INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[ChicagoClucker]

@ChicagoClucker

Your description sounds like a thiamin/ribofavin issue. Thiamine/riboflavin deficiencies cause curling toes and lameness - and also sitting with the legs out like you describe. If that's what is causing the problem, (which it may not be!) here are some thoughts:


If you are feeding medicated feed, I recommend you stop it immediately. The medication is a thiamine blocker and some chicks can't take it. If not feeding medicated, that's good.

I think I read that you have already given the poly-vi-sol. Keep doing that.

Can feed some RAW liver from a good, healthy source (not supermarket - preferably grass-fed). chop into tiny pieces (or put through a grinder...slimy!) and give as much as she'll eat. Don't leave it out- just give what it will eat in one setting and remove leftover within 10 minutes. This should be fed RAW. Offer the liver several times throughout the day.

Good quality brewer's yeast also has the vitamins that will be helpful. Lewis Labs Brewers yeast is the only one on the market that's not grown on a GMO substrate (they can call it non-gmo because the yeast itself if not gmo, but most the other brands are grown on gmo substrate even if marked non-gmo). I have put this out in a dish and my birds will eat it right out of the dish. They love the stuff. Just be sure there is plenty of water out for them as it is quite dry!

I did stop the medicated feed when she got sick. I will try the raw liver and the lewis labs brewers yeast. I will try anything at this point! Thanks

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Can't remember if I posted.. My quail eggs hatched from JMF (James Marie Farm). Out of 68 eggs, I have 55 lively, robust chicks running around like little bumblebees! One of, and probably the top quail breeder in the US. These eggs shipped all the way from Louisiana. Pretty amazing to get such a fantastic hatch from shipped eggs! WTG @James Marie you are flat awesome

I have a few family members that will be getting quads from this hatch, and keeping several, (the rest actually) for myself. Quail eggs are flat awesome, raw or cooked. The body temp of a quail hen cancels out the risk of salmonella. Offer amazing nutritional value and are being studied for use in cancer patients. The consumption of raw eggs has been noted to ease discomfort in chemo patients! Quail are easy to care for, especially in a small home and property with restrictions of space. Robby frrom JMF is just amazing to talk to, so much information and a kind helpful soul. With my moms dialysis, she needs to up her protein levels. The eggs and meat have certainly helped me increase that in her diet.

During the winter months I raise a lot more Coturnix for a table bird. Its super easy to keep them so I can raise the in the garage. They are hardy with colder temps, and do well with artificial lighting to encourage laying. They are incredibly prolific, but have a lifespan of about 5 years. I will be changing my laying and breeding flock yearly going forward. And yes my mom still has speckles.. she is getting old but stlll a spoiled FAT lil pet.

 

[Mother2Hens]

We

our lav & black orps. I also enjoy those fancy varieties, but lavs fit us well. Most are trained to do silly tricks. They love attention & will allow any child to pick them up. They train so easily b/c of their love for food. (Mine can do card tricks, magic tricks, find the dot, tip the cup, walk through hoops, & of course come when called.) They're like dogs with feathers who happen to lay eggs. Most people prefer the lavs b/c of the unique color, but those black ones can't be beat when the sun shines on them.

Do you have videos of their tricks? I'd like to teach my chickens (not just my Orps) some new things (besides playing piano) because they do catch on easily. And yes, one detrimental thing about Orps is that they eat a lot!

Originally Posted by daskhan Does Purina make Peacock chow? @ellymayRans could use some.

Continuing story of Eliza, my giant English Orp, and her urges to peck little Bantam Cochin, Screech, off of the perch. I made a partition from one of those foam tile squares and put it between Eliza and Screech. They both seemed a little anxious about not being able to keep an eye on the other one, so I made them each a little window. It's weird that Bonbon sat in the little box below—I guess she wanted to block out any distractions. haha Screech's feathers are starting to come back on her head after being pecked off for being a pushy pint-sized hen. (Don't let the innocent look on her face fool you! lol)

 

[chick rookie]

Aren't they just the sweetest?!

I need to find my bag of mealworms--it disappeared a while ago and the girls have had to settle for scratch since.

So, it didn't quote your post properly...

But, dear Elda and her sister, Kit, are Silver Gray Dorkings.

Oh boy--just remember, you brought it up!

Actually, I've come to terms with a lot of things after spending months and months researching and talking to people all over the world while writing my supplemental heat article last fall. While I still am an advocate for avoiding preemptive heating (seriously, more often than not, the birds are totally fine--and that saves you a whole heck of a lot of money on electricity and a lot of worry about power outages or whether or not something will catch fire!), I do understand that in places such as far, far northern Canada, there is just no choice but to give your birds supplemental heat in wintertime. The best way to do it is to know from the start the dangers, and be prepared for them!

So, though it was posted a few pages back, I think, here is my supplemental heat article. It's also always in my signature for easy access.

If anyone is deciding right now whether you want to heat your coop for the winter or not, I believe I have compiled almost everything you need to know to make an informed decision on the topic here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...led-look-at-the-question-of-supplemental-heat

And, of course, there are plenty of threads on the topic around the forums--just search for winter heating and you'll find plenty of reading material on both sides of the subject.


As for me, I haven't used heating in many years, and the last time I used heating, I had a bulb explode--possibly why I hate heat lamps and will never use them again, not even for brooders. I did have one old, old, pushing 10-year-old hen that just couldn't handle the cold last winter (though even brought inside to a warm pen, she did eventually pass away, which tells me there was an underlying cause). The only hen I have ever actually lost to the cold in my 10 1/2 years of raising chickens in northern Indiana was a hen that literally lost all her feathers at once a few Decembers ago, and really, the very few of mine that have struggled were either already sickly or molting badly at the time. Other than that, I haven't seen any of my birds suffer from not being provided supplemental heat, and that includes my Silkie hen, my tiny Sebright bantams, my Leghorns, my Fayoumi, and, well, you get the idea. It's actually kind of funny to watch them running around in the (shallow) snow each winter, flapping and racing and having a grand old time, seemingly immune to the coldest temperatures we see. Last winter, I even watched my hens have a mass dust bath in the dirt-floored section of their coop, right in the middle of that super cold snap we had! Of course, they didn't really want to walk in the snow during those temps (because as much as I broke my back shoveling, there was always a thin layer on the ground

), so I guess they needed something to occupy them in the coop.

Of course, I'm always learning, and I'm still figuring out what is optimal for my flock in the wintertime through small tweaks I do every year. A few years ago I did have two birds with large combs get frostbite, though this seems to have been as a result of me closing too much ventilation in an attempt to keep the girls warmer (and a small flood in the coop from a midwinter warm snap likely didn't help them, either). Every year since, I leave more ventilation open than the last, and every year they seem to do better than when I tried to close them up to hold in heat. Just an observation.

Mom and I have discussed making wooden frames with clear plastic stapled in them to prop at an angle over some or all of the windows of my coop. This way they can be left open and plenty of ventilation gets through, but not as much of the snow, rain, and wind comes into the coop. I think this will be the optimal setup for my coop as far as wintertime ventilation.

Editing to add, just to clarify, more ventilation has worked really well for me, but I have always closed the vents that are right next to the roosts in the wintertime so the girls never have any direct airflow (or drafts, if you will) on them in the wintertime.



And on commercial farms using temperature control, well, you're right. They do. However, it's typically more to keep the birds cool than to keep them warm. Chickens put out a LOT of heat on their own and meat birds seem to be like living oil heaters, and in such mass numbers as these birds are kept in in commercial farming operations, those barns quickly heat up. They've got to keep the heat down in those barns efficiently or risk roasting their birds even before they send them to butcher!

On a related note, I have heard that it's okay as of just a few weeks ago, in the case of a flock testing positive for AI, for the birds to be mass culled by the venting/cooling system being shut off in these barns and the birds being left to suffocate in the heat and ammonia they produce.

I don't know who decides that this kind of thing is okay, but it sure doesn't sound right to me.



I know, blah, blah, blah... I'm done now.

I use heat for my Silkies and mixed Bantam pen. but it is not direct heat if you will. How to explain, lets see???? The heat can get into the house without being in the house, and if it should fall, don't see that happening cause have it wired to the point I REALLY hope the bulb don't need changed..... anyway if it does fall it will hit nothing but dirt. The only thing I really worry about is it exploding and the birds trying to eat the " shiny " pieces.
Bubbles has heat right now cause I'm still trying to keep her an outside chicken. But she is still right out my back door and I'm up and down all night with the dogs so will know if anything happens. Its not like I turn on the heater then leave for 8 hours. O and yes she has a heater, not a bulb.
The boot/foot warmer I got to try out this year, it shuts off every 2 hours. Even though the box says it don't. I got it at a swap meet so I figure it got put in the wrong box.

I'm going to try the rest of my pens without this year and see what happens.
I still have heated water bowels that only come on if the temp gets under 35 and off at 40 and lights on timers to give the layers 14 hours of light.

As for the mass culling ...... we should put the " humans " that come up with that in there and make them stay until dead. Thats an absolutely terrible and sickening way to die.

Brrrr! Just closed coops, yikes its cold out. Time to dig out winter clothes and put up summer stuff I guess

.

SHHHH I don't want me to know that yet. Still holding out hope...

Can't remember if I posted.. My quail eggs hatched from JMF (James Marie Farm). Out of 68 eggs, I have 55 lively, robust chicks running around like little bumblebees! One of, and probably the top quail breeder in the US. These eggs shipped all the way from Louisiana. Pretty amazing to get such a fantastic hatch from shipped eggs! WTG @James Marie you are flat awesome

I have a few family members that will be getting quads from this hatch, and keeping several, (the rest actually) for myself. Quail eggs are flat awesome, raw or cooked. The body temp of a quail hen cancels out the risk of salmonella. Offer amazing nutritional value and are being studied for use in cancer patients. The consumption of raw eggs has been noted to ease discomfort in chemo patients! Quail are easy to care for, especially in a small home and property with restrictions of space. Robby frrom JMF is just amazing to talk to, so much information and a kind helpful soul. With my moms dialysis, she needs to up her protein levels. The eggs and meat have certainly helped me increase that in her diet.

During the winter months I raise a lot more Coturnix for a table bird. Its super easy to keep them so I can raise the in the garage. They are hardy with colder temps, and do well with artificial lighting to encourage laying. They are incredibly prolific, but have a lifespan of about 5 years. I will be changing my laying and breeding flock yearly going forward. And yes my mom still has speckles.. she is getting old but stlll a spoiled FAT lil pet.

Congrats on the hatch. and that is a cute as all get pic. Never knew they could be tamed down like that.

Do you have videos of their tricks? I'd like to teach my chickens (not just my Orps) some new things (besides playing piano) because they do catch on easily. And yes, one detrimental thing about Orps is that they eat a lot!
Does Purina make Peacock chow? @ellymayRans could use some.

Continuing story of Eliza, my giant English Orp, and her urges to peck little Bantam Cochin, Screech, off of the perch. I made a partition from one of those foam tile squares and put it between Eliza and Screech. They both seemed a little anxious about not being able to keep an eye on the other one, so I made them each a little window. It's weird that Bonbon sat in the little box below—I guess she wanted to block out any distractions. haha Screech's feathers are starting to come back on her head after being pecked off for being a pushy pint-sized hen. (Don't let the innocent look on her face fool you! lol)

There's my Lacy's bald headed twin... lol Lacy's head is finally getting feathers on it again, she don't look so bad now.
We are going to steel your ideal of the pipe wrap for the our new coop. and the partition is a good ideal, how is it standing in place?

 

[pginsber]

... Most are trained to do silly tricks. They love attention & will allow any child to pick them up. They train so easily b/c of their love for food. (Mine can do card tricks, magic tricks, find the dot, tip the cup, walk through hoops, & of course come when called.) ...

VIDEOS, PLEASE!!!!

Can't remember if I posted.. My quail eggs hatched from JMF (James Marie Farm). Out of 68 eggs, I have 55 lively, robust chicks running around like little bumblebees! One of, and probably the top quail breeder in the US. These eggs shipped all the way from Louisiana. Pretty amazing to get such a fantastic hatch from shipped eggs! WTG @James Marie you are flat awesome

I have a few family members that will be getting quads from this hatch, and keeping several, (the rest actually) for myself. Quail eggs are flat awesome, raw or cooked. The body temp of a quail hen cancels out the risk of salmonella. Offer amazing nutritional value and are being studied for use in cancer patients. The consumption of raw eggs has been noted to ease discomfort in chemo patients! Quail are easy to care for, especially in a small home and property with restrictions of space. Robby frrom JMF is just amazing to talk to, so much information and a kind helpful soul. With my moms dialysis, she needs to up her protein levels. The eggs and meat have certainly helped me increase that in her diet.

During the winter months I raise a lot more Coturnix for a table bird. Its super easy to keep them so I can raise the in the garage. They are hardy with colder temps, and do well with artificial lighting to encourage laying. They are incredibly prolific, but have a lifespan of about 5 years. I will be changing my laying and breeding flock yearly going forward. And yes my mom still has speckles.. she is getting old but stlll a spoiled FAT lil pet.

Very interesting about quail. Thanks for sharing. Glad to hear the great news about the hatch.

Do you have videos of their tricks? I'd like to teach my chickens (not just my Orps) some new things (besides playing piano) because they do catch on easily. And yes, one detrimental thing about Orps is that they eat a lot!
Does Purina make Peacock chow? @ellymayRans could use some.

Continuing story of Eliza, my giant English Orp, and her urges to peck little Bantam Cochin, Screech, off of the perch. I made a partition from one of those foam tile squares and put it between Eliza and Screech. They both seemed a little anxious about not being able to keep an eye on the other one, so I made them each a little window. It's weird that Bonbon sat in the little box below—I guess she wanted to block out any distractions. haha Screech's feathers are starting to come back on her head after being pecked off for being a pushy pint-sized hen. (Don't let the innocent look on her face fool you! lol)

I looked up "spoiled pet chickens" on Wikipedia and found this same exact picture.

 

[ellymayRans]

[COLOR=8B4513]Do you have videos of their tricks? I'd like to teach my chickens (not just my Orps) some new things (besides playing piano) because they do catch on easily. And yes, one detrimental thing about Orps is that they eat a lot! [/COLOR] [rule][COLOR=8B4513]Does Purina make Peacock chow?[/COLOR] @ellymayRans [COLOR=8B4513]could use some. [/COLOR] [rule][COLOR=8B4513]Continuing story of Eliza, my giant English Orp, and her urges to peck little Bantam Cochin, Screech, off of the perch. I made a partition from one of those foam tile squares and put it between Eliza and Screech. They both seemed a little anxious about not being able to keep an eye on the other one, so I made them each a little window. It's weird that Bonbon sat in the little box below—I guess she wanted to block out any distractions. haha Screech's feathers are starting to come back on her head after being pecked off for being a pushy pint-sized hen. (Don't let the innocent look on her face fool you! lol)[/COLOR]

Love the insulation wrap on the roosts! Wonderful idea. They don't eat it??! Mine will eat any kind of styrofoam, etc. They, including the ducks, have eaten our pool items like crazy this year! You know the Noodles and other items that use that foam as a flotation!! I would've thought it would have killed someone by now!

 

[ellymayRans]

Hahahaha @pginsber!!! Funny!

 

[ellymayRans]

Tis the season! I really do enjoy Halloween. ..this year I put up a new shower curtain. Oooo did I get some belly laughs outta this one! My 15 year old literally fell down when he walked in hahaha...my 6 year old, whom I just had to quietly peek in (of course he never shuts the door!) I catch him slowly peeking around the backside of it, I couldn't stop myself from busting out laughing and Ohhhh did he jump! Lol!
We have a small candle plug in that acts as a nice night light.
Here it is walking in without and with the lights!

 

[daskhan]

Love the insulation wrap on the roosts! Wonderful idea. They don't eat it??!

Mine will eat any kind of styrofoam, etc. They, including the ducks, have eaten our pool items like crazy this year! You know the Noodles and other items that use that foam as a flotation!! I would've thought it would have killed someone by now!

Toss them in the pool the one that floats is the culprit (YOU MUST SAVE THE REST!!!!) call it diving for chickens

 

[Hholly]

Tis the season! I really do enjoy Halloween. ..this year I put up a new shower curtain. Oooo did I get some belly laughs outta this one! My 15 year old literally fell down when he walked in hahaha...my 6 year old, whom I just had to quietly peek in (of course he never shuts the door!) I catch him slowly peeking around the backside of it, I couldn't stop myself from busting out laughing and Ohhhh did he jump! Lol!
We have a small candle plug in that acts as a nice night light.
Here it is walking in without and with the lights!

Lol, scary!