have to repeat this process in two weeks. Oh, and DE their run as well. The lice come from wild birds so make sure you don't have any wild bird feeders near your coop.

I agree that Kilz will not help with the bugs. You need to clean the coop out and spray it down with a permethrin spray and spray down the inside of the coop and nesting boxes. If you go to D&B Supply and tell them you need to treat the inside of your coop for lice they should be able to help find the exact product. DE will not kill the lice and bugs right away, so if you have a heavy infestation I would recommend the poultry dust first, but after a few dustings it seems to no longer be effective and I have uses Sevin dust with success. I hate using the chemicals, but I tried DE first and had no results on a hen that was infested. Just make sure the chickens are out of the coop while you spray and while it dries. This probably isn't the best time of year for a spray, but this weekends temps are looking decent. Also if you dust your chickens, you will have to retreat them again in order to kill any lice from eggs that hatched out after the dusting. Don't forget to wear a mask while using the dust or the DE, I know DE is pretty bad if you inhale it, even by accident, that is another reason I do not use it on the chickens, if it is bad for me to breath in it must be bad for them as well.