Michigan

[Olive Hill]

Quote:
First, I have put ice-cold abandoned turkey eggs in a cold incubator and they hatched just fine, so all may not be lost for you.

Second, on the coop, what kind of bedding are you using and can light enter the coop? Deep bedding will help heat it up in there as the natural break-down process of the bedding materials creates heat. Allowing light to enter via windows, etc. can also help. If it's dark in there and there is a lack of thick bedding once it cools down it will take a long time to warm back up. It's not uncommon for coops to be just as cold as outside, so I wouldn't say to worry about the temp itself, but it should feel warmer. Bedding and light help that, making sure the wind is well-blocked will, too. HTH!

 

[RBahmer]

Well here are a few pictures of my new baby. The only one that has hatched so far. Blue Copper Marans chick.

 

[Mom 2em All]

Olive Hill-

I have pine bedding in there, same as last year. Its about 12 inches deep. They have windows- *thinking* The front window that the sun would shine in most is blocked by the plastic "shield" I put up to block the wind. My coop is only about five and a half foot tall, three feet wide, six foot long? Rough guesstimates. Its on blocks so its actually taller. I think I may put a heat lamp in, just to bring up the temp- then turn it off and see if I get rid of the refrigerator effect.
Thank you for forcing me to think through it. I didnt realize how much difference having one window blocked would make it. The side windows are not blocked. However, that is evening sun only.

 

[9chickens]

Quote:
It's not the cold so much as the humidity. Even at moderate temps (30's) there is a possibility of frostbite when you factor in the humidity and the wind chill. All three conditions were present today so that is what I suspect was the causal factor, but I'm not 100% certain.

The known facts are no metal surfaces to contact with; blood on the plastic water containers where a comb would likely touch when the hen drinks and the 2 hens with the large combs have black tips on their combs. It may just be a coincidence. But... Anytime one sees blood where it shouldn't be should investigate where it may have come from. Thus, blood on the water container made me take a close look at the critters that use it. I don't think I'm being over-protective; I think I'm being pro-active in finding the cause.

The good news is that no chicken seems to be adversely affected but I would rather error on the side of caution as I am a steward in the welfare of the animals I share my home with. A little bit of balm on their combs is easily done, even if over-reactive.

I should also note that the egg that Gravy gave me today had a smear of blood on the shell, so the blood on the waterer really stood out. Maybe that led to an acute awareness of anything amiss, but I'll stand by my position of due viligence in caring for my little flock.

On the other hand, perhaps I can exploit this situation and get one of those coeds to come help me with a chicken boo-boo. And this time I can ask them out.

I had a similar thing with my chickens, the black spots were from them establishing the pecking order after we rescued them. One of the chickens black spots started growing, we contacted a "chicken" doctor from MSU and described every thing to him. He said our chicken had chicken pox. ( I thought they would get people pox) it is not contagious to people or other animals. It is a viral infection caused from getting pecked with a dirty beak. He said more than likely it would spread through the flock and not to be concerned. Well most of my girls now have black spots and the original one is cleared up.
There are 2 kinds of pox, the one my girls had which is dry pox and then there is a wet pox which affects respiratory and mucus membranes. The second is the bad one.
If you look at the black spots and they resemble a wort like growth then you probably have the dry version of chicken pox.
The reason I would think this is the blood you found. Obviously there was pecking or injury of some kind to the combs

 

[Olive Hill]

IMO/E pine shavings are a "cold" bedding, along with sawdust and pellets. They're nice for cleaning, but they don't give the warm feel like straw and hay. You could try switching over. Other than that I'll just leave you with my standard "think before you heat" bullet points for consideration.

- Can You Sustain It? If the power goes out, or in your case planning to remove it after a short period, means that your chickens go from warm to cool at the flick of a switch (or the removal of their heat lamp, as it is) rather than being acclimated to the cold the way mother nature intended. The abrupt on/off heat cycle is far harder on their systems than just plain cold straight through. Think of when you're inside and you first step out, it seems so much colder outside than it feels after you've been out there for an hour or so. This is because you acclimate to the cold and it doesn't feel as bad. Going from being heated, to not being heated is a similar shock for chickens.

- Heating increases the risk of Frostbite. As we're discussing with Raz tonight, humidity plays a big role in frostbite, bigger than temperature in most cases. When you add heat to the coop it can contribute to an increase in humidity that can lead to frost bite. For chickens in our zone/climate the temperatures right around freezing are actually the biggest risk zone for frostbite, by heating the coop you're maintaining it in that risk zone.

- Make sure you double and triple secure for safety. If you should decide to heat don't depend on the manufacturer's clips to secure your light. Use a second and even a third securing method such as a chain and make sure these are hooked to different hooks than each other.

Good Luck!

 

[9chickens]

Rbahmer
Nice looking chick. Congratulations on the hatching .

 

[RBahmer]

Quote:
Thank you. One out of 31 not good odds but oh well. This is my first time.lol

 

[Olive Hill]

Quote:
It's not the cold so much as the humidity. Even at moderate temps (30's) there is a possibility of frostbite when you factor in the humidity and the wind chill. All three conditions were present today so that is what I suspect was the causal factor, but I'm not 100% certain.

The known facts are no metal surfaces to contact with; blood on the plastic water containers where a comb would likely touch when the hen drinks and the 2 hens with the large combs have black tips on their combs. It may just be a coincidence. But... Anytime one sees blood where it shouldn't be should investigate where it may have come from. Thus, blood on the water container made me take a close look at the critters that use it. I don't think I'm being over-protective; I think I'm being pro-active in finding the cause.

The good news is that no chicken seems to be adversely affected but I would rather error on the side of caution as I am a steward in the welfare of the animals I share my home with. A little bit of balm on their combs is easily done, even if over-reactive.

I should also note that the egg that Gravy gave me today had a smear of blood on the shell, so the blood on the waterer really stood out. Maybe that led to an acute awareness of anything amiss, but I'll stand by my position of due viligence in caring for my little flock.

On the other hand, perhaps I can exploit this situation and get one of those coeds to come help me with a chicken boo-boo. And this time I can ask them out.

I had a similar thing with my chickens, the black spots were from them establishing the pecking order after we rescued them. One of the chickens black spots started growing, we contacted a "chicken" doctor from MSU and described every thing to him. He said our chicken had chicken pox. ( I thought they would get people pox) it is not contagious to people or other animals. It is a viral infection caused from getting pecked with a dirty beak. He said more than likely it would spread through the flock and not to be concerned. Well most of my girls now have black spots and the original one is cleared up.
There are 2 kinds of pox, the one my girls had which is dry pox and then there is a wet pox which affects respiratory and mucus membranes. The second is the bad one.
If you look at the black spots and they resemble a wort like growth then you probably have the dry version of chicken pox.
The reason I would think this is the blood you found. Obviously there was pecking or injury of some kind to the combs

To clarify: the lesions that are associated with fowl pox are scab-like, the discoloration associated with frostbite is not. Fowl-pox is also not progressive, starting at the tips and working its way down like frostbite would. The lesions can crop up anywhere on the comb, wattles and even legs. It's viral and is transmitted bird-to-bird and via bites and mucous-membrance contacts but it's also transmitted by mosquitoes and other biting insects as well as via open wounds in contact with the environment. The vet was correct in that it does not effect other animals, but that can be misleading since it is a hardy virus that can live on inanimate objects for months. In that way it can be passed around for quite some time and is one of those diseases that is easily tracked out to other flocks on boots, etc.

 

[chicken grandma]

Olive, it sounds like fowl pox is a virus that requires no treatment and will pass with time.
Is that correct?

 

[Olive Hill]

Correct. No treatment exists. It's slow-spreading however, so if you know you have an outbreak you can vaccinate the birds that are not yet effected and hopefully prevent that -- so I suppose you could consider that a form of flock-wide "treatment" rather than just prevention. The other thing is that if you suspect a secondary infection you may need to treat that. If I'm not mistaken secondary infections are not common with pox though.