Pipd's Peeps!

[Cluckcluck1215]

Ah yes!The reason we have so many to, is because a cat I used to have had to get some mess every 12 hours!

Poor little Izzy.Good luck to her!

I guess the heat is getting to everyone's birds.My Poor Brownie has a Pendulous Crop, Because of her impacted crop before.So, she has a sock tied around her as a Crop Bra for now.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Izzy laid an egg, and she was so thirsty afterward that she finally found the water (with a little help) and drank on her own! There's a step in the right direction!




Yeah, the heat was rough! Sorry about Brownie, but it sounds like you're keeping her well taken care of. We finally got some rain, so it's finally a more reasonable temperature outside for us. The girls are enjoying a nice preen to dry their feathers and no one is panting or holding their wings out! Since the weather isn't so ridiculous, and I'm finally sure we're beyond the mite problems, I moved the 8 brooder boys outside this morning. They will be staying in the lower side of the coop from now on, fenced off so they can see the flock but stay out of trouble. This is WAY later than I wanted (way, WAY later--geez, they're 10 weeks old now!!), but I couldn't help the circumstances there. The 6 pullets are staying inside so that I can continue to keep an eye on Vida and her issues without her being all alone, but they'll continue having playdates outside as before. The brooder seems much less crowded now!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Izzy laid an egg yesterday and sounds like she's working on another today. So far, other than her eating and drinking on her own, there has been no improvement. She is still stumbling around with absolutely no sense of balance. Not sure at this point what else I can do.

I forgot to mention before all this started with Izzy, but the first battle against the Broody Brigade was finally won! I think with the heat wave, they just didn't want to sit and stew on eggs all day. Anyway, now that the heat has passed, I'm starting to see signs of a future uprising, headed by Flury and Indigo. I'm watching you, girls...

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Well, tonight was exciting. I was on the deck, about to step down to close the pop door for the night, when I saw something moving around in Roscoe's area. It was small, like the size of a fox squirrel, but not colored right. It took me a second to recognize the black and white pattern on it. That's right--a freakin' SKUNK! The complete lack of a scent totally threw me. This skunk did not stink at all!

I got the coop closed up tight. Everyone is accounted for. And I'm not really sure what else to do for tomorrow. I don't want to be skunked! And I definitely don't want my girls to be harmed! I know just from reading around BYC that skunks usually go for eggs, but are perfectly willing to attack chickens if the eggs are in short supply. There is evidence that this skunk stole an egg from the floor of the coop today, but I don't think it can get up to the nests, and that means that only the few eggs laid at ground level are within reach to it... Time to research some skunk deterrent methods.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

Hope all has been well. I'm glad to hear your mite situation has been taken care of and the broody brigade, haha. Good luck dealing with that skunk though.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Thanks, shadow rabbit, I think we'll need it.

I set up the live trap by the corner of the deck that the skunk was coming from, baited it with eggs, and covered it with clear plastic sheeting so that I could see if it was tripped, but not get skunked by it.

Round about 7 pm, the girls started clucking like they were concerned, so I went out to check and sure enough, trapped skunk! It was a simple matter of loading it up and heading out. Here in the grand state of Indiana, apparently it is legal to relocate a skunk within the county it was trapped. Skunky took a ride in the back of a truck for a few miles, and seemed totally content to be released in the middle of nowhere in a nice, secluded woods away from any nearby houses.

About 9 pm, I went out to close the coops for the night. Everything is as usual, except that Flury was freaking out. I assumed this was because I put her in with the young rooster boys because she's broody, and she desperately wanted to get back to her nest. I was wrong. I went to close the one door of the deck for the night, noticed something moving to my left, and looked over with horror to see another skunk, a bigger skunk. After freaking out, I snapped the door shut and latched it, counted everyone, and got everything locked down tight. Glanced off the deck again to see where skunk number 2 had gotten, only to see MORE. THERE ARE AT LEAST THREE MORE SKUNKS LIVING UNDER THE COOP RIGHT NOW. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN WITHOUT ME KNOWING?!

Current plan is to live trap them one by one and take them to join their friend, then get some smaller mesh wiring to block off the area under the deck completely. I didn't consider this possibility when I fenced off the area under the deck, only concerned about keeping the hens from getting under there and laying eggs. Lesson learned! Always block these areas off completely! ALWAYS!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I've discovered this morning that I was wrong about my ratio of pullets and cockerels in my April babies. Not 6 pullets and 8 cockerels, but 5 pullets and 9 cockerels. My sweet Vida Mae is actually a Vander Moe. I thought I was just being paranoid at first because his comb is so much smaller than the rest of the cockerels, but I had started noticing things like a rather masculine red tone coming in on his shoulders a few weeks ago. This morning, it's undeniable. He has pointed saddle feathers coming in now. And since I'm only keeping 2 cockerels for breeding purposes, I'm not sure I can justify keeping him with all his issues that could possibly be passed on... I'm just so heartbroken by this! After all that time I spent getting him well again, it's hard not to get attached...


Nothing new with the skunks, either. Last night, they tripped the live trap from the outside and ate the bait through the bars. This morning, I set it up again and put buckets of water around it and on top of it to keep it from being moved and prevent them from reaching the bait from the outside. EDIT, I reset the live trap this morning and trapped 2 skunks at once. There were at least three sniffing around the outside of the cage as well. They keep multiplying!


Indigo and Flury have begun the next campaign for the Broody Brigade, and Cazzie is acting like she may join up, too. Only a matter of time before the Brigade builds up again.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The Skunk family has been taken care of now. No signs of any more living under the coop still. I'm going to give it at least one more day to make sure, and then I'm going to put smaller fence over the larger fence I had put up to keep the hens out from under the deck, which will hopefully keep any more live-ins from moving in. We had an opossum living under there a few months ago, which was bad enough, but 6 skunks (yes, 6. Six skunks. There were SIX of them!) is my last straw on that!

In other news, the Broody Brigade made a weak attempt to rise up again, led only by Flury and Indigo, but they were quickly vanquished. Cazzie and Endymion have been talking like they're about to switch sides, and Rowena keeps screeching at random, so I'm sure she's working toward her first broody spell, too. She has threatened in the past, but last night, I was holding Abra and put her down next to Ro, and Ro screeched, puffed up, and spread out her wings like a full-out evil broody! Oh, girls!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

No signs of any more skunks still living under the coop, so I had no more excuses. Vander (which is still a tentative name...) and the five pullets moved out into the coop tonight. Oh, my heart! My precious babies! But they'll be so much happier out there, and once the brooder (and my room ) is cleaned up, I'm sure I'll be glad, too. They were in there WAY longer than they should have been. Lesson learned. Healthy, 3-month-old chickens do NOT belong in the house! There were just so many things happening one after the other that it made it hard to get them out there. I think the biggest thing I've learned from this year's brood is to NOT GET THEM DURING THE SEMESTER. They likely could have been outside at the appropriate time if I hadn't been so busy at the end of the semester. Of course, this would have been before I realized the mites were still a problem, so maybe it was a blessing after all. Not sure if I would have been able to use Frontline on these guys with as young as they are. Well, it all worked out in the end, either way.


On the Broody Brigade, Rowena has gone full broody as of tonight. She was sitting in the crate she and Abra sleep in and screeching whenever I even shined the flashlight her way. Indigo spent a few days in Tilde's pen with her and has changed her mind about brooding, but now Margie has started up. On the plus side, now I can toss broodies in with the pullets to keep them off the nest, so they're in for a rude awakening!


I haven't updated on Izzy in a few posts, so here's a quick update on her as well. It's been nearly 2 weeks and there has been hardly any improvement on her condition in all that time. She has laid quite a few eggs, but it's now been a few days since she's laid last, which is a red flag that her health may be decreasing day by day. She continues to drink on her own, and will eat as long as I give her dry or mostly dry pellets--no more mush for her, thank you! She's standing more some days, less others, but still wobbling when she's on her feet. There's so little to go off of that I have no direction to go. No symptoms warranting antibiotics, and vitamin supplementation is not helping much if at all. At this point, it's pretty much a matter of keeping her stable and waiting on a more definitive sign of what the problem could be so that I have some direction to go.

 

[itspebbl]

I hope Izzy starts recovering soon! When do you plan on picking your keeper cockerels?