Cogbutn, my English black split Orpington roo, has found out that life is VERY VERY good for sweet mannered boys. He is now rotating time with his lav harem (which produces 100% fertile eggs and darned near 100% hatches, all season long, in my hands and with @Faraday40 , too. Now he is splitting time with the 4 lav girls and 3 English blue Orps. They just recently came out of quarantine.
One has permanent torticollis, which kinda bothers me because the kid who sold them to me outsmarted me and held her in a way that she keeps her head straight. She is not seriously impacted by it, and does just fine doing all the things that hens do. Her name is Twisty. I assume she had an infection or nutritional deficiency that was not addressed soon enough that left her with a mild but permanent case. It gives her character. She lays, she squats to be bred, and she is a sweet girl, so she stays.
The second blue girl now has a name (Ellie, after Ellie Mae Clampett and perhaps even @ellymayRans!). It took me a while to realize that she picked up some fishing line and got it entangled on one foot, and it cut the top of her foot as well as almost cut off her outside toe. I am glad I am a veterinarian in these circumstances. Hubby and I got all the fishing line off, washed it, dug all the poop and dead tissue out of it, hit it with hydrogen peroxide, then ointment, a Telfa pad, Vet Wrap, and covered it with a plastic sandwich bag and more Vet Wrap. She is also getting penicillin injections. She is more comfortable on the foot, but it is still swollen and the first bandage change smelled bad, like anaerobic bacteria. Wash, rinse, repeat, but I left some air holes in the baggie this time and used a freezer bag that is more durable than a sandwich bag. She will get a third change tomorrow. It does appear to be healing, unpleasant odor aside. There was no drainage anywhere, and the top looks quite good. This is going to be a process. However, Cogburn does not discriminate and he nailed her within 5 minutes of being moved into the Blues breeding pen.
All three girls (one still does not have a name, and I am not doing any more "color" names). Who wants to name my third blue hen? We have Ellie, Twisty, and ???. Ellie and the unnamed girl are very, very large. All three got their rears trimmed for Cogburn's benefit. They are at least as fluffy as the Jubilee hens were, if not moreso.
Photos of some chicks will follow shortly. Need to get some of the little buggers in front of a camera!
Still have four Jubilee chicks for the modest price of $25 each, with Marek's vaccination. These are the LAST I will have this season.
And last, but not least, there's more cases of AI but not in any new states today, just new locations in MN, SD, and maybe WI?? I will be so happy when I can stop reporting this stuff, but I feel a duty to keep all of us informed. This is a tight group and no one wants to see anyone lose their birds.
As soon as I realized she looked like something was wrong, I checked her over, sure enough
