North Carolina

[dutchbunny83]

I'm hoping you guys can help me out-- the lavender orpingtons are 10 weeks old. I think I have 3 pullets and a cockeral. Though I'm noticing the "pullets" getting red on their face, is it supposed to be that early? It's been awhile since I've raised one up from chicks, but I was thinking there wasn't any red until they were ready to lay. But their tails and feathering and all is totally different than the cockeral.








Also, my two marans I have thought all along were roosters, mostly because of their lack of tail feathers. They are 10 weeks old as well and getting red in the face, but neither have a big comb or wattles. In searching around on here someone had a photo posted of a pair of marans that were 9 weeks old and the pullet looked just like my 2 she even was lacking a tail and the cockeral had huge red combs. Do you think I could actually have 2 pullets or just wishful thinking!





Thanks for your input, I greatly appreciate all the chicken wisdom on here!!!

 

[dutchbunny83]

Wild- SUPER CUTE!!!

 

[2Sesslers]

Dutch.. I thought of you today, and your search for different birds. Saw an ad on craigslist for Russian Orloffs. Pretty birds!

,

 

[2Sesslers]

Dutch - your Lavender Orpingtons are beautiful, and Wild - your new babies are precious! I want a frizzle!

 

[dutchbunny83]

Thanks 2Sesslers!
I do love different birds.
I don't think I've seen this one before, I'll have to look more into them.
She's definitely pretty!

 

[carolbeau]

Thanks very much to everyone who responded about lighting and possibly heating the coop.

 

[DSTchickencraze]

Ugh! Again, today I only got two eggs from my girls! Could they be getting ready to molt? I thought it was too early in the year for them to molt, but I saw some people talking about how their birds were molting early this year. I mean really out of our eight big girls, who 6 has to be laying we are only getting two to none! We were getting a good four or five a day and now two! Is there anyway to get their kindling restarted again or something? With our past birds we never had them slow down this bad in a matter of two weeks. All of our other girls were great layers and layed all year long.

 

[2Sesslers]

Dutch - I thought my SLW was red early, and even posted pictures on here worried she was a he. Turns out, she is still a she and her sister of the same age got bright red wattles & a comb BEFORE her! It is so hard to be patient! I just think sometimes it is hard to tell. Wait and see

DST - I am no expert but there is probably a million reasons why your girls egg laying is a little off... And maybe they laid when they were free ranging. Maybe they are stressed. Maybe they are molting. Sometimes...there's no tellin'!

 

[Fireantz iceman]

Thinking about cutting back on breeds . You think anyone might be interested in some. Blue Old English bantam breeding pair? Silver penciled cochin bantam chicks? Millie fluere d'ucelle (sp) rooster?

 

[rbaker0345]

The ones I lost last year only 2 I could send, one died on a weekend ,the other day after Christmas. I too had everything the cooler, the form filled out , ice packs all I needed was more ice and drive to UPS, but the guy at Rollins advise me not to really. Couldn't say if they would be there or not when she arrived. I think they rather deal with more in the flock getting sick at the same time. When I said just one, kinda gave me the run around and told me he hate to see me waste my money if they were not there and if they couldn't find anything, but he did leave it up to me and I didn't.

I had the best luck with freezing right away. The pullet died in front of me and I did as my vet told me: I held her upside down and rinsed her feathers the wrong way under cold water, then I bagged her and then I double and triple bagged her. I took her immediately to my vet who packed her in one of those styrofoam coolers and dry ice and sent her to rollins.

If a death happens on the weekend, you can do the rinsing thing and then pack it off to rollins on Monday morning, Dr. Aziz will not have a problem with this as long as the bird had recently died before being rinsed and frozen. Its worth the $30 to have them do the necropsy in a lab away from the other birds just in case the cause of death was infectious.

The reason he said that it wasn't worth it to send just one is because there are only a few symptoms that infectious diseases present in chickens. Usually, if you don't see coughing, wheezing, gaping, sneezing, disorientation, lethargy, purple comb and wattles, anorexia (green diarrhea) or neurological symptoms and you don't see more than one death, it is most likely something genetic. I've seen perfectly healthy looking birds fall over dead from heart failure because a dog runs through the yard. Sometimes its genetic or just something unique to one bird.