INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[faerydust16]

@Nyla
You have created Frankensteins incubator. Lol. That's really cool.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

So I've finally decided to try and hatch my Muscovy eggs in my homemade incubator!
I really hope it works out good..
Here is what it looks like:
(Pictures are right after putting eggs in egg turner, so the temp is crazy low right now)
Before and after I set it up. Also my hatching baskets for lockdown!
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Good luck!

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I have another bird in the house. An EE. It looks like a hawk or falcon attack. Found her standing under the pine trees. She wasn't killed because I imagine my goose, Lucy, probably went over there honking. When the muscovies mate she stands right by them honking.

The injured bird is still alive this morning, and sitting, so it's a good sign that she may recover.

How is she doing today?

 

[JanetMarie]

Looks like the banty people have given up on meeting me because they're not responding to messages anymore. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a "lap rooster" tomorrow in Bloomington. Long, awful story on this poor guy.

Nice lady had a silkie roo disappear from his coop. His hen is brooding a clutch but is an ornery girl who prefers more dominant guys, from the sounds of it. Lady's daughter heard how forlorn her mom was and said she would meet up with someone to get a replacement Silkie roo... well, she got to this place, and there were dozens of 5-month-old chickens crammed in a plastic tote--with a lid on it. Birds had never been outside and hadn't been properly fed or watered either.

So she brings this rooster--who can't run or fly and can only hobble around and seems to prefer sitting on people to being outside-- to her mom, who doesn't want him because he's not a Silkie (hence, can't breed him like one), can't walk right because his legs are warped from malnutrition or poor flooring in the tote, and who's getting beat up by the broody, but she doesn't want to send him back where he came from either.

Lady doesn't know what breed he is, but he sounds like he might be a little Sumatra. He's black, and while she loves all the pretty colors in his feathers, I don't even want to tell her that those stripes in his sheen are actually due to stress and poor nutrition. She said he ate and ate as soon as they put him near food. Hasn't crowed yet, just cowers from confrontation with other birds, likes being held and sits peaceably in laps and on shoulders.

Of course, as soon as I agree to pick him up tomorrow, the OEG hen, Kate, has decided to go broody and snitched a turkey egg from Pancake, who's finally decided not to be a free-loader after all. Should give me some time to get this poor young man serviceable. I've had great experience so far with Sumatra, but I'm not going to know what he is or how he'll age til he's done.

In other news, it looks like some of Penny's poults might be hatching!

That is sadder than sad, and needs to be reported to animal control, with pictures taken.

Can you find out the contact for this place?

 

[JanetMarie]

How is ddhe doing today?

She was better yesterday afternoon, except her walking was off a little. I put her outside with the others, and I was outside for a while doing chores and she was okay, and nobody was picking on her.

Later I went to check on everyone, and she was dead. There were feathers everywhere, one chicken was pecking at the carcass, back flesh gone, and my two geese standing there honking.

My Cotton Patch gander Wilbur had been protecting a chicken girlfriend, and has chased and grabbed this hen before who was killed.

I thought the attack from the other day was an arial predator because of the head wounds, but now I believe my gander grabbed her and another chicken pecked her head.

Now I have a chicken killer in the flock, and don't have an area to keep him without chickens. I have to try to re-home him to someone without chickens.

My goose, Lucy, will be upset when he's gone, but they're not a bonded pair.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@Indyshent
Did she report the people to animal control? She MUST report that and get them out there!

 

[Leahs Mom]

@JanetMarie
So sorry for that situation! Just heartbreaking.

 

[Indyshent]

That is sadder than sad, and needs to be reported to animal control, with pictures taken.

Can you find out the contact for this place?

@Indyshent
Did she report the people to animal control? She MUST report that and get them out there!

I certainly hope someone's reported it, but I don't think anyone has. From the sounds of it, this was a person the daughter knew from school, so she might be afraid to report it (and she'd get blamed for reporting it, even if she didn't).

 

[Indyshent]

She was better yesterday afternoon, except her walking was off a little. I put her outside with the others, and I was outside for a while doing chores and she was okay, and nobody was picking on her.

Later I went to check on everyone, and she was dead. There were feathers everywhere, one chicken was pecking at the carcass, back flesh gone, and my two geese standing there honking.

My Cotton Patch gander Wilbur had been protecting a chicken girlfriend, and has chased and grabbed this hen before who was killed.

I thought the attack from the other day was an arial predator because of the head wounds, but now I believe my gander grabbed her and another chicken pecked her head.

Now I have a chicken killer in the flock, and don't have an area to keep him without chickens. I have to try to re-home him to someone without chickens.

My goose, Lucy, will be upset when he's gone, but they're not a bonded pair.

It's so far been my experience that head wounds are the work of other poultry, which peck at the heads of restrained/trapped/injured flockmates and intruding poultry. I've seen this with turkeys and chickens but not waterfowl. I'm sorry I didn't catch the specific head wounds in your earlier post. Some birds whip into a frenzy of sorts when they see another bird which can't move correctly (if it's trapped between two objects or has suffered some hobbling leg injury, usually) even though they would never ordinarily turn on flockmates or show an aggressive side.

Your gander might not be to blame at all. She might have gotten stuck somewhere and attacked by other chickens and he might have tried to rescue her. However, if he had tried to mate her, she might have suffered injury to the back of the neck/face/eyes as he was trying to grab her, but the most grievous injury would've been due to her being stomped into the ground and probably suffering a broken pelvis and ribs, and basicalky being ripped apart from the insides, in that case (depending on how "successful" he might've been in mating her).

In my experience, hawks--depending on size and probably species--leave claw marks and torn flesh, often break necks or the pelvis, and usually leave big, bloody, nasty injuries on the back. Could ge still tat see was attacked by a hawk and--due to her injuries--attacked furthermore by otherwise pleasant flockmates who have that weird frenzy behavior (not all birds do it, and I'm not sure what combination of factors leads to that trait, but I don't advise breeding any bird that does it).

Geese tend to be excellent protection from aerial predators, but that doesn't mean that a hawk wasn't involved or incriminate Wilbur.

 

[JanetMarie]

He wouldn't have tried to mate her, because he doesn't try to mate with his chicken girlfriend. He does mate with his goose friend. I have seen Wilbur grab the dead one before, pulling out her feathers, and I intervened.

I believe what happened is that Wilbur was protecting his chicken girlfriend, and grabbed the other chicken, and another chicken participated in the attack, killing her. The feathers on the ground show that she was cornered.

Probably the same thing happened the other day, but the attack wasn't deadly.