INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[ellymayRans]

Fun times yesterday with the family. ..Between the rain and break from baseball we did some mushroom hunting. .Yum..had with our Brats this evening for dinner!

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

Thank you! I think I'm going to need a coop for just chicks! Haha haha!

Lucky me ...after our private discussion I have been forced to put a number on hatching/hatched chicks and I am a bit...admittedly...embarrassed!

Lol everyone says your marans are amazing. No worries.


I'm nervous to mushroom hunt I'm afraid I'm gonna kill myself on accident. But hey some strawberries. ...lol

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
They have very good intentions on their careers! I bet you are so proud of them

 

[hoosiercheetah]

hoosiercheetah ~ It’s interesting, but sometimes disturbing to watch the pecking order in action. I’m one to intervene if I see it happening and it’s more than a couple of pecks. I can’t watch an animal suffer. Injuries have to be treated, so I’d rather intervene before it gets to that point. All I have to do is say, “Stop!” and point my index finger at the guilty one, look her in the eyes, and she knows to stop. I’ve never had to do more than “the teacher look.” haha Like Lonely Page Turne said, they can be trained. I agree with Chick Crazed, too, when she said, “Trust your own instincts though, because you will get to know your birds and their personalities and habits.” IMO, that statement really applies to every aspect of chicken raising.

My large Orp chick wants to be one of the big girls, which didn’t work out so well the other night when I let her try. But when she’s ready to try again, I will be standing there in the coop supervising since it’s five against one. I think that what Pipd once said is true; they view you as the rooster and want to please you.

Having a ruckus every night at bedtime is normal even for established flocks. My neighbors probably think that I’m having a cock fight at my house every night.

jchny has a good method of reducing pecking order issues. She spends one-on-one time with each flock member so they feel “even” in her eyes. Another important tip is to observe them eating at least once a day to make sure they aren’t keeping lower ranked hens away. Additionally, when I give them treats like seeds or fruit, I make sure they all get some.

I have observed that if I glare at Penny, she minds her manners a little better. She still throws her weight around, but it does seem like she might see me as the Big Boss. I wondered if this would be the case with chickens, because it's absolutely how it works with dogs. You can control any number of dogs, any mix of breeds, sizes, and temperaments, as long as each dog knows you're the Alpha, and you consistently project that energy. I don't know if chickens work the same way, but what I've read about peck order seems to follow the pattern, so that's the approach I'm taking. Penny can be the lead hen, but if she gets too rough, I'll guide her back on the good path. So far, no injuries or even pulled feathers.

I also took some advice from Stormy's and bought a second waterer for the run, and set up a second feed dish in the coop. I put the two feed dishes as far apart as possible, so everyone can eat. What's funny about it is that Penny still tries to horde all the food. She'll run up to a dish, everyone else scatters, and she pecks at it a few times. Behind her back, the small birds go over to the other dish and resume eating. Once Penny sees them eating, she'll run over to reclaim that dish. The rest of the flock moves back and resumes their meal. I think after a while, she'll stop trying to guard both of them at once... or I'll have a flock of very well-exercised chickens.

I still haven't seen any other peck-order behavior that I can recognize from the other birds. It's pretty much just Boss Penny and everyone else are Peons.

I'm working on a plan to modify roosts to provide more options. The Orps don't like having to get up and down from the roost. The haven't figured out the ladder for climbing up (I'm going to fix that; pics will follow) and when they flap down to the floor, they land *hard*. So I'm thinking of adding a lower roost. I'm just not sure where, yet. I may do several in the corners, and do away with the poop board. I think if I deep-litter, with the square shape of the coop, it might be easier to just skip it.

Now updating for a different CL add! Lol. Pullets. I think Hoosiercheetah was the one looking for Australorp.

http://bloomington.craigslist.org/grd/4440942113.html

That was me, thanks for the link! I think I'm going to let my current group stabilize before I think about adding more.

hoosiercheetah ~ That has happened occasionally-- I think (but don't know for sure) that it occurs when a hen needs to lay an egg, but can't find a private place in time. I say that because it's happened when the coop door has been opened in the morning later than usual as though the hen doesn't want an audience. Several of mine prefer to lay in a box in the garage instead of the coop. That's just my theory. Doesn't seem like it would happen while sleeping.

I blame myself. I think she was working on laying when I went in to mess with them, right before they all started to bed down. Today the two orps laid in the favorite nest. I have three nest boxes, but they've only used one. I think I'm going to put in a nest roof over the boxes for more privacy, and see if they don't spread out a little. but, in four days I've got 11 eggs from my three laying girls, so I have no complaints at all! I can't wait for the other four to join the party!

In other chicken butt news, I re-inspected the two black orps today, stem to stern. There's no new feather soiling, in fact they look cleaner on the feathers I didn't trim than they did a few days ago. Vents still look fine. No bad smells have returned. I think everyone is good!

However, after a great deal of consideration, I've decided to reveal the source, to help protect the community, and other inexperienced noobs like me. The guy's name is Bill. He lives near Keystone and Hannah, near where I-65 and I-465 meet on the south side of Indianapolis. I'm not trying to defame him in any way; I don't know him well enough to judge his motives. What I can say is I will be much more careful in the future, to be sure that I don't do business from someone who keeps his animal in questionable heath and highly questionable living conditions. I've met enough good people here, that I don't feel like I have to settle for less. Lesson learnt.

And now bed.

 

[ellymayRans]

Lol everyone says your marans are amazing. No worries.


I'm nervous to mushroom hunt I'm afraid I'm gonna kill myself on accident. But hey some strawberries. ...lol

Thanks for the compliments!

Lol...we don't use guns to "hunt" them so unless you're afraid of bending over will kill you!! Then how do you ever keep chickens! Haha!

I still have waaayyy too many strawberry plants to remove. I have given away about 150 so far! I have about another 300 to go! No kidding! So please please get a wild hair my wonderful BYC family and come make a fun little outing! Great week for it...well for transplanting. .cooler temps and rain.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Growing up Mom would use gentian violet (AKA purple medicine or hog medicine ) on us . Seemed to work great no infection and healed fast. We put some on our son when he was small and the doctor had a fit saying you cant watch for redness or the start of infection. Worked great on our dogs too. Even killed mange.

Doc is right on not being able to watch for signs of infection. I had used it once on one of the chickens and it was impossible to see any signs of change. Not a good thing when you're trying to monitor for infection.

Edited to add: And it stayed dark solid blue for more than a month even though I tried to wash it off. I had used it on a leg and was very frustrated because I needed to see if there was infection. I was kicking myself for that for a long time as I have other items I could have used that wouldn't have inhibited seeing the condition of the wound and actually seem to work better than the GV.

Almost 8 months later there was still some blue remaining.

Makes sense that it works on mange since it is a fungal infection. Correct application for the product.

 

[Leahs Mom]

In other chicken butt news, I re-inspected the two black orps today, stem to stern. There's no new feather soiling, in fact they look cleaner on the feathers I didn't trim than they did a few days ago. Vents still look fine. No bad smells have returned. I think everyone is good!

Wonderful!!!

*****
Had an interesting experience over the weekend that is related.....

One of my BRs was showing the classic "poop stuck to the fluffy butt feathers" syndrome. I had put off taking care of it - or even looking closely at it. On Saturday she was in close proximity and I grabbed her and noticed that it looked way worse than I thought it was. As I was cutting the poo out of the feathers, I thought I was seeing a prolapsed vent as there was a small "ball" of internal tissue showing.

This girl is very healthy in appearance and behavior other than the poo that got stuck on the bottom, lays an egg almost every day, not acting sick, etc.

After I got it all cut out, the vent became normal and appeared healthy. That's when I figured out that it seems that the weight of the poo ball was so heavy that it was causing vent distress.

After cutting I soaked her in warm epsom salt water then dried and looked again. Looked completely normal except for the missing feathers that I had cut.


So...
THE LESSON OF THE STORY IS - DON'T PUT OFF MAINTENANCE.

I probably could have saved her any stress on the vent if I had taken care of it when I first saw it. Because I didn't, the poo kept building up into a larger and larger ball that was getting heavier as time went on.

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

Thanks for the compliments!

Lol...we don't use guns to "hunt" them so unless you're afraid of bending over will kill you!! Then how do you ever keep chickens! Haha!

I still have waaayyy too many strawberry plants to remove. I have given away about 150 so far! I have about another 300 to go! No kidding! So please please get a wild hair my wonderful BYC family and come make a fun little outing! Great week for it...well for transplanting. .cooler temps and rain.

Oh I'm afraid I will get poison ones

 

[hoosiercheetah]

THE LESSON OF THE STORY IS - DON'T PUT OFF MAINTENANCE.

It's good advice for homes and airplanes and cars and chickens and pretty much everything.

I'm picking up each of my birds at least once a day to look them over up close. Also, side benefit of getting them used to being handled by me. The Orps this morning were waiting on the roost for me to help them down, and they've totally got the hang of the parrot pick-up. That's a lot of chicken to hold in one hand! I think the Eggers are actually starting to enjoy being moved around that way.

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

Doc is right on not being able to watch for signs of infection.  I had used it once on one of the chickens and it was impossible to see any signs of change.  Not a good thing when you're trying to monitor for infection.

[COLOR=006400]Edited to add:  And it stayed dark solid blue for more than a month even though I tried to wash it off.  I had used it on a leg and was very frustrated because I needed to see if there was infection.  I was kicking myself for that for a long time as I have other items I could have  used that wouldn't have inhibited seeing the condition of the wound and actually seem to work better than the GV. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=006400]Almost 8 months later there was still some blue remaining.[/COLOR]

Makes sense that it works on mange since it is a fungal infection.  Correct application for the product.

The correct application is for any bacterial or fungal infection. And if it worked on mange it works on parasites too.