Michigan

[1muttsfan]

There is always Chickenstock.

You might want to put up a screen over the front of her broody box to keep the other hens from bothering her, and just take her out for a half hour a day to poop and get some exercise.

 

[M.sue]

Opa... this is absolutely awesome....I love it.

Well it looks like a Little Boy Blue has finally figured out which end of the hen is used for what. Found a bullseye egg a few days ago, and today I saw him on his favorite hen.

Talking about favorite hens I noticed yesterday that one of my Black Sex Links has two spots on her back that look like the feathers are worn & missing. Seriously thinking of a saddle apron because this morning when I let them out she was the first one the Roo went for.

How long have you had them?

How long have they been exhibiting these symptoms?

Does it seem to be spreading?

What is their environment? Where are they being kept? What kind of bedding? What is the ventilation like?

Are they eating normally? Drinking normally?

How is their growth rate?

What are you feeding them?

Any mortality? If so, how did it relate to the symptoms timeline wise?

Are their droppings normal?

Any head shaking?

Rattles/rales? Abnormal breathing sounds? Have you listened closely when they're resting?

Panting or gasping?

Any blood in your brooder you can't explain?

I know... lots of questions... sorry.

Olive....with all the knowledge you have you could open your own Poultry/Fowl Clinic....seriously. You always seem to know the pros & cons, do's & don'ts and the right questions to ask. How fortunate for us!

Ugh, thanks for the replies, guys, that's more than I'd hoped for, which was probably foolish. $100 just means a lot to our family right now.

$100 is a lot any time. Hope you figure out the right treatment for them.


Here is a pic of that misshaped egg that I got this morning. By looking at the size it I wonder if it's a double yolker?

 

[fuzzybutt love]

Yes, she is closed in now. My "nest boxes" are rabbit cages stacked on top of each other, with hay nests built in them and i have little logs in them to divide the nest from the "free space" they would need to do their duty.

Hers is the smaller cage on top that has been hers since i bought her, i put her in it to keep her safe while i was away, since she is the only bantam i have so far. I am letting her hatch a few of her eggs, though she is yet a pullet in the hopes that she will have some banty babies to keep her company. The other eggs are from my EE. The other hens rarely go up there, too hard to get their big butts in! If these are dead, i will slip a couple banty babies from TSC under her, so she doesn't get distressed.

 

[NovaAman]

There is development on both eggs. I feed Leila Veena's egg everyday with vitamin drops and bread soaked in it. She's been going out on her own along with my taking her out daily. Better this time around compared to the last time. She is also meaner this time. Lol.

 

[b737drvr]

Hey all. Finally on my way back to Michigan after being gone for a week plus. Of course I see now that I am coming home, it is supposed to rain tomorrow. Grrr...still have too much work to do on the coop. I have decided to attempt to raise the coop up on cinder blocks. I just need it to dry out enough to get the tractor over there, and then get some inlaws (outlaws) to help me out. Took a while catching up on all of the posts. Another follow-up question to the last question I had regarding chick starter is what sorts of treatments/medicines should I have on hand "just-in-case"? I read about Juise's issues w/ her chicks. What things illnesses/diseases am I likely to encounter in the first 2-3 months?

 

[chicken grandma]

b737 -
If you buy your chicks from a reputable hatchery that tests for illness and have them sent directly to you, then you should have a good chance of avoiding illness in your flock.
Be sure to get enough chicks all at once that you can lose a few to predators.

Juice got her chicks at 5 weeks old from a farm that allows a lot of visitors. So the chicks she purchased may have been exposed to a respiratory illness during the 5 weeks they were at the first location.
Juice also has a flock of older chickens at her home. They may be carriers of respiratory illness and even though they are quarantined apart, the illness can be spread by humans on their clothing or in their hair from one set of chickens to the other group. Wild birds or contaminated ground may also be a way that the illness is spread.

In addition, the chicks that Juice has may have aquired respiratory illness from the egg they hatched from if the farm that hatched them did not test the parent chickens to make sure they were free from respiratory disease.

Since the weather has been shifting hotter and colder, I hope that Juice's chicks have just caught a simple respiratory infection that can be cured with antibiotic.

As far as having medicine on hand, I have not done that. I feel that it is better to get a diagnosis before giving the chickens any medicine and so I simply have a veterinarian that I can consult if I have a problem.

With new chicks from a single source and a reputable hatchery, in a fresh coop on fresh ground, you are starting out with the best possible situation.

 

[Chickmate]

So sorry for all of you who have lost chicks or have sick ones.

Opa - Love the bas relief, very nice work.

I went to TSC today and was not even tempted as all they had were ISA Browns, NH Reds and BR's. I got layer crumbles and grower/finisher for the chicks and I did see the big metal rooster some of you want so badly. Very cute! I was going to tell you they had it marked down to $25, but thought that would be too cruel.

Little Joe, my baby BR cockerel is jumping on the adult hens already! Sure takes after his daddy! Here is a picture just in case any of you are dying for a little rooster.



All four of Mama's babies. I think the white pullet is from the ISA egg with Worf, my EE roo as her Daddy. If ISA Browns are the result of breeding a Rhode Island Red with a Rhode Island White, then would she be white because she is a 'deconstructed' ISA Brown? The two dark chicks look exactly alike with Joe as their Daddy, but the cockerel is from the FBCM egg (he has feathered legs) and the pullet is from the EE egg. They both look like super dark BR's.



I have never been able to figure out how to make sure the chicks eat what they are supposed to eat and the adults eat what they are supposed to eat when they are all in the same coop and run together. Until today. I have finally come up with a fool proof feeding system that some of you may be interested in.





This is a feeder my builder made for me. It has two compartments to fill, so I filled one side with layer crumbles and the other side with grower/finisher. I know, I know. But at least they have both available to them. What is the worst that can happen from the chicks eating the layer and the layers eating the grower/finisher? Seriously, will it be a problem for their health? I don't know what else to do!

 

[Juise]

Quote:

How long have you had them?

How long have they been exhibiting these symptoms?

Does it seem to be spreading?

What is their environment? Where are they being kept? What kind of bedding? What is the ventilation like?

Are they eating normally? Drinking normally?

How is their growth rate?

What are you feeding them?

Any mortality? If so, how did it relate to the symptoms timeline wise?

Are their droppings normal?

Any head shaking?

Rattles/rales? Abnormal breathing sounds? Have you listened closely when they're resting?

Panting or gasping?

Any blood in your brooder you can't explain?

I know... lots of questions... sorry.

We have had them just over 2 weeks. The first chicks eye started to look not so great 4 days ago or so. I posted pictures of it here if you want to look. 2 days ago she started to have some clear, spittle like bubbles to the front of her eye. It looked better the next day, but tonight, it was all bubbly again. Tonight was also the first time I heard her sneeze, and observed the clear nasal discharge in the two other chicks, one of which is has an eye that is starting to look off. So it would seem to be spreading. I know they didn't have any discharge before, I check them all over every day.

They are in a tractor within a quarantine fence, it has big ventilation holes covered with hardware cloth on two opposite sides and sand in the coop. I move it around the quarantine area, which is predominately sand and dune grass, and some dirt.

They seem to be eating and drinking the same as they have been, there are 6 chicks in total and I have mason jar feeder and waterers. I have to fill them up every day, and more often a second time at bed time too.

I'm not sure about growth rate, we've only had them about 2 weeks, but... they're bigger than they were? They have been losing some feathers, especially under their wings and some around their faces, also some on their backs where you have to lift other feathers to see. I have checked often for lice and mites, but after looking up a bunch of pages, I put it down to molting. I did take some pictures, though, so I will include some here.

​

You could call Dr. Bader and see if you can get her in. He has chickens himself, so that is a plus. He know's what he looking at...

I think we will be giving him a call, I know my husband has a special fondness for him for saving his dog, who was shot while out on a hike with him and his brother when they were kids.

 

[Opa]

This is a feeder my builder made for me. It has two compartments to fill, so I filled one side with layer crumbles and the other side with grower/finisher. I know, I know. But at least they have both available to them. What is the worst that can happen from the chicks eating the layer and the layers eating the grower/finisher? Seriously, will it be a problem for their health? I don't know what else to do!

I would advise against feeding layer to your birds as it can cause kidney problems. If it is necessary to have them feeding with adults it would be better to put all of them on Flock Raiser.

 

[yorkchick]

Mom2, if I had kids I am pretty sure I would be as big of a pushover as you. Look at me with my birds. It took a year and a half of my little Edna Sebright going persistently broody till I let her hatch a few eggs last year. Now she is broody for the first time this spring and all day I have been considering getting her "just a few" Easter Egger hatching eggs. When even as of yesterday I was thinking "gotta set up the anti-broody cage again..." But really. Bonita, my EE hen, apparently is on a I-lay-one-egg-a-year schedule. And Audrey, the EE pullet that Edna hatched last year, is apparently laying a fine brown egg. (Haven't caught her in the nest box yet but her comb has been red for quite a while so I assume she is laying, and there are no blue or green eggs out there, so...) (Audrey hatched from a blue/green egg and has the fuzzy cheeks and beard of an EE, but has yellow legs with feather stubs! FarmerBoy's egg! Yes, I know EE's are by definition mutts, and I love her and wouldn't have her any other way...) Anyway, I neeeed some blue/green eggs. And Edna waaaaaants to sit.

And then tonight. Libby the gooser has been spending more and more time sitting in the Goose Chalet. I have two big wooden goose eggs out there, but have been picking up the real eggs. I had understood that the geese wouldn't start to sit on the eggs until they had a full clutch, so I thought leaving a few fake eggs out there would encourage them to use the Chalet instead of hiding a clutch somewhere else. When I've checked before, Libby and/or Penelope hadn't had any eggs directly under them, but Libby in particular would periodically find an egg (either wood or real) in the straw, rattle it with her beak a few times, then leave it alone. Well, tonight she had one of the wood eggs really under her and she'd apparently been pulling out her feathers to make the nest nicer for the coming wooden gosling.. Off in front of her was another wood egg and also a real one. I gave her the other wooden one and she rolled it under her. So cute! And if she'd really sit on just maybe 2 eggs--that wouldn't be overdoing it... right?

Oh, look who I'm asking! As if any of you will say, "oh, no, yorkchick, you don't need any more birds!"

Here's the funny thing. When I came in, I told the DH how much Libbly wants to hatch her eggs. The Voice Of Reason, the man who will not let me have guinea pigs because "they're rats," the man who was horrified three years ago that I had ordered chickens "because I could get laid off at any minute," the man who now is laid off, said, "If you really want to let her hatch a few, then do it. If we have to move them we will. We have some time to figure it out."

He also said, "It would make The Moms happy." The Moms? Oh, yeah, Mom2 em All!

So not sure if I will be able to make this decision yet. And I'm not sure Libbly is 100% sitting yet. At least as of today, one of the goosers is still laying, though it might well be Penelope. Olive, if I decide to let her sit, should I put a base of dirt under the straw in the Goode Chalet? Currently it is straw over vinyl flooring, but I think I read that a dirt floor is good to retain some moisture for the eggs? Or, if I decide not to let her hatch any this year, do you think she might start laying again (If she's stopped) if I take the wooden eggs away?

And anyone have any nice blue or green hatching eggs (standard, not bantam) for little Edna???

Oh, I am such a sap.