Maine

[IZZYBELLA]

Welcome, SmellyCat! I always worry about gape worm when I see them suck down an earthworm or slug. I haven't had a problem yet (knock on wood!). I have to agree with Lazy Gardener... it brings them so much joy that I take the risk. I do de-worm my flock twice a year, more if necessary, because my girls get roundworm otherwise.

 

[Brahmalover4eva]

Check Al's Quackery, too. I know she is on facebook and has calls.

Al's is nice, got some gorgeous muscovy's from her. but i don't have experience with her calls.

 

[CoopChick719]

Hi.I wonder if I should never go on vacation while having chickens. Last year they got attacked by a dog when I went to Toronto. This year I got an email from my chicken sitter saying one of my leghorns has mysteriously died. I'm so sad. She was one of my original chickens and one of the most friendly. Eggs as big as the palm of your hand. I could carry her around the yard and she followed me everywhere ( with her sister leghorn. ) Isnt her sister going to be depressed? I just introduced 4 new 6 week olds to the coop and everything was going fine. I'll never know what happened to her though. I was told she didnt come out of the coop on Wednesday morning when he let them all out and when he went to put them to bed he found her dead on the ground. Oh well. The circle of life,right?

Hi Suz, I'm so sorry about your girl!!

I found one of mine like that last year. She showed no signs anything was wrong.

Hi All, I'm in central Maine and am new to this. We have 11 hens, RI Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks and, hopefully today, are about to receive a bunch of guinnea keets. I have 2 questions for you guys: is there a place in central Maine to get bulk organic feed and/ or corn and 2) has anyone ever found gapeworm in their flock? Mine love slugs and I just read @ gape the other day.. ewww!! Thanks for any info you can share

SmellyCat! Love your name!!!

On the slugs, funny thing...mine won't eat them! Love worms but not slugs!

Lost another girl to a fox. Myrtle, 1 of my Partridge Rocks, must have been by herself behind the garage. I went outside for something and heard a bunch of crows making a racket. Found feathers all over the lawn. Went into the woods to investigate and heard something crashing through the underbrush but didn't see anything. Everyone has been in lockdown for 2 days now. They are NOT happy!!! I'll have to sit outside with the 22 after work today to monitor range time.

 

[lazy gardener]

Sorry for your loss Coop Chick. Are you in a no shoot zone?

 

[buckabucka]

Sorry to hear of your losses, suz and Coopchick.

I've got one dying in the house right now. She started by acting sluggish a while back, so I wormed her. She stayed sluggish, and now seems to have developed sour crop. I know how to treat it, but she is so close to death right now that I'm worried it will torture her. I'm about to go pick her up and see what I can do.

My GCM rooster that was so sick he never lifted his head or moved for 24 hours, is back! It was a gradual improvement that involved a lot of syringe feeding. Now he is due for his follow-up worming, which I hope will not have an ill effect. I was pretty shocked that he pulled through and still have no idea what ailed him, but I'm glad it was not contagious.

 

[lazy gardener]

I'm thinking he'd be a good breeder, as he may have developed resistance to what ever it was that made him sick in the first place. That's the prevailing theory to developing flocks with Mareks resistance.

How are you all doing with your gardens and flocks? Off to a slow start here in the garden, and had to re-plant corn. Cukes making a poor showing, so I started some n pots yesterday. However, it's looking like it will be a good gardening year, overall. Chickies of all ages doing well here. I think one of my RCBL may have moved into the coop with the littles. I'll have to double check with a flashlight tonight.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I'm sorry to all those who have losses or illnesses. We had a really sick turkey here for a couple weeks - nasty juicy, sneezy, just gross and lethargic. She sneezed her goo on me one night and I thought I'd be patient zero in the bird flu epidemic. But she's perked up, stopped sneezing and I haven't died yet.

Had our fox come back 2 days ago, though.

 

[buckabucka]

Glad you are not patient zero, SCG. There were several mornings that I woke up exhausted and thought about that sleepy rooster....

We are going to cull this sick hen. She is older, not responding to sour-crop treatment, and unable to use her legs at all. And her feet have curled into tight fists. She looks dead, (never opens her eyes or lifts her head), but she keeps breathing, so we're going to put an end to it.

Our garden is a mixed bag, LG. One hoop house looks empty, other than a few tiny sprouts. I just replanted corn and cucumbers in there. The other hoop house looks good, with it's hardware cloth collars everywhere, but we ran out of hardware cloth and the rat returned. It took some sweet potato plants, and decided to eat the eggplant leaves that stuck up above the hardware cloth. Apparently I need concentric rings of taller and taller hardware cloth, perhaps with barbed-wire all around the garden. It is getting ridiculous! I have some expanded metal I could work with for a few sweet potatoes. The rat zapper is out there, baited with peanut butter, but no hits yet.

Brassicas, beans, potatoes, and onions look good so far. I bought some high-bush blueberries a couple years ago (although my bushes are tiny and low) and today's job is to find them in the weeds.

 

[lazy gardener]

I sympathize with you regarding the rat infestation. That's got to be the absolute worst! Have you resorted to the big guns? Poison? I imagine that once they get a foot hold it's nearly impossible to eradicate them. Maybe you could borrow SCG's fox. I'm dealing with illness too. Not AI, just a miserable chest cold. I have absolutely no energy. Could go to bed and sleep for a week, but too stubborn to do that.

 

[collie1470]

Bait it with chocolate too. They can't resist chocolate (not that I can blame them haha).