Pipd's Peeps!

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My Ivy decided to go broody again. She's over it now as I locked her in the segregated area with Cheddar (again). My sebright, Rose, has also decided to be broody as well as one of my muscovies, Blossom. Rose is easy enough to thwart as long as I take the eggs out of the nest box. Plus. She hates me so any attempt to touch her is met with screams. For the ducks, I close the coop up and that helps. They will lay their eggs anywhere so I don't have to worry about the others standing at the door wanting in (like my chickens who have other nest boxes to choose, but can only use 1 in particular!)

Ugh, broodies!! I just had to throw FOUR hens into broody jail this morning, including your Ivy's look-alike, Ganymede, and miss Opal who has already reared a brood, fought practically everyone in the flock because she didn't want them even looking crossways at her babies to the point that she was bald and had swollen eyes most days, and now I guess wants to do it all over again It being the end of August already plus 21 days to hatch, it's not even a possibility at this point to start babies in any capacity if I want them winter-ready in time.

I lost my barred rock that was having egg issues as well. There were 2 days when no thin or shell-less eggs were laid. I was hoping things were being rectified. But, then the 3rd day, I noticed Plum standing in the duck run and not moving. She didn't move when I offered mealworms either. So, I scooped her up. Checked her over (and did a vent sweep which was empty). I put her in a crate with food and water. When I got back from grocery shopping she was gone. I will miss her as she was the evening coop door guard. But, she learned that she had to let the others in when I said, "Come on Plummy, you've got to move it's bedtime." She'd move slightly out of the way and peck each one who had disturbed her door time as they entered.

Aw, I'm so sorry to hear that! She sounds like she was quite the personality It's so hard to predict when those funky eggs are just a hiccup or when something else is going on.

Then I had a weird issue with ZuZu (7 yr old Easter egger). One night I was tucking the chickens into that coop and smelled something off. I checked the australorp that roosts there as she's had issues before, but I found nothing. I took a light to look at weird poops on the coop floor, but saw nothing. The next day, after I had come back from burying Plum, I observed all of the chickens just to make sure everyone looked fine. They looked fine, but I noticed ZuZu scratching and shaking her head more than normal. So. I scooped her up and saw she had something going on with her vent and it smelled just awful. I don't know what exactly was going on. But, she had some necrotic tissue and her vent was totally clogged by skin and poop. I thought a prolapse. I got her soaked and cleaned as best that I could. Then applied a wound spray and bag balm. I powdered her with poultry dust to make sure the flies weren't getting to her. I placed her in the isolation crate and moved her to the temp regulated building. That night I cleaned her and applied the wound spray and bag balm again, but the lump of skin was still there and she was still somewhat blocked. The next morning, I sprayed her again and got the lump to come off - it seemed like skin. She had a very gross poo (which was expected). I soaked her again got her doctored up and placed her back in the crate. At this point, she still had some yellowish skin on and around her vent. It kind of looked like canker. But, I couldn't find anything about canker in the vent. However, I kept treating her and after the 3rd day, I set her up with the bigger crate in the run. I still wasn't sure at this point whether she'd make it or not. She still wasn't eating much. But, once she saw her pals she perked up. She started eating more and had some bms (still a bit off, but not diarrhea). So, on the 5th day, I let her hang out in the run. She got put to bed each night in the building, but on the 6th day (Saturday), she was allowed hang in the run and to go roost. She's still doing well and her bum is staying clean. She isn't really laying much anymore, so I'm not thinking it's an egg issue. I feed mealworms and thought maybe she ate too many, so now they are barely getting any.
All I can say is that when I found Zuus like that after Plum passed, I was about ready to be done with having chickens.

How is ZuZu now? I've never heard of anything like that, how odd! The yellow you're describing may have been pus, which would be an indication that her body was fighting off some kind of infection. Hoping to hear she's back on her feet fully by now

 

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Not much going on with the chickens these days. I've been laser focused on getting ready for classes to start tomorrow. Am I nervous?

...Maybe just a little.

I do think we're going to lose Bucky. He's been having on-again off-again crop issues for the last week and a half, seemingly luck of the draw whether his crop will empty properly overnight. I get myself prepped to treat him and he's back to normal. I leave him be and his crop backs up again. I'm not sure what to do with him.

Kya has similarly not been acting right and has lost quite a bit of weight. Not sure what's up with her. She hasn't been the same since I started integrating her and her kiddos into the flock, and now she spends all her time hiding in the corner where her brooding pen was set up.

Perfect timing for everyone to start having issues now that classes are starting tomorrow!

Anyway, only other thing going on with the birds is just integrating the last of the chicks into the mixed flock so that I don't have to worry about juggling a million pens during the semester. That seems to be going smoothly at least!

I've been pretty negligent with picture taking this month. This semester has been a lot to prepare for! But, here's what I have.

The corn crib crew getting more acquainted with their surroundings in the big flock. This doghouse and boat have been in my mixed flock chicken pen for forever, a leftover from when this pen was a dog run decades ago.

Gus got a bit too spicy with one of the mixed flock hens through the fence and ended up hanging by a spur as a result. Naturally, I had to take a picture of his shame before rescuing him

Flint poking around in the coop. Look at that face

A pretty (but yet unnamed) Cochin hen looking at me with suspicion as I took pictures of her fluffy butt

Chicha decided to do some exploring a few days ago and somehow ended up on top of the netting in the chicken yard. Still haven't quite figured out how she pulled that one off. These youngsters don't free-range, but this was during free-range time, so it's possible she wandered out and then tried to fly back over rather than go through the deck and back inside to her friends.