Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[aart]

I have a question I think I know the answer to, but please lend me your knowledge anyways.

I am losing chickens, they start to limp and then a few days later they are dead when we go out to feed them, I have lost 4 this winter, varying ages and breeds.

The first one I ever lost to this was a year and a half ago and then the next one was this winter, these birds I have now I didn't even have a year and a half ago.

Do I need to just put them down the moment I find them limping, because as of right now, it really feels like they are passing something around, is there any way to save the rest of them, without taking them all to the vet, because honestly, I'm not going to do that, I can't spend that money on my chickens, they are sweet and lovely, but I won't do it.

.Maybe this has already been suggested but you can get a necropsy done as MSU, not sure of the how to details tho...only way to know for sure what you are dealing with.

Hello Michigan Chicken Keepers!

Thanks for such a warm welcome and great advice early on. Sorry this is a long post but I would really appreciate any feedback.

My wife and I did get chickens. We have 5 very cute New Hampshire chicks growing like mad in our living room. They are pretty chatty girls. Seem to be very happy and healthy. Can't wait till the thermometer climbs and we can get them roaming free.

Background on me. I am an engineer living in Metro Detroit. My interests include electronics, gadgets, woodworking, home automation and now chickens! I run Sanborn Engineering LLC which is focused on high quality cost effective products.

Keeping chickens to me has many benefits (fresh eggs, bug control, fertilizer, and food). They do have some downsides mainly they need to be monitored daily. Add food, add water, collect eggs, let them out in the morning, and close them up at night . Automation is the solution I see. It allows you to go away on the weekend and not worry about the chickens. A friend or neighbor just has to swing through to give a quick check.

I am hoping to get some feedback from you experienced chicken keepers about potential products to help make your lives easier. My goal is to make the world a little better place through high quality products promoting sustainable behavior.

I would love to hear any great ideas you have. There must be lots!


My services are for hire. If you are looking for a custom solution I would love to talk with you.

Feel free to shoot me a message or e-mail.

If you would like to speak in detail please give me a call 1-517-605-3602.

Thank you very much,
James Sanborn
[email protected]
Sanborn Engineering LLC

What fun!... electronics are not my forte.... but if you need a drafter, message me.

Having such devices would be great fun, but agrees with a previous poster that they are probably cost prohibitive to most BY keepers.

 

[snowflake]

have to read back 3 more pages to catch up ,but
Mean gander, freezer camp, just like mean rooster

necropsy VERY $$ cost me $170. MSU I was losing birds though and it was worth it to know what was going on, Dr Mick [email protected] he is very good at getting back to you if you have questions, but chickens are a guessing game, they die with out notice. animalhealth.msu.edu is another E I have, I think they set up apt.s

how many chickens do you have??



feeding baby chicks, momma hen takes them out and teaches them to eat grass and bugs as soon as all have hatched

Welcome to all the newbies

Jimmy, those gadgets sound like fun, costley but fun..... can you make a nipple waterer that won't freeze??

 

[JackieandChicks]

Hello All! Just a few random pics of the happy birds getting to sort-of scrounge around in their covered yard (excuse the funky tarp - I am going to redo the entire area this year after we replace the roof on the barn, so I didn't want to put up anything permanent). Not all of my girls - some are in laying right now. Love having a place to share chicken pics!








And a pic of the 7 chicks that hatched so far - have a few more days before I clean the 'bator and possibly start again. Not sure when - have too many chicks in my laundry room right now with these and the 15 4 week olds!

 

[Peep-Chicken]

It seems like weeds always grow better than what you want right!  My blackberries are wild but always produce thumb size berries.  No work there.  Blueberries get pruned every few years and I mulch them in the fall with pine needles and in the spring with compost I make.  Raspberries get cut back and show new canes in the spring.  Grapes (did them yesterday) get a buzz haircut, literally I remove all of the previous years vines.  I prune all the apple trees by cutting suckers and branches shooting upwards.  My pear trees are young but soon they'll get pruned.  Mt tart cherries are getting old but I have a 6 year old tree starting to produce and I just ordered a new tart and sweet cheery tree to put in in April, plus some new grapes.  About ten years ago I started planting evergreens, like blues, balsams, douglases, fraziers, and norways around the property.  I ordered 10 more fraziers.  Some day I need to look into pruning them ( or not).

I think we'll have to dig up our strawberry patch and replant it with the strongest plants.  I let it go to weed but that's nothing new, lol!  

Wow, the garden...Let the weed war begin!!!!  Somehow the darn thing gets bigger every year. 

On another note, trees are tapped, saps flowing, and I tagged 4 Cherry trees to cut down for future sap firewood.

I guess all this rambling is part chest cold, being up at 4am, and spring fever...have a sunny day everyone!

When we pruned the blackberry bush one year, we never got berries for several years. Maybe I did it wrong.

We always thought we had 3 crab apple trees, but last year they produced some really good apples! One tree is might have to be cut down, it's slowly withering away.

The blackberry busy might need to be enclosed this year. The chickens where to young to know that last year they where edible!

And our strawberries never did well. So we gave dome to a friend and they got huge strawberries!

 

[snowflake]

Greenmimama
if you did not pay extra for vacc. they most likely were not. some of the signs I had with Mareks, limping, stopped eating, became very thin, wasting away they of course very week and died, tried everything I could find, some times they seem to get a little better then not.

it can take months to go through the flock,,,,, some will survive some will not,,,,, vaccination is to be done before they have contact with other birds or soil as it is in the soil and becoming very prevalent. it can be carried in by other animals,birds. There are many other things that can get you birds too so it is hard to say. I only get birds that are vaccinated now, they can still get Mareks but less likely keeping a closed flock is also a good idea. But hard to do



good book for beginners The Small-Scale Poultry Flock.....by Harvey Ussery

 

[snowflake]

Hello All! Just a few random pics of the happy birds getting to sort-of scrounge around in their covered yard (excuse the funky tarp - I am going to redo the entire area this year after we replace the roof on the barn, so I didn't want to put up anything permanent). Not all of my girls - some are in laying right now. Love having a place to share chicken pics!







And a pic of the 7 chicks that hatched so far - have a few more days before I clean the 'bator and possibly start again. Not sure when - have too many chicks in my laundry room right now with these and the 15 4 week olds!

love your chicks and your run, it looks just like mine, tree in the middle and all....be aware that possums rabbit (not sure about coons) can get through the 2x4 welded wire, you might want to put hardware cloth around the lower 3ft....

 

[fuzzybutt love]

@greenmimama check your feed for mold. I know someone who lost some birds to moldy feed.

I had forgotten about the feed. I still have one of the feed bags of my possibly bad feed, i never got to look it up. I think dh threw away the lable on the other one. Sigh.

Greenmema

I am sorry to hear of the losses. It hurts when you are close to them- and is hard for non chicken people to understand. *hugs*

 

[gladahmae]

I am SO excited about my strawberry plants this year! It will be year 3 for my original 8 plants, and year 2 for 8 others that I put in last spring. I got a pretty decent yield from them last year (half of them are ever-bearing varieties), and am already hoarding the strawberry containers from the grocery store for this year. I think my husband thinks I'm getting a little carried away with all my container collecting: milk jugs and yogurt and cottage cheese containers for winter sewing, 4 HUGE bags of egg cartons from a cousin that got out of chickens, and now strawberry containers!

Next on the list will be egg collecting for the incubator.....well, at least it WILL be if they ever start laying again! my 14 eggs a day has turned into 4 again. Silly chickens!







On the limping/dying chicken thought, I don't have any good ideas, but if you can afford a necropsy, that seems like the best way to go. It may seem like a lot of money up-front, but if you figure in the cost of feed to keep raising chicks and this is a recurring issue, you're still spending the money, and having a lot more frustration. I know that I've read about chickens who exhibited Mareks-like symptoms due to a mineral deficiency from some locally-milled feed......but I don't think that person LOST any birds from that.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

...I think my husband thinks I'm getting a little carried away with all my container collecting: milk jugs and yogurt and cottage cheese containers for winter sewing, 4 HUGE bags of egg cartons from a cousin that got out of chickens, and now strawberry containers!     

My DH is disgusted with me & my containers! I have sprouted so far inside:
Tomatos, 3 vars Peppers, 4 vars Eggplant, Sage, Lavender, and today tomatos. I will transplant these into milk hugs for wintersowing proper and put these out in a few weeks. One jug of peppers already spent that 40F night outside and did fine! Yay! But I'm ready to get these outside! DH is too!

Here's the Italian Pepperoncini Pepper that slept outside already:

 

[JackieandChicks]

love your chicks and your run, it looks just like mine, tree in the middle and all....be aware that possums rabbit (not sure about coons) can get through the 2x4 welded wire, you might want to put hardware cloth around the lower 3ft....

This is only for during the day; their "sun room" and coop have both the hard wire and chicken wire - I had possums get in by tearing the chicken wire, so I now have both. I just wanted more to contain them and keep the hawks out during the day when I am not here when there is not any snow. I will be reinforcing when I rebuilt. Thanks!