Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Living the Simple Life]

Anyone here happen to be from the Jackson area and have kids in the Jackson 4-H program? We are wanting to show chickens this year at the fair. I was looking over the rules and regulations for breeders and its says we must have chicks in our possession by March 1st. Well our chicken leader hasn't even had a meeting yet this year! So now I feel like I'm scrambling to find chicks in time. We were planning to build our own incubator (I've already ordered the parts for it on ebay) and now to find out we won't have time to incubate them for the fair. Grrr. So can anyone shed some light on, Am I reading this is right And B) if I am, anyone have chicks that are NPIP certified for sale in or around the Jackson area, or can recommend a place? We want bantam. As far as the breed, we still haven't picked out everything we wanted. We wanted different/unusual birds, such as silkies, frizzles etc. But beyond that we haven't settled on exact breeds. More importantly, we need breeds that are docile for showing.

Hi NightOwl3:

We are in the Jackson 4-H program. I don't think the possession date is until May 1. The March 1 date isn't matching up to anything I have read. There are various order dates for turkeys, geese, ducks, broilers, etc... but none of them are March 1. Maybe double-check with the superintendents.

 

[Maah]

We had to bring our brahma rooster inside the house 2 days ago. His feet were spontaneously super swollen & red. Ugh. So swollen that it looked like he was wearing big red boots & hubby couldn't even pinch his toes together. Yikes. We don't know if it's just from being super cold, or frostbite, or infection, or leg mites or what... just that they looked awful all of a sudden, one foot being slightly worse than the other. We let him enjoy a "foot spa" where he just stood in a bowl of warm soapy water while DH held him a bit to take the weight off. He seemed to love that... nearly fell asleep and never fought a bit. He probably would have been content to stay there all night other than hubby's arm got tired. We set him up in a cage in our front room & let him warm up. The next day the swelling had gone done quite a bit & most of the redness was gone as well. The rooster was able to flex his toes on the one slightly better leg & was exercising it while standing on the other worse leg. We gave him another "foot spa", then cleaned his feet, coated them heavily with antibiotic ointment (with the pain reliever... even though I wasn't sure if that's okay for chickens, he just looked quite sore), and we wrapped his feet in self adherent bandage wrap. He is still able to walk around on them & gets to his food & water, etc. That was yesterday. Today he seems to be doing fine... but he seems a bit bored in his cage. So I gave him some veggie scraps from the kitchen. I haven't checked his feet yet, I'll wait for hubby to help with that.

 

[chickwhispers]

@Maah ....Awwwwww. Hope he's better soon!

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

@Maah look up Leahs Mom's post about her Frostbite. Also Aoxa's video. Good resources there. There was an active thread on the Duck Forum about same, you can find Leahs Mom & Aoxa's video there... Title was something like "Pain Relievers for Ducks"

Anyway, I hope it gets better. This has been one wild winter.

 

[tororider]

Hi everyone, we are getting steadily closer to moving to our "homestead" and I am getting more and more excited about getting chickens again. I am looking for some black australorp and cuckoo maran hatching eggs and was wondering if anyone had them locally. Thanks.

 

[gladahmae]

Avoid any pain relievers in ointments that have "Caine" family drugs as they can be fatal to poultry.

 

[Trefoil]

Hi everyone, we are getting steadily closer to moving to our "homestead" and I am getting more and more excited about getting chickens again. I am looking for some black australorp and cuckoo maran hatching eggs and was wondering if anyone had them locally. Thanks.

coyzstze - has some australop pullets he just got from,I don't remember where, but I think he had to meet min order so has some for sale,

 

[naglady]

Having a awesome hatch.. started with 18 eggs in lockdown, 14 hatched so far. 1 pip, and 3 eggs not doing anything... started day 22 at 2pm today.. so still have time.

 

[chickwhispers]

@naglady

Congratulations!!!!!

 

[chickwhispers]

@preciouskitty and @Opa Your funnies are truly good for the soul!

@taprock Good luck with the eagle. As beautiful and majestic as they may be, I'm glad I don't have to deal with one. That's rough!