Lost three birds this morning. The BLRW roo has been lame and even though doing massage therapy with him, he just succumbed to the stress.
My sweet Angel, the White EE, died thru the night in her cage. Remember, she is the hen that is blind and brooded Popeye even though she had never hatched a clutch of eggs.
A young New Hampshire refused to go in the coop in the teen pen and must have gotten chilled.
I was dumbstruck and heartbroken. When this happens, I bury myself in a project.
Thinking we were still getting snow, I took drastic measures today. I had found a few feather lice on one of my hens yesterday and thought I should not take the chance of having to coop all inside during the icy cold with the threat of a lice outbreak.
While both the pens were out free ranging, I pulled out the top 3 inches of floor bedding in the henhouse. We deep litter on a dirt floor. Next I took down the nest box and cleaned it out. All water and feed containers were wiped down with insect spray and disinfected...had to use rubber gloves for this.
Then I sprayed down the entire insides of the big hen house for lice including the concrete blocks etc. I sprayed the nest box and let it dry, rehung it and loaded all the nests with fresh hay. Those I dusted with my duster.
The dust box received new sand, livestock dust and wood stove ash.
Next I spread a bale of pine shavings on the sprayed dirt floor.
The girls were not happy that they could not use the hen house to lay eggs this morning and none were willing to use the box I had set outside. So as each hen went into a nest, I treated her with ivomec and clipped her toenails. Every other bird without a toenail clip, got hand caught and treated before going back into the hen house.
Since I've been freeranging all the birds outside at the same time for about a month now with no altercations, I decided it would be better to house all in the hen house during the cold spell. So I sprayed down some cages with insecticide and when dry stacked them in the hen house. The 4 Columbians are in the big one....had to keep the roosters separate. Popeye is in one cage by himself and two timid birds are in one. Everybody else is housed in the big hen house. The window door is closed and everyone is locked inside. I have plenty of greens in the fridge to keep them busy for several days.
My hen house is 10.5 x 12.5 ...about 120 sq feet when you discount for all the feeders...so there are 39 on the floor... that's 3 sq feet per bird. I now have three water and feeding stations and plenty of roost space.
In addition, I have a pair of Silver laced Wyandotttes housed in a big cage in the storage area of the barn. I'm practicing with them to get them used to being handled. At Al's suggestion, they will soon be in side by side cages. I'm going to learn how to artificially inseminate. Al is a wonderful resource person!
NNN is in a separate building with the three little chicks and she had already been wormed. I checked her so good for lice, she bit me three times. She has clean bedding in the stock tank and a fresh hay nest for her and the babies. The 2 six week old CWs have never been outside with the other birds and they are clean.
It's been a busy morning, I am tired, but I feel better now. Still, I hate to lose any of my babies.