Pipd's Peeps!

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The next day she wasn't on at all, but last night back at it. So sounds like option 3.
I definitely don't want more cockerels, but also want a few bantam girls, but this probably isn't the best option for that. I've tried that experiment before (with broody ducks). However, it's so fun watching them hatch.

She was still in there this morning and when I took her out, she just laid flat on the ground. Poor thing.

Oh yeah, that's early stage broody for sure! I agree, it's fun watching them with their babes... but then the cockerels. There are some hatcheries you can get sexed bantam chicks from, I think we discussed that a while back, but of course they're expensive and sometimes not 100% accurate. So that's a tough call. As a Cochin bantam, I guarantee she'll go broody again, so you always have the option of busting her this time around and trying out giving her babies to raise another time.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Yeah, I've got a trip coming up and if I let her hatch it would be bad timing. So I will be working on breaking her.
Maybe I need to rethink getting cochins if they go broody. Are they as bad as silkies? My muscovy go broody, but usually they choose an enclosure that I can close off during the day or take away for some time. They are pretty set on the spot they choose. So once they are cut off from that spot in a week or a little more, they are just about back to normal. Still mean to their duck pals - but not wanting to sit anymore.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Enjoy your trip! Their broodying habits depends on the line in my experience. My silkied Reds are absolutely awful about broodying, the ones that sit in broody jail for a month or more not snapping out of it, but my Mottleds and silkied BBS have not been bad at all, going broody about once a year and breaking pretty easily when moved to broody jail. The Silkies I've had have been somewhere in the middle, not quite as bad as the silkied Reds (mainly because they would actually break from broodying after a short stint in jail!) but definitely worse than the other Cochins. So yeah, that's one of those things that's hard to predict until you have experience with a particular line of them.

I have what I'd consider limited experience with mallard-derived ducks and have never had muscovies, but that's interesting about their nesting habits! My worst broody chickens will brood on the ground outside of the nests if I block them off, unfortunately, so I have to cage them outside of the coop entirely. I don't know if the same method would work for chickens, in other words. It sounds like they're just as grouchy through it regardless of species, though!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Phew, brushing the dust off of this thread again!

Mostly, I'm just here to post that, after many years of balance issues and weakness in her legs, and several weeks now of me being sure she'd be gone any day now, the old lady, She Who Sleeps Standing Up, has passed on in the night. At 11 years and about 3 months of age, she was not the very oldest in my flock, but one of the oldest, third behind Wynne and Merlin. She represents the last of the birds I didn't pick out for myself, a surprise gift from my mother one year after we'd talked about possibly getting chicks from Meyer Hatchery. For the past month or so, she was having trouble getting up the steps into the coop and not going out to free-range anymore, so I knew something was up. On the positive side, I no longer have to worry about trying to find her out in the woods, flipped on her back and unable to get up rather like a turtle.

A picture of her from years ago, before she really started having her balance issues. Always so serious, so dour. This year, she had started growing in masculine hackle and tail feathers, so I was quite interested in seeing how she would look after she molted. But, oh well.

Not much else going on around here. I did have 7 cockerels processed this week to reduce my numbers a bit, but that's about it that's new with the flock.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The hazard of having many old, old birds is that it's common to lose multiples of them relatively close together. Today, it was Huka, my 10-year-old Lakenvelder. She'd seemed totally fine up until the night before last, when I noticed she had nestled down on the floor in the corner of the coop instead of hopping up to the roosts. Checking her out yesterday, I suspected she had an impacted crop, but since she was still out and about free-ranging with everyone, I figured I had the time to wait just one more night to see if her crop was clearing at all. This morning confirmed she was impacted, but she never came out of the coop and, sadly, passed away about midday. It all happened so fast that I'm not sure if I could have done anything had I acted yesterday instead. Beautiful old girl.

And this means that for the first time in, well, a very long time... my main flock's count is less than 40.




I just... really don't want to bump up this thread again for this, so I'm just going to edit it in here. Two more losses. On October 1, Athena passed away suddenly. She was young and this was a surprise for me. She hadn't been herself since she started her molt, but she was still eating and drinking like normal so I thought she was fine. What a quirky bird she was. I so looked forward to seeing how she'd do on her second run hatching and rearing chicks. Miss that little lady.

More expected, Zinnia passed away on October 3. She had been having issues for a while. She went mostly blind rather suddenly earlier this year, and for the couple weeks leading up to her passing, she had started to build fluid up in her abdomen and was dusky and breathing hard a lot, so I believe in her case it was heart failure that caused her death. I had actually begun making preparations to help her on her way that day, but she passed on her own just a few hours before I would have been able to do anything. Zinni was the last of my first group of silkied Cochins from Georgia, the group that started me on the path to building up breeding flocks and really putting an effort into preserving the variety. Beyond that, though, she was a sweet, loving hen who I'll miss greatly.

Another edit in because I just don't want to bump this thread for deaths anymore. Some years I go without any problems, but other years I just have so many older gals go that it's tough.

This time it was Reinette, my Wheaten Marans girl. She was 6-and-a-half, so on the older side for a chicken, and had been slowing down a lot lately. Her death was rather sudden, but not entirely unexpected. She passed away early yesterday, November 6. A grand old gal she was, one who was always elegant, regal, and very serious. Definitely much to refined for such things as human attention.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Happy Hug a Chicken Day! I remembered a bit late, so just a couple pullet hugs, and Peanut Butter, of course, because she's always easy to catch.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Thought I'd share this here as well since I've been rather neglecting this thread as of late. I went to the Ohio Nationals yesterday and took an absolute ton of pictures! Rather than try to upload them all here, I've put them in a gallery to view: https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/albums/ohio-nationals-2023.7430215/ I was absolutely wiped by the time I was through walking the rows, but it was so much fun to see all those different breeds!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Tough couple days here. Every now and then I have a year like this where I seem to lose birds left and right, all different ailments and such.

Two days ago, Thanksgiving morning of course, I found one of the Barred Rock bantam had passed away, Skeeter. She'd not been acting right for a bit, so I knew something was up, but no idea what. After she passed, I realized from looking her over that she was egg bound. I had no idea she was even still laying, I thought she had stopped a while ago.

Today, I found Boba, one of the silkied Cochins, lying on the floor of the outer coop when I opened them up. She was still alive, but not by much. I brought her inside to warm up, hoping that would help, but a few hours later she had passed. No idea what happened to her, though it was pretty similar to how Athena passed, if faster. No one else even seems at all off in that coop.

On top of that, I've been keeping an eye on Mavis for a while now because she's been sort of standing weird and has lost a bit of weight, but she's mid-molt and hasn't been laying in a few weeks now. Her molts are always tough on her, poor girl. Hoping she pulls through despite it.

And Roha has also been looking pretty stiff these days. As a 10-year-old hen, I suppose it may just be her time coming up.

Hopefully beyond them that's it for a while, though. I'm so tired of birds ailing and dying on me.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

We got around 3/4 to one whole inch of snow today. About half has melted off already. The birds are not impressed with the weather and don't want to go out in it, not even to free-range.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Going to be one of those days, I fear.

We've had a resurgence with the mites, a bad one. Two of my birds, Roha and Abra, were so infested with them that they were weak and sickly, with mites crawling all over their faces. I've never seen such an infestation! I'd been waiting it out a couple days for last night because it stayed in the 40's overnight, so I could spray them down with Elector without freezing their booties. Unfortunately, it was too late for Abra, my Abie Baby Munchkin. She passed on in the night, nestled in the corner on the floor. I'm completely heartbroken. She was not my first silkied Cochin ever, but the very first I hatched myself. I remember the day she hatched, how dark she was, wondering how she could have possibly come from two Red parents, yet she grew out to be one of the most striking of the Cochins I owned. A sweetheart, if sassy when she didn't want to be bothered, her big chicken personality is sorely missed among my birds today.

Today, I'm sitting here sadly at my computer after finding her this morning, when I hear the flock freak out. I ran out to find a hawk sitting on one of my cockerels. Darned determined thing didn't fly off until I was practically close enough to kick it, and then it lurked just out of reach in a nearby branch until we made a loud noise (a gunshot) to scare it off. The cockerel, fortunately, hopped back to his feet unharmed once he wasn't being pinned by the hawk. Hopefully he's not got any injuries because he's back mixed in with the other cockerels and I can't figure out which one it was now.

Mere minutes after I'd gone back inside, I hear the chickens freaking again, and there that darn hawk was again, after my corner coop pen! It flew before I could scare it again, but was back again after maybe 20 minutes, trying to get into the corner coop pen a second time. Damned thing! So I guess I'm on hawk alert all day today and we probably won't be able to free-range for a bit. Just what I needed today!