Isaac, My 5 Year Old Delaware Rooster....Old Age is Closing In On The Big Guy (Long Story)

[crazyhen]

The offer stands with the dells if you change your mind. I so hate to lose any of them. I keep getting more from hatching the eggs mostly to prevent disease. This yr. I will try for some more dells. and a dellawagger. I have two wheaten ameracuanas so I will have a few mixed with my Dels. My hb keeps saying I am getting too many. I have 20 hens and one roo. Last yr. I tried the putting of water bottles in my hatcher to prevent loss of heat if I had power outage. Yuck!! I lost a whole group of faverolles. Only one hatched. I won't do that again. I lost them all the last wk. The power had not gone off. I now have a separate thermometer to drop into the hatcher to make sure the temps and humidity are accurate. I can barely wait till March when I will be back home and can hatch chicks. Good luck with your fellow. I too have coops now up off the ground. I guess when I stay winters again that if it gets too cold a bit of heat would be nice for the older hens. I still have my hen that was a mix from joletabey from your hens and a 1/2 English male. She is big fluffy and blue. I will have to ck for her age. I hope all are doing better. Do any of your other flock members have any trouble with the cold.

 

[speckledhen]

No one here seems to have much trouble with the cold except the ones with arthritis, like 7 year old Amanda, who walks stiff legged. She still lays. This was an unsually cold spell, even for us, though.

I think roosters have trouble with leg injuries and resulting arthritis from those just because of the way they maneuver, fast turns, jumping down and turning immediately upon hitting the ground when they are running to stop fights (or get into them). Isaac is just getting old and suffering things we all do as we age, which sometimes result in secondary issues as well.

 

[Beekissed]

Here's something you might try and it came to me in the shower this morning...suddenly! God must care about your rooster as much as you do!

I had read about your old boy this morning but felt there was nothing I could say to help....but then this idea popped in.

My Old Toby was returned to me last year with a laundry list of problems due to poor care and one of these was a gimpy leg/hip. They must have kicked him or something because it was just the one leg and they had cut off his spurs to boot, as they complained he was beating up on their rooster.

When it got colder, he was really bad and would hop along when he ran and hold the leg out stiffly like a German soldier when he walked. After battling the mites he brought along when he came home with various things that didn't work for long, I used some castor oil in March of last year. What a miracle that stuff was! I had applied it liberally to all the chicken's feet and even their combs and wattles and you never saw such suppleness and color the next day. It clung to the scales a good long time and did the trick....no mites. It returned their scales to a golden, suppleness like a young bird and it was almost miraculous how quickly it worked.

I also had a few old hens in the bunch with swollen, red feet and ankles and it seemed to take out the redness and over time the swelling subsided. I didn't think the swelling, stiffness, arthritis in the joints and such would go away because these birds are just OLD. I repeated the castor oil in another 3 months just because I felt it had worn off, thought they could use the oil to promote new scale growth and it was helping Toby's spurs grow at an exponential rate. He grew a whole inch on spurs in three months time! Before that application they weren't growing back at all.

Then my mother noticed something....he wasn't hopping when he ran any longer and he wasn't marching like a soldier with that one stiff leg. I thought it was due to warmer weather and didn't think anything about it. But cold weather came along this year and no limping, no gimpy hip, no stiff leg. The older girls had no more swelling in their ankles all spring, summer and fall. I've been looking at them this morning and it looks like they could use some more castor oil...and I'll tell you why.

Found out that castor oil helps with arthritis and it helps with chronic, arthritic gout!

Someone just mentioned it to me the other day and it all rolled together in my mind about why Toby had lost his gimp and the girls their swelling at the ankles(which I had just assumed was congestive heart failure due to old age). I'm going to apply castor oil on these old gals again(they haven't had any since last spring) to see if it staves off that swelling and redness in their feet and maybe it would work for your old boy too.

Can't hurt to try it...it's cheap, all natural, and has antibacterial and antifungal properties...and from all reports it's good for arthritis and gout. Sure seemed to help Toby and it may have been purely coincidental that he regained better movement in that leg but I don't believe it was.

Maybe a good soak in epsom salts to soothe the pain and then a good massaging/slathering of castor oil, then cover with a hot pack for more soothing of the joints.

 

[speckledhen]

Thank you so much for all that! I will get some castor oil next trip out and give it a try. Certainly can't hurt! I appreciate your input so much, I can't tell you. Even if the toes have some frostbite, maybe he'll have some relief from arthritis at least. I have to mess with his feet and legs every day anyhow.

 

[aoxa]

Thank you so much for all that! I will get some castor oil next trip out and give it a try. Certainly can't hurt! I appreciate your input so much, I can't tell you. Even if the toes have some frostbite, maybe he'll have some relief from arthritis at least. I have to mess with his feet and legs every day anyhow.

Cyn, for what it's worth - my little hen Maragaret had frost bite and lost all of her toes on one foot, and a good amount of them on the other. She jumped in the water dish and it was a very cold day. I didn't have a single case of frost bite on the combs that year either. I wouldn't have known what was going on if I didn't see her fall in the water myself. She was roosting on the edge of the dish. Anyway...

I helped sooth the pain with coconut oil. It was really swollen for a few days and she was in a lot of discomfort. After the swelling subsided her feet turned black and shriveled up. After a couple months it fell off. She had to learn to walk differently, but she did. You can see her video on my coop page.

 

[speckledhen]

Cyn, for what it's worth - my little hen Maragaret had frost bite and lost all of her toes on one foot, and a good amount of them on the other. She jumped in the water dish and it was a very cold day. I didn't have a single case of frost bite on the combs that year either. I wouldn't have known what was going on if I didn't see her fall in the water myself. She was roosting on the edge of the dish. Anyway...

I helped sooth the pain with coconut oil. It was really swollen for a few days and she was in a lot of discomfort. After the swelling subsided her feet turned black and shriveled up. After a couple months it fell off. She had to learn to walk differently, but she did. You can see her video on my coop page.

I watched her video. What a plucky little hen! Thank you for that. I used to have a hen named Margaret, too. Maybe I'll have to reuse that name some day in honor of both of them.

 

[scratch'n'peck]

Aw, what a big, sweet rooster Issac is. I'm sorry you all are going through this. I have a big 5 year old Buff Orpington with arthritic legs who is inside because he just can't handle the cold. I'll have to try the castor oil, too.

 

[speckledhen]

Aw, what a big, sweet rooster Issac is. I'm sorry you all are going through this. I have a big 5 year old Buff Orpington with arthritic legs who is inside because he just can't handle the cold. I'll have to try the castor oil, too.

At least Isaac's story may help someone else, then, and he's not alone with this stuff.


We have decided to make the main coop back into two coops, easy to do since it was an 8x8 that we added 12' to. We have put up the door again between the two sides and decided who will be with which rooster. The next steps will be to divide the back pen and cut a pop door in the back of the addition, which only had a pop door in the front from when the small pens were on that side. Will also have to add a ramp. Then we are good to go, that is after DH gets over falling on his back out in the yard and wrenching everything from head to toe.

The new groups will be this way:

Isaac's Group
Deacon- he is still scared of Ike so he will be unlikely to challenge him. He ran in fear today when they were face to face.
June, Ike's fav hen, an EE
Georgie, Delaware
Ellie, Delaware
Neela, Blue Rock
Alice, Blue Rock
Tiny, Amera-EE-Sumatra & Deacon's mother
Emily, Black Rock, who has some tendon issues in one leg and doesn't do well being jumped by all the males.
Maretta, EE/Ameraucana, who looks very much like June and is another fav of Isaac

Rex's Group
Scout, Del x EE cockerel
Gabriel Del x BLRW/Amera cockerel (trying to rehome him, though he looks just like Isaac at that age)
Rita, BLRW x Ameraucana-she raised Rex as her own, but he is the son of big Ida and Isaac
Ida, Stukel BR hen
Wynette, Stukel BR
Dottie, Stukel BR
Gloria Jean, Splash Rock
Druscilla, Stukel line BR hen- daughter of Dottie with the late Stukel male, the original Rex
Raven, Tiny's daughter
Delia, Dellie x BR pullet
Serena, Rita's bio daughter with Isaac, looks like pure Delaware

The last three, plus Rex, Scout and Gabriel are all close to the same age so that's why I left them with Rex. This means Ike and Deacon have 8 hens, mostly older, including the two Del hens who were hatched with him 5 years ago. Rex has 9 hens and only Rita is 4 years old. The Stukel Rock hens and Gloria Jean are 3 years old, Dru is a year old.

 

[crazyhen]

I had forgotten you named a hen for me. What is she? I'll tell you my memory is going bad. Ugh, they are saying we are in for another polar vortex coming our way. More cold, cold weather.

 

[speckledhen]

Gloria Jean is a Splash Plymouth Rock, GJ.

Ugh more cold weather. Poor Ike may end up living in the dang house with me.