Illinois...

[Junibutt]

@Junibutt
Brick is a real sweetie but does crow. His "voice" is rather high-pitched & he wants to show it off in the daily crow off contest. Thankfully it only last about 10 min. when I 1st let them out. Mr Dummy doesn't crow as much. He's too busy each morning making up for lost time with the hens! Moose (the leggy lav) just finally started crowing. He hatched in May, so he's a late bloomer. It's such a pleasant low "coooo-coooo" noise. Very infrequent & sounds more like an owl. I wish it could stay that way.

Here are some Brick pics from today. It was bright & sunny, so I took a lot.

walking


checking out the garden



running across the yard

Under the pine trees


standing alert (gotta keep a careful eye on that shadow that's been following him around!)

Godiva & Brick


Moose



The chicks below are still the most spoiled. They share Princess's high pecking order & think they own the place.
CCL pullet doing ballet warm ups (chick from MeepBeep)


Mystery orp chick (still looks white) I love the dark eyes & light gray legs

Wow! He is stunning! I like the way he holds his wings and has a nice comb as well. Have you weighed him recently? If you do end up selling him, you should try one of the face-book groups. I have the shipping boxes if needed.

And this nice young lady is cute as well. Is she the one that had mostly yellow down, or one of the two that had somewhat darker down feathers?

 

[Faraday40]

Wow! He is stunning! I like the way he holds his wings and has a nice comb as well. Have you weighed him recently? If you do end up selling him, you should try one of the face-book groups. I have the shipping boxes if needed.

And this nice young lady is cute as well. Is she the one that had mostly yellow down, or one of the two that had somewhat darker down feathers?

I haven't weighed Brick. He's lighter than several of my orp hens, but heavier than Godiva. Brick is on the small side but a very solid boy - well, like a brick. Although Moose looks bigger, his feathers are fluffier & he's very, very skinny. Moose feels very light.

The mystery orp chick we have (sorry no real name yet) is the middle one. @chickendreams24 has the darkest one. A predator ate the lightest one (which happened to be DD's fav). All 3 turned out to be female but none were mauve. Her body shape looks all orp to me, so I doubt any of your other roos were involved. Besides her good looks, she has an aristocratic ambiance. Rather than squabble with the flock over scratch on the ground , she'll jump onto my shoe & peep loudly until I pick her up. (Both of Princess's chicks always get their way, of course.) Once in my arms, she tries to eat right out of the bucket. LOL Normally broody chicks are skittish, but not these two.

 

[ChicagoClucker]

Here are some Brick pics from today. It was bright & sunny, so I took a lot.

walking


checking out the garden

I absolutely love him! Soooo handsome

 

[ChicagoClucker]

Here are some Brick pics from today. It was bright & sunny, so I took a lot.

walking


checking out the garden

I absolutely love him! Soooo handsome

 

[chickendreams24]

If anyone has any blue English Orpingtons that they are looking to rehome including cockerals or a well mannered roo please let me know. I have still been unable to find any near me that I like or can afford. Had a scare Friday. Was working on one of the chocolate orp pullet's feet from @Junibutt, she has some minor bumble foot, and went to look at her vent- which looks like she could be laying. However during the check to our horror we found a rather large wound that was infected just below and in front of her hip so under her wing tip. We have never seen anything like this and it could be from a cockeral or a hawk. We never saw any blood or symptoms bless her heart she hid it so well it may have killed her had we not seen it. We worked tirelessly for hours until well after midnight, we had to trim up a bunch of her feathers.(anyone know if these will have to be pulled when she molts?) We trimmed the feathers and soaked and cleaned and gently peeled away the dried pus and dead tissue(very little dead tissue thankfully) and no flies/maggots despite the rain lately causing a fly explosion. Using qtips soaked in iodine we gently soaked and worked out the solidified pus lining the whole wound. It took us longer than we had hoped but we wanted to be as gentle and as thorough as possible. She was also given two breaks during the process. It seems as though something tore her skin crumpling it downwards it is now stuck there and I don't believe will be a problem as it seems all the feather follicles point outward. The wound extends under the skin forward and down and at its deepest point in, its about 2-2.5 inches deep just under the skin and subcutaneous tissue. After removing all the pus and debris from the wound it was flushed with peroxide and no sting iodine as we wanted to be sure the infection was removed. She was an amazing patient through all of this and absolutely knew we were trying to help her. There was almost no bleeding what so ever, not even a drop's worth, despite being able to see some of her muscles. After thorough cleaning and disinfecting we packed the wound with neosporin(without pain relief) and iodined and bluekoted the whole area. She is separated with her sister and will remain so until the majority of the cocks are separated for finishing out, or she is healed, or both. She has also been placed on an antibiotic shot nightly to help her fight the infection. Oddly though we have no roos or cockerals that have spurs so I've no idea who/what caused this injury. We have a few really stupid cockerals but I'm not sure how they would do this without any spurs. We have been checking the other hens/pullets and none are showing any injury except the one chocolate. She has now been named although I will keep it to myself until I'm sure she will pull through. She is being checked two or three times a day and is doing amazing. I'm still a bit worried but the wound is still looking just as clean as when we did it. We did not cover it as we didn't want to stop any drainage. We are also looking into some chicken saddles including and extra wide one for her so that she might be able to go back with the flock sooner. For now she is calm and happy with her sister. She is also acting great she even has decided that she's tired of these check-ups lol and has started jumping a bit more again, something she didn't do after the wound cleaning for the last two days. She also no longer smells which is a wonderful sign. Hope all is well with everyone else. Been a long but good weekend. We did lose our last white Rock pullet to a predator on Saturday while we were working out at my grandparents' place, so both of those boys(the stupidest cockerals we have) will be heading to freezer camp since we've no reason to keep them. I don't really think we would have kept them anyways.

@Junibutt Brick is a real sweetie but does crow. His "voice" is rather high-pitched & he wants to show it off in the daily crow off contest. Thankfully it only last about 10 min. when I 1st let them out. Mr Dummy doesn't crow as much. He's too busy each morning making up for lost time with the hens! Moose (the leggy lav) just finally started crowing. He hatched in May, so he's a late bloomer. It's such a pleasant low "coooo-coooo" noise. Very infrequent & sounds more like an owl. I wish it could stay that way. Here are some Brick pics from today. It was bright & sunny, so I took a lot. walking checking out the garden running across the yard Under the pine trees standing alert (gotta keep a careful eye on that shadow that's been following him around!) Godiva & Brick [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR] Moose The chicks below are still the most spoiled. They share Princess's high pecking order & think they own the place. CCL pullet doing ballet warm ups (chick from MeepBeep) Mystery orp chick (still looks white) I love the dark eyes & light gray legs

@chickendreams24 What a scare! I hope your choc pullet is on the mend.

Wow! He is stunning! I like the way he holds his wings and has a nice comb as well. Have you weighed him recently? If you do end up selling him, you should try one of the face-book groups. I have the shipping boxes if needed. And this nice young lady is cute as well. Is she the one that had mostly yellow down, or one of the two that had somewhat darker down feathers?

I haven't weighed Brick. He's lighter than several of my orp hens, but heavier than Godiva. Brick is on the small side but a very solid boy - well, like a brick. Although Moose looks bigger, his feathers are fluffier & he's very, very skinny. Moose feels very light. The mystery orp chick we have (sorry no real name yet) is the middle one. @chickendreams24 has the darkest one. A predator ate the lightest one (which happened to be DD's fav). All 3 turned out to be female but none were mauve. Her body shape looks all orp to me, so I doubt any of your other roos were involved. Besides her good looks, she has an aristocratic ambiance. Rather than squabble with the flock over scratch on the ground , she'll jump onto my shoe & peep loudly until I pick her up. (Both of Princess's chicks always get their way, of course.) Once in my arms, she tries to eat right out of the bucket. LOL Normally broody chicks are skittish, but not these two.

Brick is so handsome! So is Godiva! And your little legbar is beautiful! It's amazing how much saturation and color she has. That picture looks doctored lol. Thank you for your kind words about my chocolate pullet she's doing very well. In other news molt is really happening in earnest now and my EE Pebbles has a large bald spot on her back something that our girls have never had(except Lily who escaped a predator) it is still able to be covered by brushing feathers over it but chicken saddles are definitely on the list for this week. Scared the heck out of me when I found it as it looked caked in black. I thought she either had mites/lice that I had missed or she had a terrible acab over a wound. Nope she'd had a dust bath that I hadn't seen and promptly prices it by shaking dust all over me. My poor naked Pebbles. In yet more news another freak incident here when this afternoon while spending time with the birds we noticed one of the salmon faverolles pullets wasn't with the juveniles in their cuddle puddle they always do. We call it naptime. Anyway we started looking for her I had seen her at 4 looking and acting fine and it was about six so I wasn't worried. We found her around the back of the cooler coop dead. I assumed at first she had succumbed to our extreme temperature swing today topping over 100* but I began to look her over all the same searching for clues injuries punctures broken bones. I started at the top finding nothing I turned her over and spilling out of her vent was her intestines and part of her liver. Her vent was massively distended and possibly torn to allow that many organs to protrude. It's very possible more had come out too that was covered by the intestines. There was no blood although I could see veins running through her intestines. Every organ I could see looked healthy and she had been bright eyed and normal a few hours before. She had food in her crop and there was no sign of anything off. She was hatchery stock but her sister is alive and well from the same hatchery/hatch. She was large for her age being a May hatch, much larger than her sister, but although her comb was slightly growing it was not pink or red. Still I wonder though I highly doubt it as I saw her up and about a few hours before we found her, alive and perfectly healthy. We did get an egg today from an unidentified new layer outside the best box that had a pretty good smear of blood on it but again I don't believe that was her. We do have several girls we're waiting to lay. We looked very thoroughly around where this pullet frequented and where we found her and we didn't find a speck of blood.

 

[Faraday40]

Brick is so handsome! So is Godiva! And your little legbar is beautiful! It's amazing how much saturation and color she has. That picture looks doctored lol. Thank you for your kind words about my chocolate pullet she's doing very well.

In other news molt is really happening in earnest now and my EE Pebbles has a large bald spot on her back something that our girls have never had(except Lily who escaped a predator) it is still able to be covered by brushing feathers over it but chicken saddles are definitely on the list for this week. Scared the heck out of me when I found it as it looked caked in black. I thought she either had mites/lice that I had missed or she had a terrible acab over a wound. Nope she'd had a dust bath that I hadn't seen and promptly prices it by shaking dust all over me. My poor naked Pebbles.

In yet more news another freak incident here when this afternoon while spending time with the birds we noticed one of the salmon faverolles pullets wasn't with the juveniles in their cuddle puddle they always do. We call it naptime. Anyway we started looking for her I had seen her at 4 looking and acting fine and it was about six so I wasn't worried. We found her around the back of the cooler coop dead. I assumed at first she had succumbed to our extreme temperature swing today topping over 100* but I began to look her over all the same searching for clues injuries punctures broken bones. I started at the top finding nothing I turned her over and spilling out of her vent was her intestines and part of her liver. Her vent was massively distended and possibly torn to allow that many organs to protrude. It's very possible more had come out too that was covered by the intestines. There was no blood although I could see veins running through her intestines. Every organ I could see looked healthy and she had been bright eyed and normal a few hours before. She had food in her crop and there was no sign of anything off. She was hatchery stock but her sister is alive and well from the same hatchery/hatch. She was large for her age being a May hatch, much larger than her sister, but although her comb was slightly growing it was not pink or red. Still I wonder though I highly doubt it as I saw her up and about a few hours before we found her, alive and perfectly healthy. We did get an egg today from an unidentified new layer outside the best box that had a pretty good smear of blood on it but again I don't believe that was her. We do have several girls we're waiting to lay. We looked very thoroughly around where this pullet frequented and where we found her and we didn't find a speck of blood.

Could it have been a predator? I remembered reading that a fisher or marten causes this. (see table) You may have scared off an animal just as it was beginning a meal.

http://countrysidenetwork.com/daily/poultry/chicken-coops-housing/what-killed-my-chicken/


Sorry for your loss.

 

[ChicagoClucker]

In yet more news another freak incident here when this afternoon while spending time with the birds we noticed one of the salmon faverolles pullets wasn't with the juveniles in their cuddle puddle they always do. We call it naptime. Anyway we started looking for her I had seen her at 4 looking and acting fine and it was about six so I wasn't worried. We found her around the back of the cooler coop dead. I assumed at first she had succumbed to our extreme temperature swing today topping over 100* but I began to look her over all the same searching for clues injuries punctures broken bones. I started at the top finding nothing I turned her over and spilling out of her vent was her intestines and part of her liver. Her vent was massively distended and possibly torn to allow that many organs to protrude. It's very possible more had come out too that was covered by the intestines. There was no blood although I could see veins running through her intestines. Every organ I could see looked healthy and she had been bright eyed and normal a few hours before. She had food in her crop and there was no sign of anything off. She was hatchery stock but her sister is alive and well from the same hatchery/hatch. She was large for her age being a May hatch, much larger than her sister, but although her comb was slightly growing it was not pink or red. Still I wonder though I highly doubt it as I saw her up and about a few hours before we found her, alive and perfectly healthy. We did get an egg today from an unidentified new layer outside the best box that had a pretty good smear of blood on it but again I don't believe that was her. We do have several girls we're waiting to lay. We looked very thoroughly around where this pullet frequented and where we found her and we didn't find a speck of blood.

I am so sorry

 

[chickendreams24]

In yet more news another freak incident here when this afternoon while spending time with the birds we noticed one of the salmon faverolles pullets wasn't with the juveniles in their cuddle puddle they always do. We call it naptime. Anyway we started looking for her I had seen her at 4 looking and acting fine and it was about six so I wasn't worried. We found her around the back of the cooler coop dead. I assumed at first she had succumbed to our extreme temperature swing today topping over 100* but I began to look her over all the same searching for clues injuries punctures broken bones. I started at the top finding nothing I turned her over and spilling out of her vent was her intestines and part of her liver. Her vent was massively distended and possibly torn to allow that many organs to protrude. It's very possible more had come out too that was covered by the intestines. There was no blood although I could see veins running through her intestines. Every organ I could see looked healthy and she had been bright eyed and normal a few hours before. She had food in her crop and there was no sign of anything off. She was hatchery stock but her sister is alive and well from the same hatchery/hatch. She was large for her age being a May hatch, much larger than her sister, but although her comb was slightly growing it was not pink or red. Still I wonder though I highly doubt it as I saw her up and about a few hours before we found her, alive and perfectly healthy. We did get an egg today from an unidentified new layer outside the best box that had a pretty good smear of blood on it but again I don't believe that was her. We do have several girls we're waiting to lay. We looked very thoroughly around where this pullet frequented and where we found her and we didn't find a speck of blood.

Could it have been a predator?  I remembered reading that a fisher or marten causes this. (see table)  You may have scared off an animal just as it was beginning a meal.

http://countrysidenetwork.com/daily/poultry/chicken-coops-housing/what-killed-my-chicken/


Sorry for your loss.

I am so sorry

Please see below post for my response.

 

[chickendreams24]

Thank you both so much for the kind words.

@Faraday40 oh boy I hadn't even thought of that. It had literally been only a few minutes since we'd seen her run back there maybe 5-10 tops, but she never came back out that's when we started looking. Rigor mortis had not set in yet when we found her so it was very very quick. There were other juveniles back there but no one predator called. Again there was also no blood or bite marks on her that I could see while combing through her feathers. We've never had problems with fishers or martens and I really really hope we're not starting. With us being out there I would expect the predator to just grab and run or not grab at all. So far for predators we have seen fox and coyote(could be the wolf that's been hanging around here as well but idk) the main attacker we're almost certain is a fox. There's also a possibility of an aerial predator hawk/eagle but we have only seen two here and both were scared off without lunch. Usually what we hear is the ground threat/alert call. Please tell me we aren't going to have to worry about more of this happening? Ugh if she was killed by a predator it's probably new BC we've never found a body of one of the birds before. It's always been a grab and go. We have also never been able to scare the predators into either dropping the kill after they've made it or stopping once they're chasing the birds trying to catch one.

Feeling like I need some T-Rex pee like in Jurassic park 2 to scare away all the predators lol

 

[Faraday40]

@chickendreams24
I do not have much experience with predators. We have skunks, opossums, coyotes & raccoons, but they have been seen only at night when the hens are locked up. In Nov 2014, a smallish Cooper's Hawk killed a 20wk old pullet. I did not witness it, because we were away. Our neighbor sent our dogs outside b/c they were fussing by her back door. They immediately ran home & scared the hawk into a tree. She put a box over the body to prevent the hawk from getting a reward & called another neighbor over to clean up the body. The second loss was our missing chick two weeks ago. Although there was no evidence, I'm pretty sure she got eaten.

This morning I witnessed 2 unsuccessful hawk attacks while I was outside. The roos made their warning calls & all took cover. I yelled "Hawk" & charged toward it from the ground. The hawk made a swoop but had no easy targets, so it landed in a tree. I pulled out a toy cap gun & stood below the tree making pop noises. I merely irritated it because it flew to the next tree in the neighbors' yard. It did a second swooping fly-by a couple min later. Again, I believe it's a Coopers Hawk or maybe a sharp shined hawk. It's just not afraid of me. Sometimes I feel like I could get close enough to pet it! I wish it were afraid.