Michigan

[M.sue]

Sorry about your loss M Sue...I dont know what that might be but it sounds logical. That sucks.

Thanks, it is a real bummer....your coop & chicks looks nice...good job!

 

[NovaAman]

I think these are the only boys... the white one maybe... but if its a leghorn... the pullets get their combs pretty fast

 

[chicken grandma]

Hi Sarah,

Your chicks are really cute! Your coop looks nice. Two thoughts I had - are your nest boxes big enough for a full size hen? I cannot tell from the photo. If not, you could cut the middle part out combine two small compartments into one. Second thought - can weasels go through chicken wire? Is chicken wire predator proof or do we need a smaller mesh?
Welcome to chicken world. Where you worry about everything all the time.

 

[sarah92480]

Thank you, I designed the coop myself but had to alter it. It was originally square but we decided to build it outside that area & move it in so instead of 4x4 its now 5x3ish.

 

[taprock]

Yayee! Chickies!

My broody hen's eggs finally hatched! She has two cute lil' poofy silkies. A white and a black(?). The black is a tiny little thing cause it came out of a pullet egg.

Very Cute!

I feel so bad because I didn't notice anything prior.....I had no signs. They all were acting normal, eating, drinking and their usual active selves this afternoon when I went to give them a treat. Can this happen this fast? I know that you can treat one but like I said I didn't notice anything unusual prior.

I'm assuming that after she died and by the time I got home which was an hour & half later that the prolapse started to shrink back down. I don't know. I feel blahhhhh......

I had that happen with two of mine last spring. They looked the same as yours. It happened out of the blue no signs or warning. My only conclusion was they had gained too much weight during the winter with all the treats and extra protein I gave them. I don't know if that is right but it was the only thing I could come up with that I thought might have caused it.

 

[sarah92480]

OMG Nova, I hope that black sex link isn't a boy! I was told it was a pullet, the whole batch was pullets...are they often wrong?

The wyandottes were the only straight run birds I got.

 

[NovaAman]

M.sue, sorry about your hen.

I like the coop Sarah, I was thinking like CG, that maybe the nest boxes might be a bit on the little side, but they might work. I have hens using the small sterlite totes...

 

[NovaAman]

OMG Nova, I hope that black sex link isn't a boy! I was told it was a pullet, the whole batch was pullets...are they often wrong?

The wyandottes were the only straight run birds I got.

If you got them from a store that is not very careful... then chicks get moved around where they aren't supposed to be. Easy to do. It happens. I am not sure about the BSL... Maybe they grow combs fast as well?

 

[chicken grandma]

M.Sue - I just had one hen prolapse in many years. The protrusion was 10 times larger than the protrusion in your photo. I put on a sterile vinyl glove, put some olive oil on my gloved fingers and gently lifted the protruding cloaca up and toward the vent while my daughter held the chicken. We tried not to contaminate the vent or protruding cloaca by touching it any more than I had to with the sterile glove. The cloaca retracted into the vent and the chicken went on her merry way. She was an older hen (6years) and lived another year and laid rarely. The whole process from spotting the protrusion to gathering supplies and gently encouraging the cloaca to retract took about 2 minutes. We moved fast.
Your photo does not look the same to me. Our hen very obviously had something that looked deeper red like an internal organ hanging out the vent - it was obvious what it was and what we had to do.

 

[sarah92480]

Quote:

Hi Sarah,

Your chicks are really cute! Your coop looks nice. Two thoughts I had - are your nest boxes big enough for a full size hen? I cannot tell from the photo. If not, you could cut the middle part out combine two small compartments into one. Second thought - can weasels go through chicken wire? Is chicken wire predator proof or do we need a smaller mesh?
Welcome to chicken world. Where you worry about everything all the time.

Thanks! That outside fence is actually just chain link at this point, but I will also be covering it with chicken wire, just haven't gotten to it yet. There's 2 "windows" above the next boxes which I put chicken wire on also. Think that is enough ventilation? They are pretty big. I made the next boxes to be like 15x12, I had hoped that was big enough. But maybe I'm totally wrong?? I can probably alter that pretty easily if I need to. I appreciate the info and that others are helping me worry about everything Im missing