INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

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I have a few birds from Brad. that is sweet hat he sleeps in your dads lap. My dad was the only one ever really interested in the chickens. His favorite girl was milkieway (easter egger)that was killed, I think it was last spring. At the show Ibought a lot of chickens, two of which were a bearded buff laced polish and a mille fleur d'uccle. My mom instantly loved the polish, named her alfie, and let her perch on her arm! My mom and grandma used to say birds were dirty, that is why I was sosurprised she let her perch on her. The other day alfie layed her first egg and she said "her" girl was growing up lol. The other day she asked me if Iwas goingto breed her, I told her no andshe asked why. I said because I didnt have a rooster for her, she said I should get one. She has never incouraged my chicken problem lol. And my step dad really likes the D'uccle, lets her perch on him. But he doesnt see her as much as mom see alfie. The d'uccle is epileptic, shes the one with her own condo. She never goes on the ground. And I realized the only time she has ever had a seizzure is when she was sitting on the ground. but she hasnt ha one for over 5 weeks.

it wont let me go back and fix the typos

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

I opened the coop this morning to find Cricket lying on the floor, alone. She must have fallen off the perches last night and gotten too cold without any feathers on her, or even the other hens' warmth around her. She's gone. She's just gone. I don't know what to think. If I had brought her in last night, she would probably still be here. I'm just devastated.

She was my perpetual stink-eye bird. She was also the only hen that loved to go camping. I don't even want to think about camping out next summer without her here. It's been a tough year for me as far as losses, and now I'm completely heartbroken again.

Sorry about cricket.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I opened the coop this morning to find Cricket lying on the floor, alone. She must have fallen off the perches last night and gotten too cold without any feathers on her, or even the other hens' warmth around her. She's gone. She's just gone. I don't know what to think. If I had brought her in last night, she would probably still be here. I'm just devastated.

She was my perpetual stink-eye bird. She was also the only hen that loved to go camping. I don't even want to think about camping out next summer without her here. It's been a tough year for me as far as losses, and now I'm completely heartbroken again.

Very sad

So sorry. I'm dreading the day I go outside and find one gone.

Many times the issue is heart failure and that could have been the problem rather than the cold. If that is the case, there is nothing you could have done differently.

How old was Cricket?

Will you do a necropsy to find out what the cause may have been?

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Also wanted to say I'm sorry Cricket is gone. I lost a 2 month old chick during the spring. Same kind of thing, Just gone in the morning. Acted fine the days before looked fine, was eating... I did not do the actual cut and see but I feel like it was most likely the heart.
I have lost a few chicks to the cold from them piling on each other but that has stopped, thankfully. it is nevr easy to open the coop and see a chick or chicken gone.

Right now I have new production layers that for some reason are laying while staying on the bars. I found frozen eggs that had clearly been dropped and not cracked from the cold. At least my red star is laying in the boxes.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Thank you for your condolences, everyone. I think I'm over the initial shock of finding her now and I've gotten myself calmed down enough to think.

Oh Pip I'm so sorry! You've mentioned her in your posts enough that I know how precious she was to you. Did she leave you with any offspring to keep her line going? It breaks my heart that you are hurting. Keeping you in my prayers.

Cricket had no offspring, but I do still have four of her sisters at least. They're all grumpy from molting, though. I ended up giving Margie, my Silkie from Brad, lots of hugs against her will. Boy, did she have a few things to say about it! The girls seem to always know when something's wrong and a lot of them were following me around this morning. My sweet ladies.

Very sad

So sorry. I'm dreading the day I go outside and find one gone. Many times the issue is heart failure and that could have been the problem rather than the cold. If that is the case, there is nothing you could have done differently. How old was Cricket? Will you do a necropsy to find out what the cause may have been?

I understand where you're coming from in asking, but I do know that this was from the cold. Cricket was the hen I posted a few days ago after my mom crocheted her a sweater. She had almost no feathers left except on her head and wings, and I don't think she could keep warm enough on her own after falling off the perches. She was about 2 1/2 years old.

Just to be clear, the rest of my hens are perfectly healthy and fine with the cold. Under normal circumstances, Cricket likely would have been fine, too. However, since she had lost so many feathers, she was not able to keep warm and she had been struggling. I was trying to avoid getting her used to the indoor temperature of my house so that she wouldn't have issues outside once her feathers grew in. She had the sweater on, and I had also prepared for her a 'huddle box' full of pine shavings and molted feathers. I think that believing she would be fine under these conditions, especially after going from a 50 degree day to a 25 degree day so suddenly, was my mistake. If I had it to do over again, I would probably have brought Cricket in overnight and let her spend supervised time outside during the day. This does not change my belief that chickens don't need a heated coop in the wintertime. I want to make sure everyone reading this understands that though I lost Cricket to the cold, it does not mean that all chickens need supplemental heat. This is the first hen I've lost to the cold in 8 1/2 years of them living in uninsulated and unheated coops, and as I said before, under normal circumstances it would not have happened. I know that if I had heated my coop for Cricket's sake that, though she may still be around, I would have had 37 hens intolerant of the cold instead of just the one. It was the hard molt that Cricket was going through that did her in in the end. To reiterate, a hen that is fully feathered does not need any supplemental heat at all in order to survive the winter. If you take nothing else away from this post, at least take that.

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

My laptop is now completley dead. My charger has been broken and I can not get it to work anymore. And my new charget isstill not here! I amnow going to have to use my ipod to get on the internet and now I cant ise symbols since I am on monile form. I need to insert the one yelling lol

 

[PeacefulWalls]

How early do ducks typically lay? I went out in the pre-dawn hours today to try and get eggs before they were frozen. Nope the ducks still won and the eggs were frozen to the point of cracked shells. The water in the coop was barely glazed over with ice so I thought there was hope. The lights had been on for about 15 minutes in the coop other than the red heat lamps that were on the water. I'm enjoying the duck eggs and more ducks are not out of the picture but I need to get those eggs before they freeze. I thought of putting a heat light on the spot where they lay but it is not the same spot for more than a couple of days. It seems like as soon as the ducks pick a spot the younger pullets start moving in on it, like a battle scene and it becomes the pullet sleeping area. Still during the day those 2 ducks rule the coop and run. They even herded my RIR roos around the run when I let them mingle yesterday.

Our ducks have usually all laid by 7am -- sometimes a few later. We're not usually out in the barn much earlier than that, so I'm not sure when the actual laying happens! We were getting eggs laid all over the coop until my husband got some nest boxes made for them. Now most all of the eggs are in the boxes, except for the girls who decided to lay eggs in a nest they made behind a hay bale (they saw the chickens finding hiding places for their eggs & decided they needed a hiding place of their own!) We haven't had any frozen eggs yet. Are your girls laying in the middle of the night? It would seem like eggs would take a few hours to freeze solid and crack. Maybe you should experiment with an egg in your freezer -- see how many hours is takes for it to freeze and crack & that might help determine when they were laid ?????

I opened the coop this morning to find Cricket lying on the floor, alone. She must have fallen off the perches last night and gotten too cold without any feathers on her, or even the other hens' warmth around her. She's gone. She's just gone. I don't know what to think. If I had brought her in last night, she would probably still be here. I'm just devastated.

She was my perpetual stink-eye bird. She was also the only hen that loved to go camping. I don't even want to think about camping out next summer without her here. It's been a tough year for me as far as losses, and now I'm completely heartbroken again.

So sorry about Cricket

 

[Leahs Mom]

PW - what kind of feed to you give your girls?

 

[kabhyper1]

Aww pipd, I'm so sorry about Cricket.

 

[kabhyper1]

I am happy to report that Jules is back to her old self today. Before I took her back out, I tried my hand at a hen saddle. I have decided to try to make one for each of my girls. She took to it just fine.


Here she is sporting her new dress.