INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[kabhyper1]

Now if she would only lay her own eggs and hatch them that would be great! She and Blueberry were so cute. I want more blue cochins.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I posted about my feather pecking problem a long while back, I think end of July or first of August. I bought pinless peepers back then but never used them. I blue-koted the poor White Rock that was getting the most abuse and she has recovered pretty well since then. Still ugly but at least no red skin. I let the girls out Sunday as promised to see how they would do in the backyard and they loved it. Then my wife noticed one of the Red Sex-Links had a severe case of feather pecking that you couldn't see unless you looked really close. It was covered by other feathers and has since gotten much worse because it started to bleed and most of the flock was pecking her. I blue-koted her Sunday and put her in a cage with a roost, food, and water for the night and let her out Monday on her own. Later I let the rest out to join her to see how it would go.

I thought it was going well and then, when I thought I could trust them, they started pecking her again. I grabbed the worst offender, the White Rock at the top of the pecking order, and put her in the cage instead. This revealed a lot. For the first time, all of the rest of the flock stayed in the coop area together for the night, including the new EE's that I added. When I got home today, my injured one was still being pecked because the blood was attracting them. SallyInIndiana had already told me that I should keep the bully secluded but that wasn't going to fix the problem. I only have one cage. I read that you should keep the injured one secluded until they heal. So I decided to try the peepers on the bully and seclude the injured one. I put the peepers on the White Rock, let them all loose in the yard, and watched them to see how things went. The peepers seem to work. I saw the EEs attack the the peepered bird a couple of times but I don't know if it was retaliation or not. I am guessing it was. Those poor EEs deserved to give some payback.

It looks like I found my bully and have shaken up the pecking order. With the injured one in the cage, the rest are all still inside the coop area for the night with the peepered one on a separate roost (different). I am hoping that the injured one heals and they all behave. I will keep you posted if I have success. Now for your entertainment, pictures of the peepered bully. It took a lot of pictures to get a good one. She is a bad, bad girl.



See how nice her tail feathers are compared to her friends?



She has a new outlook now.



Love that she doesn't have a feather-pecked tail, like the rest of the flock.



Another good look at the new specks.

After a few days of uncertainty, I made a decision and I am posting this to document what I am trying. Maybe it will help someone else but it is not a recommendation. I think you have to try something different when nothing else seems to work. Btw, I am still getting 6-7 eggs a day. The injured one even laid an egg in the cage. Bully was not so generous.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote: Like I said, some do, some don't. I thought it would be better for kabhyper to have warning if the eggs need to be moved to an incubator or chicks to a brooder.

Just wondering, folks. My beloved Frou-Frou has been filling her crop with water every night to the point that she regurgitates some of it if she bends over. Should I be worried or just let her be? Her crop is emptying like normal and there's nothing else to go off of as far as symptoms.

I suspect also that my girls have a mild lice infestation--perhaps that is part of Frou'f's problem. I am going to treat them this weekend with Ivermectin, which I've read will take care of lice as well as worms if they have any. Anyone have any experience with this, or perhaps something they've used that was more effective in getting rid of lice? Keep in mind I have about 40 birds I'll have to treat, so something that can be put in their water is preferred to something I have to apply individually.

Here is what I have noted for ivermectin
The dosage is:
1 drop for a small "micro" bantam, say the size of an OE hen
2 drops for an average small bantam - OE male, small bantam hens
3 drops for an average bantam sized bird or small hen
4 drops for a commercial sized hen or small large fowl hen
5 drops for a commercial sized roo or average large fowl hen
6 drops for larger bodied laying type birds
7 drops for giant breeds

As always I do recommend worming first with wazine if:
- the birds are under 4 months of age
- the birds haven't been wormed in over 6 mos w/broad spectrum wormer
- the bird is of an unknown worming history
- the bird is shedding worms, or their flock mates are shedding worms
That caution is to prevent an unknown heavy infestation from causing shock or blockage in a bird. Some say 'just do it' but I like to treat every bird of mine as if it were the most valuable irreplaceable bird in my flock. And so that's the advice I give to others - as if theres were that $500 once in a lifetime bird. That doesn't mean I recommend expensive things, but I darn sure don't recommend stuff that I think could harm.
Again I still recommend the pour-on of all the ivermectins because it has a chance to stay on the bird longer than the pour ons do through the mouth.

 

[CRSelvey]

Oh my goodness, I just can't keep up in the last couple of days. I tried and you guys were so kind to be busy this weekend and then BAM. I was lost. I just wanted to post some pics of progress and other things. I hope you like them.

When I was having a good time with our kids at the Indy Irish Fest, this is what my DH was doing. He finished all of the shingles on the roof (and posed like a goofball for me), put the door up on the run, added pergola boards to the top of the run, and finished the wire. WOW. I hope to NEVER see him up on a roof again. Gravity is not his friend.

On Sunday I added all the hangers to keep the dirt out of the food, added roosts, and finished some details. As you can tell, I hadn't cleaned the coop up yet. Sorry about that.

So I am not sure how I feel about the pergola-ish boards on top of the run, but I'm still thinking on it. My DH thought I'd love it, so I am working on it. Seems kind of busy, but now I can grow some grapes climbing roses on the coop ;-). As long as it also goes on the run extension, it should be good. I still need to bury that section of wire and plant some evergreens there.

This is the waspinator thing I was telling you guys about. Its working to keep away the wasps and bees, but the hornets are not bothered at all. I might need to move it to the other side of the coop.


This is the reason that I need to plant the wire!! His name is definitely MAX now and he wants my chickens BAD. I really like him though, so we are trying to figure out how to keep everyone happy.
I know I have told you guys that a lady down the street has the cutest coop. It looks like a very large dog house, but its been modified. I stopped and talked to her today and she got the plans out of a gardening book. Its got big wheels on the back and it holds her 5 hens just fine. CUTE

So, now that the roof is up and the trim is on, we decided that we hated the white paint because it showed too much dirt. Now the coop is light tan and dark burgundy/brown (ok, maybe purplish) trim. Its so much better. Once the paint is done, I have permission to start the extension. He just needs to finish the cupola and I think that's it...except for putting away the tools. That happens this coming weekend.

I hope you are having a great week everyone!
Cheryl

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Now if she would only lay her own eggs and hatch them that would be great! She and Blueberry were so cute. I want more blue cochins.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

I don't think so. I had a hen with sour crop--that's something you just never forget.

my goslings do this same thing, usually only the boys. So far haven't seen it in a chicken, yet.

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

thanks everybody for all the tips

 

[pbirdhaven]

Now that it is less than a week away, who is going to the show in Bloomington? I've seen people posting on and off about it. We just decided that we will be going, and I'd like to see anyone else who is there.

If you are going, what time are you planning on being there?

Should be fun. Never been to a show before that wasn't during the fair.

I'm cooping in on Saturday morning, so will be there early. Always plan to be there when the doors open but never make it!

Not the best pic, but nothing cuter than a fluffy head sticking out of Mama's feathers!!

This morning my lil guy had taken a turn for the worse. He was completely covered in maggots this morning. I thought I was going to die. He was in my walk out basement but apparently a fly made it in. I bathed him in warm water and wrapped him in a towel. Since he was wet I could get a better look at him. He had a laceration on his under belly near his vent that I could not see before because of all his fluffiness. It wasnt deep, but it was there and I missed it. My vet was awesome. I went to Hillview in Franklin. She has her own flock and I think that helps. She took a full flock history and then a history on my individual little guy that was down. After all was said and done and after looking at X-rays it did appear he had trauma to his spinal cord, probably from my other silkie roo. I had him put down. I feel horrible for it but I think I did the right thing. My vet made a call to purdue and they will do a necropsy free of charge (its normally $125 now, I don't know how she got this deal for me) to rule out other causes. I have a friend that wants one of my birds but I'm not bringing any birds in or letting them leave until tests are back. Better safe than sorry. I'm pretty sad. I never get used to losing a bird.

I'm sorry that the little fellow didn't make it. No matter how many times it happens, it's always hard.
The vets there are so good with birds and go out of their way to help--great about the necropsy deal.

Kabhyper, your video is awesome! Beautiful pullet.

There were other great photos, too, that I neglected to mark as I went through. So many posts to catch up on this time!

 

[racinchickins]

So after the babies are hatched, how do you integrate them into the flock? Isn't it easier to do that if she introduces them by staying in the coop? Won't her pecking order status be affected by moving her out of the coop?

Babies shouldn't be integrated into the flock until they are almost the same size as the older flock members. If you try to early, the bigger ones can injure the smaller ones. That is one of the issues I face in that it is hard to keep the various age groups separate. Next year I am going to try for a few big hatches, so I minimize the different groups I have to separate.

As far as pecking order. Just being away from the flock sitting on eggs is going to do that. My first hen that went broody was the boss hen when she started. She didn't manage to hatch anything, and when she stopped being broody, she was a middle of the flock bird. My other two broodies were near the bottom of the pecking order anyway, so no great changes there.

 

[kabhyper1]

Babies shouldn't be integrated into the flock until they are almost the same size as the older flock members. If you try to early, the bigger ones can injure the smaller ones. That is one of the issues I face in that it is hard to keep the various age groups separate. Next year I am going to try for a few big hatches, so I minimize the different groups I have to separate.

As far as pecking order. Just being away from the flock sitting on eggs is going to do that. My first hen that went broody was the boss hen when she started. She didn't manage to hatch anything, and when she stopped being broody, she was a middle of the flock bird. My other two broodies were near the bottom of the pecking order anyway, so no great changes there.

If I separate her, I will probably take her out for 15 minutes a day with the flock. I am told this helps. Since the babies stay with her for 4 weeks though I think she will be lonely won't she? When the chicks are getting ready to go outside with her? I really want to leave her with the flock, but I understand the risk for the chicks. Hmm decisions.