That's a reality I'm facing: I didn't get this crud from anyone else's birds. It came from somewhere in my neighborhood, probably from mice. Maybe from wild birds. Maybe from one of the coops that are within a couple blocks of me. I don't know. If I culled everyone and started completely new, who's to say I wouldn't get another mouse in here, sharing it around? So I think I'll do what you're doing... keep my eyes out for any birds that have a super cruddy quality of life, and help them along. Do my best to keep the others healthy. Don't give any birds away without complete honesty, and be prepared if new birds don't fare well. Keep the appropriate medicines onhand. And I haven't bought ACV yet, but maybe tomorrow I'll walk down to the co-op and get some. Tomorrow I'm going to make another batch of yogurt to feed in the chick mash. Do you press fresh garlic into the water, use oil, or preserved garlic?
ETA: Have you noticed any decline in egg production due to illness?
You know, last year I watched a Youtube video on organic gardening. The best advice I've ever heard on how to go organic: expect that things won't be perfect. You will lose a few plants to bugs or wildlife. You will get cracked tomatoes, maybe some blight. Your chickens might eat some of your produce while getting rid of your bugs. But all of these things are small losses while dealing with a lifestyle choice. If we want the homogenized type of produce we see at the grocery stores, we either have to throw away buckets of unattractive produce for that one tomato, or use the kinds of chemicals that make that fake, flavorless produce. I guess we could see so many things in life that way. These won't be the last chickens I lose, but I can do the best I can until we have to deal with it again. Maybe I'll lose more this year; hopefully we can wait awhile to say goodbye to any more. I can sustain a great quality of life for everyone on this property, and deal with the losses as they happen.
It's been very educational, for all of us. The kids are learning a lot about life and death, and maybe someday soon they may need to know how to control human disease through biosecurity.
That colander trick is great! I only have one cracked colander, and I use it as a water diffuser when I need to pour something from a cup onto small leaves. It sounds smaller, though, if those few inches are a problem. This year, I believe we have enough buckets. I had a 20-bucket garden last year, and got 10 more this year before the other gardeners keyed in and started beating me to the recycles. Since I have Garden #2 going for a lot of stuff, I'm not relying so much on extended space on my own property. This year, I'm going to grow potatoes several ways: reusable shopping bags, self-irrigating buckets, ground in Garden #1, and ground in Garden #2, which have very different soil composition. The shopping bags are cheap, but I'm concerned about evaporation. If it gets too bad, I may need to drape the bag with a white trash bag, leaving the bottom open for drainage. In the buckets, evaporation wasn't a problem because the sides were impermeable.
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