Illinois...

[cavemanrich]

Snapping turtles ARE DANGEROUS. That one looks huge. Some information I got from a NATURE CENTER. A 6 to 8 inch diameter turtle can bite thru a pencil as easily as you can bite thru a spaghetti noodle. Only safe way to pick one up is by its tail. The naturalist showed us as she did so. Any other way, and the neck is long enough to bite your fingers off. As you think this one may be 30 lbs. it would be a challenge to grab by the tail. A snow shovel and wheel barrow would be only option, as well as additional help. Such large turtle may be a hundred years old????? maybe less, not sure. Cavemanrich never suggests killing anything. (my personal belief) Just say to turtle " DON'T GO AWAY MAD........... JUST GO AWAY"
Hopefully turtle finds his pond and stays there.

 

[megpie021]

So I found it. It's in the back corner of the yard now.. by the coop. I seriously have no idea what to do. No wheel barrow and just me here.. Also it is huge. About a foot long not including tail.

ALso he is safe, its me and the dogs I am worried about! I dont kill things except for spiders.

 

[cavemanrich]

See if you can contain it with some fencing or whatever. I don't suggest calling in village authorities for help. They may start to count your pets. When hubby get home, you may do a joint effort to find a marshy pond for turtle to call home. If I was closer I would help your husband with the relocate. If turtle is contained in whatever enclosure, do not worry that he may starve or such. They can go long periods without.

 

[megpie021]

Itll be okay til Sunday morning if I "trap" it? I would love to wait til he can deal with it haha. Why couldnt it be a stray tortoise that wandered in. I would collect a tortoise happily.... If I can get the neighbors husband to help I will, but every one around here kind of travels for work...

 

[Molpet]

snappers can eat ducks so yes it is an issue... it is looking for a pond/water to nest near... fyi they can climb out of the back of a pick up and dig so good luck containing it.. and the heat will dry it out making it yru to get out.. it may move on given the chance

 

[megpie021]

Every one is staying in the chicken run for now. It would have to chew the hardware cloth to get in.. Ive seen videos of what they can do, so hopefully it doesnt decide to try. I just have no way and am not comfortable dealing with it by myself. Its in a corner now where the fences for the 4 yards meet up. Theres a lake that direction and across the street is the state park with plenty of water. Hes got options. Just has to figure out how to use them. I will be taking the dogs out on leashes for the time being I guess. This kind of stuff always happens when husband is out of town!

Thanks for the input guys. It just is horrible timing.

 

[chickendreams24]

Hey guys!

@Junibutt so glad I wasn't forgotten thank you. Yes things have been crazy here. Very crazy.

I don't like the BYC changes much.

Well guys I was going to go about this better but I'm not really sure how to do that so here goes.

We got the necropsy results back on the chocolate cuckoo English Orpington we sent off. And unfortunately due to error on the part of the diagnostic lab we didn't hear for over a month. I finally called them when we had two other birds come down with symptoms. Tired of waiting. Only to be told they had finished and closed that case.

Marek's disease.

Some of you may remember a little of what's been going on with my Grandpa who has Alzheimer's as well. As if we needed anything more going on.

I still haven't been able to get ahold of our local poultry vet. He's mostly retired so I imagine out of town or something.

As of right now our flock is closed to birds leaving. No living birds will be leaving the premises. From my research I can still trade hatching eggs and the eggs and meat are safe to eat. Of course we won't eat symptomatic birds.

Some of you may not agree with our current stance on the problem. In truth I'm at a loss. We weren't expecting that in a million years. From my research we can breed for resistance in our flock.

Oddly the only birds we've lost something like 6 of them were from @Faraday40 in December. I want to point out that we have previously gotten birds from her and have never had any problems with illness with any of them other than cocci. We will never know how the flock got this but it could have been anywhere. Again I believe that Faraday40's birds may not have had any immunity and that could have been the problem. None of our other birds have been affected even those raised with the ones from Faraday40. It's very strange.

For now we are planning to breed for immunity.

We have something like 60 birds currently that we plan to keep and many of them are pets. Some may say to cull the whole flock. Idk. If any of you have more insight or knowledge or would like to kindly share your opinion I would gladly listen. I'm doing all of the research I can on this in between my other responsibilities.

I would still love to be included in a breeding program or such. Perhaps something where we get together and exchange hatching eggs.

Unfortunately we had already added birds this spring before we knew anything was going on. Thankfully they were still quarantined in the porch(very dusty porch).

We had also spent way more money than we should have to buy the Buckeyes that DH2B has been wanting for more than 2 years from a breeder. Further making us not want to cull the whole flock.

There is no poultry near us for miles.

We haven't lost a bird from it in weeks maybe a month or two. I am hoping it is done.

We had quite the hard time deciding what to do. We are ordering some virucidal and every visitor with have their shoes sprayed. That being said we have separate shoes for chores.

We vaccinated the 14(now 12 Buckeyes- two were pecked to death by some of their brooder mates after being moved outside post vaccine.) 4 Dominiques (the probable pecking culprits)

This brings up another topic
A third buckeye chick was injured and it appears they literally pecked the oil gland thingy off. I'm at a loss as to what to do with this chick too. I have heard that they can live without that. Idk. This was the first case we ever had of chickens of pecking to this extent. The two that died I think died of shock. It all happened very quickly and the ones targeted had some bare skin on their backs. I believe it started as curious pecks.

We also vaccinated the chicks from March that includes 2 buff Orps, 6 ee, 2 barred rocks(the other suspected culprits) a cinnamon queen, and a golden comet. While older we had kept them separate in the porch waiting for the necropsy results. Glad we did. The were separated from the Buckeyes after the two were killed and all the Buckeyes git a blue kote cape painted on. No trouble since then.

We also had two more groups of chicks that we vaccinated. Our Easter Hatchalong hatch (19 chicks mostly barnyard mix with a bunch of Orps also some kind of a CL mix that I am totally in love with.) And a hatch done by a kindergarten class 21 chicks in that group many of which I think are some sort of Orps possibly mauve and mauve cuckoos. Blues and various others. But I'm having a hard time deciding. As during the time we collected the eggs only one cream legbar roo was with the flock the rest were silkies and Orps. The silkies are pretty easy to tell lol.

While the vaccine wasn't given to all of the chicks as day olds, like it called for of course, we were being very careful and strict about biosecurity measures. And none of the older chicks have shown symptoms. I am hoping doing this can build their immunity that can then be passed on to any future offspring.

We still have 2 lavenders (male and female) a black Orp/dom mix and a black pullet with red and black hackles from Faraday40 from December along with three mixes that all turned it to be boys. We're pretty overrun right now. Because of the crazy weather DH2B'S family hasn't finished in the fields yet. That should be happening this weekend. We will then be cracking down on spare cockerals and roosters.

Since we will not be loaning out any roosters for breeding we are going to have to make some hard decisions. Right when I found the single barred orp boy that I love so much a home in a pet flock.

Also @Junibutt is there anyway that any of the girls I've got from you are also split to mottled? I could almost swear that two of the chicks from the kindergarten class are black mottled Orps. They're stunning and so sweet. Still they're only two weeks so we won't know for a while. But the down looks correct from pics I've seen.

Nervous but curious to see everyone's responses.

More later guys. Following are pics of the kindergarten chicks that confound me with their colors.

 

[Molpet]

Marek's disease

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous/

 

[Molpet]

Hey guys!

@Junibutt so glad I wasn't forgotten thank you. Yes things have been crazy here. Very crazy.

I don't like the BYC changes much.

Well guys I was going to go about this better but I'm not really sure how to do that so here goes.

We got the necropsy results back on the chocolate cuckoo English Orpington we sent off. And unfortunately due to error on the part of the diagnostic lab we didn't hear for over a month. I finally called them when we had two other birds come down with symptoms. Tired of waiting. Only to be told they had finished and closed that case.

Marek's disease.

Some of you may remember a little of what's been going on with my Grandpa who has Alzheimer's as well. As if we needed anything more going on.

I still haven't been able to get ahold of our local poultry vet. He's mostly retired so I imagine out of town or something.

As of right now our flock is closed to birds leaving. No living birds will be leaving the premises. From my research I can still trade hatching eggs and the eggs and meat are safe to eat. Of course we won't eat symptomatic birds.

Some of you may not agree with our current stance on the problem. In truth I'm at a loss. We weren't expecting that in a million years. From my research we can breed for resistance in our flock.

Oddly the only birds we've lost something like 6 of them were from @Faraday40 in December. I want to point out that we have previously gotten birds from her and have never had any problems with illness with any of them other than cocci. We will never know how the flock got this but it could have been anywhere. Again I believe that Faraday40's birds may not have had any immunity and that could have been the problem. None of our other birds have been affected even those raised with the ones from Faraday40. It's very strange.

For now we are planning to breed for immunity.

We have something like 60 birds currently that we plan to keep and many of them are pets. Some may say to cull the whole flock. Idk. If any of you have more insight or knowledge or would like to kindly share your opinion I would gladly listen. I'm doing all of the research I can on this in between my other responsibilities.

I would still love to be included in a breeding program or such. Perhaps something where we get together and exchange hatching eggs.

Unfortunately we had already added birds this spring before we knew anything was going on. Thankfully they were still quarantined in the porch(very dusty porch).

We had also spent way more money than we should have to buy the Buckeyes that DH2B has been wanting for more than 2 years from a breeder. Further making us not want to cull the whole flock.

There is no poultry near us for miles.

We haven't lost a bird from it in weeks maybe a month or two. I am hoping it is done.

We had quite the hard time deciding what to do. We are ordering some virucidal and every visitor with have their shoes sprayed. That being said we have separate shoes for chores.

We vaccinated the 14(now 12 Buckeyes- two were pecked to death by some of their brooder mates after being moved outside post vaccine.) 4 Dominiques (the probable pecking culprits)

This brings up another topic
A third buckeye chick was injured and it appears they literally pecked the oil gland thingy off. I'm at a loss as to what to do with this chick too. I have heard that they can live without that. Idk. This was the first case we ever had of chickens of pecking to this extent. The two that died I think died of shock. It all happened very quickly and the ones targeted had some bare skin on their backs. I believe it started as curious pecks.

We also vaccinated the chicks from March that includes 2 buff Orps, 6 ee, 2 barred rocks(the other suspected culprits) a cinnamon queen, and a golden comet. While older we had kept them separate in the porch waiting for the necropsy results. Glad we did. The were separated from the Buckeyes after the two were killed and all the Buckeyes git a blue kote cape painted on. No trouble since then.

We also had two more groups of chicks that we vaccinated. Our Easter Hatchalong hatch (19 chicks mostly barnyard mix with a bunch of Orps also some kind of a CL mix that I am totally in love with.) And a hatch done by a kindergarten class 21 chicks in that group many of which I think are some sort of Orps possibly mauve and mauve cuckoos. Blues and various others. But I'm having a hard time deciding. As during the time we collected the eggs only one cream legbar roo was with the flock the rest were silkies and Orps. The silkies are pretty easy to tell lol.

While the vaccine wasn't given to all of the chicks as day olds, like it called for of course, we were being very careful and strict about biosecurity measures. And none of the older chicks have shown symptoms. I am hoping doing this can build their immunity that can then be passed on to any future offspring.

We still have 2 lavenders (male and female) a black Orp/dom mix and a black pullet with red and black hackles from Faraday40 from December along with three mixes that all turned it to be boys. We're pretty overrun right now. Because of the crazy weather DH2B'S family hasn't finished in the fields yet. That should be happening this weekend. We will then be cracking down on spare cockerals and roosters.

Since we will not be loaning out any roosters for breeding we are going to have to make some hard decisions. Right when I found the single barred orp boy that I love so much a home in a pet flock.

Also @Junibutt is there anyway that any of the girls I've got from you are also split to mottled? I could almost swear that two of the chicks from the kindergarten class are black mottled Orps. They're stunning and so sweet. Still they're only two weeks so we won't know for a while. But the down looks correct from pics I've seen.

Nervous but curious to see everyone's responses.

More later guys. Following are pics of the kindergarten chicks that confound me with their colors.

prayers for all.. you have your plate full

 

[Junibutt]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous/

Thanks for sharing the article. I have always felt the same way, however this study reinforces my belief that mixing vaccinated and non-vaccinated flocks is dangerous. One has to keep one or the other.

Some of you may not agree with our current stance on the problem. In truth I'm at a loss. We weren't expecting that in a million years. From my research we can breed for resistance in our flock.

Oddly the only birds we've lost something like 6 of them were from @Faraday40 in December. I want to point out that we have previously gotten birds from her and have never had any problems with illness with any of them other than cocci. We will never know how the flock got this but it could have been anywhere. Again I believe that Faraday40's birds may not have had any immunity and that could have been the problem. None of our other birds have been affected even those raised with the ones from Faraday40. It's very strange.

For now we are planning to breed for immunity.

@chickendreams24 the problem is not with @Faraday40 flock, the problem is that somehow Marek's has come on to your property and the non-vaccinated birds will bear the brunt of it. Even if all the birds you had were vaccinated, they would have acquired the virus and kept shedding it even longer.

I am not an expert in this matter but I would say that at this point you have to either cull you flock & wait for couple of years before keeping any chicken or keep it as a closed flock for many years. Even hatching eggs can carry the shed virus with the dust on them unless they are washed thoroughly and at that point you are at risk of losing the bloom. Of course your state's Agricultural department can advise you better.