Keeping Chickens When You Have Arthritis.

[pennyJo1960]

getting late here gonna get a few more indoor things done go to bed
sleep goodnight all

 

[henless]

Can't believe I've missed this thread!

I have RA, OA, Asthma & I'm hypothyroid. Taking Arava for the RA, but will be stopping it soon due to severe hair loss & staring to itch. Will probably end up going back to MTX even though I was starting to develop a rash from it. If that doesn't work, it's on to the biologics.

My major complaint with the RA/thyroid is fatigue. The pain I can handle. I have a high pain tolerance, not to mention several different pain meds if it gets too bad. There's nothing you can take for the fatigue. Some days it's all I can do to get things done.

It has come time to downsize. I've gone from 3 coops w/runs & a 4th coop started, back to my original 10x20 coop/run combo. My 3rd & 4th coops have been torn down along with my three 10x20 runs. My coop is in a 23 yr old pole barn that really needs to be torn down. DH is wanting to build me a new coop w/run this summer.

Things I do to make life with chickens easier:

I use 5 gallon buckets with horizontal nipples for water. That will usually last me a couple of weeks with 10 hens. Once it's close to empty, it's easy to move. I just clean it, then sit it back in the coop and fill with a water hose. I have water & electricity to the coop. In the winter, I use the cookie tin heater to sit under my buckets to keep them from freezing. Works well with the horizontal nipples.

When I first got my chickens, I used those 1 gallon flip waterers. They were so hard for me to use. I had trouble unscrewing them.



For my feed, I have 2 different containers that I can use. One is a 5 gallon bucket. It holds 25 lbs of feed. My favorite is a plastic tote that holds 50 lbs of feed. It's easy to tell when it needs refilling.



I use deep litter for the bedding in my coop. I pile it deep in the fall, then thin it out in the spring since we get so hot here. The coop never stinks. It does get dusty.

There are really no every day cleaning/feeding chores. This makes things easy on my "bad" days.

 

[microchick]

It's really hard for folks who have never experienced it to understand what the fatigue is like. I have always been a high energy sort of person but when the MTX hits me, I literally do a face plant on the sofa and sleep for a couple of hours, wake up and am good go again. I also seem to have developed a sensitivity to cold that can make it uncomfortable for DH when I have the temp cranked up in the house in order to be comfortable. Sometimes it feels as though I have concrete blocks tied to my feet and I'm trying to walk with them dragging behind me.

@nomoreemptynest, I was in the same boat. I was always sick when I worked in patient care nursing. Sinus infections, bronchitis, flu, colds, viruses, you name it I had it. It got some better when I started working with my husband in his optometric practice but I still got sick easily. When we retired he asked me if I was going to find another job as a nurse and I told him no. My license was due be renewed that year and when it came I checked 'inactive' without a second thought and mailed it back to them. I told DH that my health was too valuable to me to risk it any longer. I was done. No regrets whatsoever. I was a nurse for 39 years. It was time for the young nurses to pick up the reins.

I wish I could get my birds to use nipple waterers. I've tried my best to train them but they just don't catch on and will run outside to drink out of a mud puddle instead.

We have 5 cats so kitty litter containers are always around. My favorites are the ones that look like jugs and can hold over two gallons of water. I can handle that much weight but not much more than that so I bring down all my jugs (probably around 10 right now) fill them with water, load them in my trusty wagon and pull them to the coop where I store them for use over the next 5 days or so.

@henless, welcome to the thread. All here are dealing with chronic pain of some sort. For me it's from Serum Negative RA, Gout, Osteoarthritis, Osteoporosis, Osteopenia and Ankylosing Spondylitis. The latter causes me to have lumbar back pain and pain in my spine where the cervical and thoracic vertebrae come together. The neck and shoulder pain probably causes me the most problems.

I too do the MTX shots weekly (just jabbed myself with this week's dose) I feel very well with it but my white count and blood count were low last labs so I don't know how much longer I will be able to continue on with it. Yes,it has whacked my resistance hard but we live away from people and I wear a mask when I shop since I got sick over the holidays thanks to a person near me coughing out a lung when I was Christmas shopping. So I have to be careful also.

It all makes keeping my chickens a challenge at best but I won't give up, which is the purpose of this thread.

Making life easier with your chickens when you are in pain.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

Can't believe I've missed this thread!

I have RA, OA, Asthma & I'm hypothyroid. Taking Arava for the RA, but will be stopping it soon due to severe hair loss & staring to itch. Will probably end up going back to MTX even though I was starting to develop a rash from it. If that doesn't work, it's on to the biologics.

My major complaint with the RA/thyroid is fatigue. The pain I can handle. I have a high pain tolerance, not to mention several different pain meds if it gets too bad. There's nothing you can take for the fatigue. Some days it's all I can do to get things done.

It has come time to downsize. I've gone from 3 coops w/runs & a 4th coop started, back to my original 10x20 coop/run combo. My 3rd & 4th coops have been torn down along with my three 10x20 runs. My coop is in a 23 yr old pole barn that really needs to be torn down. DH is wanting to build me a new coop w/run this summer.

Things I do to make life with chickens easier:

I use 5 gallon buckets with horizontal nipples for water. That will usually last me a couple of weeks with 10 hens. Once it's close to empty, it's easy to move. I just clean it, then sit it back in the coop and fill with a water hose. I have water & electricity to the coop. In the winter, I use the cookie tin heater to sit under my buckets to keep them from freezing. Works well with the horizontal nipples.

When I first got my chickens, I used those 1 gallon flip waterers. They were so hard for me to use. I had trouble unscrewing them.

View attachment 1719809

For my feed, I have 2 different containers that I can use. One is a 5 gallon bucket. It holds 25 lbs of feed. My favorite is a plastic tote that holds 50 lbs of feed. It's easy to tell when it needs refilling.

View attachment 1719819 View attachment 1719822

I use deep litter for the bedding in my coop. I pile it deep in the fall, then thin it out in the spring since we get so hot here. The coop never stinks. It does get dusty.

There are really no every day cleaning/feeding chores. This makes things easy on my "bad" days.

Welcome! I use the same bucket feeder that you use. My daughter made it for me. I love it. The bin looks even better, being able to see when it needs filling.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I do 5 gallon home depot buckets with three nipples on one side set on cement bricks
have a hose bib in the coop and electrical thanks to my BF as I have a laundry list myself
even my Silky coop breathing incubator aliens use the nipples and teach anything they raise at a week old before that they get a very shallow pan of water so no one may drown in it

 

[henless]

Our weather has changed. I find that the changing weather makes me hurt worse then the heat or cold. Once the change is over, it's not so bad. I can adjust, though I do struggle with the humidity here.

Another thing that makes life easier is brooding outside and using either a heat plate or a MHP (Momma Heating Pad). I know not everyone can or wants to, but it seems a lot easier keeping the mess outside than inside.

I got new chicks this past week. Picked the last 4 up on Friday, temps where around 80*. Temps this morning were 32* and the chicks are doing just fine. I have them in a wire brooder in a wire coop. I do have clear plastic up for a windbreak, but no other heat source except my Premier heat plate. My MHP is being used to start my veggies this year.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

Our weather has changed. I find that the changing weather makes me hurt worse then the heat or cold. Once the change is over, it's not so bad. I can adjust, though I do struggle with the humidity here.

Another thing that makes life easier is brooding outside and using either a heat plate or a MHP (Momma Heating Pad). I know not everyone can or wants to, but it seems a lot easier keeping the mess outside than inside.

I got new chicks this past week. Picked the last 4 up on Friday, temps where around 80*. Temps this morning were 32* and the chicks are doing just fine. I have them in a wire brooder in a wire coop. I do have clear plastic up for a windbreak, but no other heat source except my Premier heat plate. My MHP is being used to start my veggies this year.

View attachment 1722527

Such cute babies! My daughter's MHP that I used for my chicks last summer is now being used for her seedlings too. Multi use item.

I have trouble with weather too. Falling barometer, storm coming...I know it. I wish the freezing temps would end here. I'd love to get rid of the heated waterer. Plus just be able to spend more time outside.

It's going to get up to the 50s this week but rainy. I want to start readying gardens and finish the backyard plan I started years ago then had to give up when everything started hurting, before I was diagnosed. My husband helped tremendously last year and I only have to make a dry riverbed type area for the house gutter to empty into. I have a little wooden bridge to go over it. Then it's done. After I was diagnosed, the plan changed to an easier to maintain one. Then I had to add a chicken coop to it, lol.

 

[microchick]

I have Egyptian Fayoumi chicks coming some time this week. So excited to finally be getting them.

Also getting ready to transplant my seedlings again. Hopefully the weather will start to settle down so I can get my garden ready and my onions and taters in the ground. One of our Amish neighbors operates a green house and I saw where they are advertising onion sets and seed potatoes. I have the best luck with the Amish plants, especially the onions. Also trying to figure out where to put a herb bed so it is close to the house.

Decisions decisions.....

 

[Birdmania]

Wow so many people here with chronic pain and so many good ideas to help manage our girls. I also live with chronic pain due to osteoarthritis and possible MS. I am stealing some of these ideas to use as well.
I use a wagon to haul heavy bags of feed, use deep litter method, have plenty of hose to reach my coop, free range as much as possible, and I have a barrel feeder that holds a weeks worth of food at a time.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

Hope everyone is doing well. The weather these past few weeks has me in pain. Falling barometers, storms every week. I barely have time to recover from one round when the next one starts. Plus now I have a sinus infection so no RA meds for 2 weeks. Not going to be fun, I see lots of ibuprofen in my future.
All 4 of my chickens are now laying, yay! Such cute little bantam eggs. My cochin has laid every day for 2 weeks. My EEs lay green eggs that all look the same. At first one looked bluish and another one was a more pointy egg, but now they've all settled into identical eggs. I'd love a mixed bag of colors, but that's the way it goes when you only have 4 chickens!