Justjered
Chirping
Been a while since I posted on this thread.
Been an exciting year so far for us.
Set 14 eggs (8 silkie and 6 serama), messed up my humidity and lost all but 4 silkies and 1 serama.
Set 12 Serama and 3 silkie eggs from california (very long shipping and took a day longer than hoped in the cold and heatpack was done), 1 single serama made it (the rest quit at various stages of incubation). So I called a breeder who I got chicks from before and after a 4 hour round trip, had 2 brooder mates).
Wishing I had more room for more coop/run space so I could expand to a couple more breeds I've learned about since starting... However I guess I have to just be happy that my town allows me to have chickens in town at all.
You can check out a page we started on Facebook for people in our area. "Galesburg illinois backyard chickens"
Been an exciting year so far for us.
Set 14 eggs (8 silkie and 6 serama), messed up my humidity and lost all but 4 silkies and 1 serama.
Set 12 Serama and 3 silkie eggs from california (very long shipping and took a day longer than hoped in the cold and heatpack was done), 1 single serama made it (the rest quit at various stages of incubation). So I called a breeder who I got chicks from before and after a 4 hour round trip, had 2 brooder mates).
Wishing I had more room for more coop/run space so I could expand to a couple more breeds I've learned about since starting... However I guess I have to just be happy that my town allows me to have chickens in town at all.
You can check out a page we started on Facebook for people in our area. "Galesburg illinois backyard chickens"
She was fine at 6:30 gone at 10. Idk what to make of this as they show no symptoms of anything. They seem perfectly healthy and are eating and drinking well. They don't have bloody diarrhoea and have had no diarrhoea at all. This chick was not down like the other. They were out on grass several days in the last two weeks but were given the preventative dose of corid at 6 and 8 or so weeks. They're 14-15 weeks now. We have started treatment and hopefully this is the answer. If not I'm at a complete loss. If this continues we will find a way to send the bird(s)-God forbid to the state get for necropsy. Cocci is such a terrible and hard to diagnose thing sometimes. I had no idea until I started researching it more heavily last summer just how many kinds there are and how bad it can be. I do know not all the strains leave visible blood in the stool. Ugh I have this part of raising chickens. Losing any of them is so hard. This last week has been especially hard and has shaken me. While I wouldn't get rid of the whole flock I could see myself letting the flock age out and retire, living out their lives. Still I love chickens and their antics too much. There were a couple times this week where I wondered. I also catch myself on weeks like this wondering what you all must think of us. Sorry hopefully that fear of you guys thinking we're poor flock keepers has no merit. Sometimes I wonder myself. The rest of the flock seems good all the juveniles are seeming healthy and active. No one has ruffled feathers or is reserved or any other warning signs that I've come to recognize. We do have two pullets in the main flock that each have a cut on their backs I'm sure from the overzealous cockerals. Somehow yesterday the door between the main flock and the cockeral group in the back open which is odd BC it doesn't naturally swing open even when it's unlatched as there's a spring. Anyway our double barred and a lavender pullet ended up on the backside and three of the cockerals ended up in the main flock. Needless to say anarchy ensued and there are a few scratches and a couple bruises, both of the physical nature and of the ego. Lol The lavender pullet is one of the two girls that has a cut and hers is pretty nasty. She got to come in the house for some tlc and doctoring. She did not like me debriding the wound with peroxide in a syringe but it was looking kind of awful and I felt it was necessary to keep infection at bay. The cockerals also made her aspirate slightly from their overzealous advances(most of them have been separate from the flock for three or so months) so we are monitoring that carefully. Poor baby got hell from them. She sounds a lot better today though. So while I was cleaning her wound hilarity ensued BC the sting of the peroxide made her bite DH2B and me lol I think it more startled him than anything BC she didn't hurt me but once maybe. Lol he decided he didn't like the vicious chicken. Lol he understood why she bit lol but said he liked when we had to do surgery on Hope much better and she just layed there and let us work. Of course Hope was wrapped in a towel. The lavender did very well really looks like a boy's toe went right in under her skin by her hip for about and inch, so not as bad as Hope's injury last summer which we thought could be from a hawk but have always wondered (we can now not see where the injury was on her btw) The little lavender finally started attacking the paper towels instead and settled when I got through to the next part which was gentle iodine delivered the same way. She did great with that but kept trying to clean while we irrigated the wound. We/I-with my great assistant DH2B, then packed the wound full of antibiotic ointment-without the pain relief of course- and I do mean packed. Lol I stuffed a sizeable glob in that dime or nickel sized hole(you could see exactly how her skin tore). I then taped gauze to the bottom of a brand new chicken saddle and we put on her pretty new dress
