Minnesota!

[Cluckies]

Well it's been a while since I've posted on here.
I have a question for any or you bunny people:
I had a male hotot rabbit that I have had since he was a year old (now 5) and I recently purchased a second lion head doe. I kept both of them in separate hutches in our insulated 10'x12' dog house. Muki ( the lion head) was acting fine for a week and then one day I came out there and she had died. This worried me a lot because she had been just fine hours before when I put her outside in her playpen. My initial thought was she had died of a heart attack and but I did disenfectEd both had hutches (which are made of plastic and metal) anyways. My hotot rabbit became depressed when she died and I got a holland lop/jersey wooly mix. From a very nice young woman which by the way Theri, and I can't think of the women's name right now but she told me that she knew your son well and grew up with your advice. Wolfpup (the lop cross) was in perfect health when I got him. Three days ago my hotot died. I became really worried about wolf pup but he was acting just fine. tonight when I went outside to let one of my dogs go to the bathroom and I went and checked on wolf pup one last time; when I went in the building I found him breathing heavily, I picked him up and was going to show him to my mom and see what was wrong when he started coughing up blood which quickly began to spurt out in large amounts out of his mouth. Then he started screaming like I hear rabbits do when they get caught by coyotes and he began to twist around in my arms. When he didn't stop doing this I humanly dispatched him.

Wild child, so sorry for your losses. I don't know anything about bunnies. I would think Maybe either something that got brought in with the new bunny, or environmental. Do you use hay?(mold) Shavings (accidentally cedar?) Where are they at? Carbon monoxide poisoning? Carbon dioxide poisoning (car exhaust facing bunny hutch). Food bad? just spit balling here... Sorry I can't help more.

 

[lalaland]

here's the wed morning update on goldie:

not so good but not terrible. When I uncovered the cage, she gave a few soft clucks. She wanted to drink water (electrolytes still) and drank a fair amount. moves very slow if at all. gave a half hearted poke at the dish with scrambled egg, I she ate one piece about pea sized. refused feed from my finger. would not go for a little yogurt, dry oatmeal sprinkled on the cage floor, wet oatmeal. she moved to the dark, covered back of the cage, had a very watery poop with a few solids, and stuck her head in the corner.

I turned out the light and am letting her rest.

I could not see any oozing or anything but i did not handle her. She is not a tame hen, and is normally very skittish. Normally will not take food from my hand.

I am debating pulling her out of the cage and trying to reexamine her to see if there are puncture wounds I didn't find Monday night. I was pretty upset, and was holding the flashlight with my teeth to get enough direct light to examine her then. But....from the way she moves, I believe it will be painful for her to be picked up and handled, and it might cause her to struggle. So not sure. Probably should wait til I have someone to hold a good light...

 

[KlopKlop]

Pics!  head/beak/comb shape, now I want to see what they look like.  I assume these are meat birds?

They are dark Cornish and white laced red Cornish. I will try to get some photos soon. I'm in town all night for church.

I bought them from Minnie with intentions of crossing them to my bucket for broilers

 

[FoxyChicken]

here's the wed morning update on goldie:

not so good but not terrible. When I uncovered the cage, she gave a few soft clucks. She wanted to drink water (electrolytes still) and drank a fair amount. moves very slow if at all. gave a half hearted poke at the dish with scrambled egg, I she ate one piece about pea sized. refused feed from my finger. would not go for a little yogurt, dry oatmeal sprinkled on the cage floor, wet oatmeal. she moved to the dark, covered back of the cage, had a very watery poop with a few solids, and stuck her head in the corner.

I turned out the light and am letting her rest.

I could not see any oozing or anything but i did not handle her. She is not a tame hen, and is normally very skittish. Normally will not take food from my hand.

I am debating pulling her out of the cage and trying to reexamine her to see if there are puncture wounds I didn't find Monday night. I was pretty upset, and was holding the flashlight with my teeth to get enough direct light to examine her then. But....from the way she moves, I believe it will be painful for her to be picked up and handled, and it might cause her to struggle. So not sure. Probably should wait til I have someone to hold a good light...

Poor girl...she's probably really sore. I was going to mention that you could try tube feeding her, but if she wasn't tame to begin with and now with these injuries I'm sure she REALLY doesn't want to be handled.... but, if you do want to try it there's a gal here on BYC that has all sorts of advice on it, casportpony I believe is her username. I attempted it once with a sick hen and wasn't ever able to get the tube down, and that was with a very tame bird. Anyway, just thought I'd throw it out there in case you want to try. Good luck!

 

[KlopKlop]

here's the wed morning update on goldie:

not so good but not terrible.  When I uncovered the cage, she gave a few soft clucks.  She wanted to drink water (electrolytes still) and drank a fair amount.  moves very slow if at all.  gave a half hearted poke at the dish with scrambled egg, I she ate one piece about pea sized.  refused feed from my finger.  would not go for a little yogurt, dry oatmeal sprinkled on the cage floor, wet oatmeal.  she moved to the dark, covered back of the cage,  had a very watery poop with a few solids, and stuck her head in the corner.

I turned out the light and am letting her rest.

I could not see any oozing or anything but i did not handle her.  She is not a tame hen, and is normally very skittish.  Normally will not take food from my hand.  

I am debating pulling her out of the cage and trying to reexamine her to see if there are puncture wounds I didn't find Monday night.  I was pretty upset, and was holding the flashlight with my teeth to get enough direct light to examine her then.   But....from the way she moves, I believe it will be painful for her to be picked up and handled, and it might cause her to struggle.  So not sure.  Probably should wait til I have someone to hold a good light...

At least she is moving and clucking! Hang in there Goldie!

 

[MinnesotaNice]

So, the chickens definitely do not like snow. Picture shows about as far as they got. I kicked my broody hen out of the coop and once she hit the snow, she didn't move for about five minutes. Then, she ran back *sigh* I have the run door open hoping they'll eventually mosey on out.....

I think these will be the only eggs I see consistently this winter. My olive and blue egg layer are my best layers. Still poppin' them out almost every day.

 

[Minniechickmama]

I will have to get my tape measure to the coop and measure the biggest one. she is a fair bit bigger than the other two DCs. They definitely unique. their head/beak/comb shape is unlike any other chicken in the flock.

What do their eggs look like? I am assuming the DCs are laying again (even if only occasionally) but i have no idea who lays what in my coops

I believe there were two older hens? Those are going to be noticeably bigger still. The younger ones will take a few more months to catch up. This type of Cornish really don't hit their adult size until well past a year old. Once I get my pens cleaned and everyone separated, I will have to get some pictures of the ones I have left. I haven't ever weighed them and should put the boys on a scale.


I have been spending the last hour+ cleaning floors. One of my dogs, the older female, decided she would get up to the shelf last night when I ran to town to pick up my son from work. When I got back, she had eaten a bag of chocolate chips. Yes, I know how bad chocolate is for dogs, we encountered a similar incident with the other female two years ago. The bag was far enough back, she really must have worked to get it, but she is a jumper too. I had considered giving her something like peroxide, but she drank a bowl of water and in a short time, I heard the telltale gurgling. She ended up puking at least 8 times in the house during the night. The worst was on the kitchen floor, but several spots on carpet. She is doing fine, but it going to spend a bit of time outside today until I can be sure she is passed the puking stage. She rarely gets up to the shelves, it is the younger one who is the naughty girl. But Francy will not pass up on butter left on the shelf, and once in a while if we leave her in the house she will get into something in a box that left open, like crackers. She LOVES graham crackers! So, I think it may be time to 1.) Be extra careful of what is left out, and 2.) put her on a leash at the door if I have to run out for a few and can't leave her outside.


Well, THEN, I let DS drive to town to pick up his sister from dance at 9:00 (with me, of course). Backing up to last Winter when he drove home from town at 10:30 at night, and a young deer ran out in front of us and clipped the front corner of the van, not doing a thing to the van, but hurt the deer pretty bad so I and to have the troopers come shoot it. So, last night, in just about the same spot, something runs across out lane, stops on the center line and turns back into ours, I thought it was a coon, but it was a fox. Right under the van it went, tumbling. DS said he saw something shoot across the road behind us in the mirror, so we don't know if it lived through it. I can't imagine it could have, but stranger things have happened. We got home and the dogs went crazy sniffing ALL over the van. I am going to have to take it to the notorious car wash and hope it gets some of the scent off, because the younger female does nothing but bark now???? She barks, but not like this constant stuff she has been doing out there since last night. I kept bringing her in and she would just keep barking until I shut all the lights off.

I must say, both incidents, DS handled it perfect! Which is a surprise since he has taken longer than average to achieve a good level of driving to try his road test. He kept it straight, didn't swerve at all or try to slam his brake and send us skidding into the ditch. Of course, it is sad that the animals get injured or killed, but he handled it just as he should have. It was tough on our daughter though after, she was pretty shaken up over both, since she was with us both times. It could have been much worse, so I remind her of that and that we don't hit them on purpose but we don't put ourselves in danger by trying to save them either.

The good news, the van is still holding together. I should make a list of all the things that have happened to that vehicle and it still is running after 150K miles. LOL

 

[scandiafowl]

How often do you fully clean out your coop?

 

[Minniechickmama]

I just bought a LG still air 'bator with egg turner for $40 from the local junk dealer auction! I just happened to check the auction on a whim and thought i could waste $40 on worse things I want to play with it to learn about it but will have to resist the urge to set eggs haha

I suggest you give yourself at least a couple of weeks to tinker with it to get it settled on temp. You would be wise to get a second thermostat, just in case the one in it goes bad. That is the weakest part of that whole set up. I find they are a pain to get started, but once you do, so long as the thermostat is working, they do pretty well. Just make yourself leave it closed! I suggest NOT using the water pan in the bottom to keep humidity going. I use sponges that I crack the side up enough to grab them, then I close it quick. Then dampen the sponge(s) enough to go 12-hours. I can try to get a video and show you how I do mine. With this batch of Silkie eggs I hatched, I didn't give the bator long enough to get settled completely before I set them. I think I mentioned how it was whacky for the first 2 days the eggs were in, which is probably why I only got 6 out of 30 eggs to hatch. I had it running for a few days to try to adjust it, and I thought I had it, but it spiked and dropped a couple more times before it settled at 100. I much prefer my GQF for doing all the hard work for me. The electronic control center is SWEET! I would have run those in it, but I have to replace the fan and I haven't found the right one for it yet. I need to get on and do that pretty soon since I want to set eggs on the 1st if I have any. I have to get the rest of the birds split out into their breeding pens though and make sure there is steady light on them.
I should be out there today doing that, but if you read my other post about dog barf, you will know why I haven't gotten out there yet.
If that bator works, $40 is a steal!!! I will put together a tips video on how I use mine for you, and probably will share it with everyone if they are just starting out to save a little heartache.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Well it's been a while since I've posted on here.
I have a question for any or you bunny people:
I had a male hotot rabbit that I have had since he was a year old (now 5) and I recently purchased a second lion head doe. I kept both of them in separate hutches in our insulated 10'x12' dog house. Muki ( the lion head) was acting fine for a week and then one day I came out there and she had died. This worried me a lot because she had been just fine hours before when I put her outside in her playpen. My initial thought was she had died of a heart attack and but I did disenfectEd both had hutches (which are made of plastic and metal) anyways. My hotot rabbit became depressed when she died and I got a holland lop/jersey wooly mix. From a very nice young woman which by the way Theri, and I can't think of the women's name right now but she told me that she knew your son well and grew up with your advice. Wolfpup (the lop cross) was in perfect health when I got him. Three days ago my hotot died. I became really worried about wolf pup but he was acting just fine. tonight when I went outside to let one of my dogs go to the bathroom and I went and checked on wolf pup one last time; when I went in the building I found him breathing heavily, I picked him up and was going to show him to my mom and see what was wrong when he started coughing up blood which quickly began to spurt out in large amounts out of his mouth. Then he started screaming like I hear rabbits do when they get caught by coyotes and he began to twist around in my arms. When he didn't stop doing this I humanly dispatched him.

First, don't get any more rabbits for now. I will ask some people I know about this and get back to you. I am SOO sorry. I hate finding rabbits that suddenly die. You have some kind of disease or parasite or something in there. If it were just one, I would say it could have been a gastro blockage, possibly. But that many? You have to disinfect everything. Also, it isn't uncommon if you have sick rabbits, that it can transfer to other animals. So, you need to get right on disinfecting everything. Do you use wood or wire? If you are using wood hutches, I would burn them. I know it would be a tough thing to have to replace, but wood can harbor lots of stuff, which is one reason we use all wire cages for ours that get pressure washed at least 3 times a year.
Oxine is a good cleaning solution, bleach is good at cleaning but be careful how much you use.
Again, I am so sorry to hear this! I will ask around and get back to you as soon as I hear anything.