Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[dutchbunny83]

I ADORE your avatar, I thought it was fabulous the first time I saw it

 

[jajeanpierre]

I cant say I'm all that fascinating, but the events that have happened to me would make a good story for anyone to tell on a Friday night.

My Avatar choice, now That's facinating

Oh, please elaborate.

 

[off-grid hen]

I have freedom rangers (for the first time) right now, so I appreciate the question about breeding.

Had to cull a 3.5 week old freedom ranger chick today. It had one leg that was weird. Last week, I noticed that one leg was pink and one was yellow. I looked closely, but all I coud see was a tiny scratch. It must have gotten infected or something? The skin got pinker and started peeling off. I took the chick inside and gave it a foot soak and cleaned off the leg, and the dead skin peeled off. I thought the water was too warm, but the water was only slightly warmer than room temperature. I slathered some bacitracin ointment on it. I did that two more times, but it progressively got worse. This morning the chick was limping very slowly and the skin looked very thick and weird, almost like pictures I've seen of scaly leg mites that have been there for a long time. Only the one leg was affected, no other part of the chick. It never felt hot to the touch or oozed anything, but the nails looked funny too. I wonder if it was something viral or other systemic issue. I'm still a newbie at the meat birds, so I didn't know if could feed the poor thing antibiotics to try to treat or not, and then still be able to use the meat later. No other chicks were showing signs of anything, and are lively and happy. I wanted to be sure that if it was viral, that other birds weren't exposed any longer. :-/

 

[off-grid hen]

As for Chambertin's avatar, I'ma guess Shakespeare. Probably way off, but it's a guess. Whenever I see it, it makes me think of the Iggy Pop pic floating around the Internet. "I'm not ashamed to dress like a woman, because I don't think it's shameful to be a woman".

 

[Chambertin]

Sorry about the chick, must have been one bad infection.

The Avatar is from "Little Britain" a show from a couple years back on the BBC.
Reminded me of a time in high school where the German club put on some plays. There weren't enough girls to play all the parts so I took the part of the mother. I went out and had fun, even put on some combat boots and took a wooden rolling pin with the dress and wig.
Luckily the nickname "Frauen-stein" didn't last long because few people in high school want to see a play in German.

This picture isn't far off from that image making it funny to me in two ways.
Its amazing how many people think its a self portrait, what's better is how many people are Ok with it.
Almost makes me want to go get a dress haha

 

[dutchbunny83]

I 100% thought it was a self portrait! Oops!
I was thinking I must get to know this man who can pull of a dress better than me!

 

[wlhtx]

I wondered if it was a selfie... A drag queen that lived in China and breeds fabulous silkies. Please pull up a chair and make my day more interesting!

Not saying you're not interesting if you're not really a drag queen...

 

[off-grid hen]

I kept it as clean as I could, not sure what else I could have done.

 

[Elke Beck]

I kept it as clean as I could, not sure what else I could have done.

Off-grid,

these things sometimes happen. Don't beat yourself up about it. Chickens are amazingly tough, and devastatingly fragile. There is a staphylococcus infection in humans that is called "scalded skin syndrome," that sounds a lot like what you were dealing with. Staph infections are notoriously tricky to deal with, and unless you were willing to shell out a lot of money for veterinary treatment on a chick that cost a couple of bucks, he was doomed from the time he got the infection.

 

[Chambertin]

Do everything you can and let nature handle the rest.
Some things out there are tougher than they look and its just a matter of time.
I think the chickens know when to give up a lot better than we humans do because they can recover from some of the worst things without a second thought.
What does bring them down does so for a good reason.