Seven dead hens within 4 hours, not attacked. UPDATE: Teflon Poisoning!

[aart]

Frostbite looks pretty mild......vaseline and bag balm not proven, could cause more harm than good.

IMO it's best not to even touch it......it's compromised tissue and touching it could very easily make it worse.

Have had several birds with frostbit combs and wattles, most were the mild graying of the tissue, some had black necrosis that eventually soughed off. I think the wattles get bit because they drag them thru the snow.

I just keep a watch for swelling that lasts more than a few days or obvious infection.

Woody's wattles were swollen for 2-3 days(only time it seemed to bother him), then swelling receded and tissue turned black, took a couple months before black tissue came off and pencil thin scars developed, by spring you could hardly tell it had happened. He lost those black comb tips too, others already gone.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Bruce, the white egg/brown egg preference is related to part of the country. IIRC, folks down South think that brown eggs are flawed, or at least they did up until the last generation or so. And, us Northerners grew up with brown eggs, and consider a white egg to be odd. Perception of freshness is also tied to the egg color. This being b/c white eggs are leghorn eggs. Leghorns typically were not used as layers in the North b/c of their big combs. Therefore... white eggs in the supermarket were not as fresh, b/c they were "from away".

The myth I've heard is that brown eggs have more protein. Lol. Well, my double yolker had more protein it was brown so therefore the myth is fact.

 

[lazy gardener]

I am also in the "don't touch it" camp. My Buck Eye has some pretty significant frost bite on his pea comb.

 

[bruceha2000]

If you put something on his comb, I would suggest castor oil, not vaseline. CO has medicinal properties, vaseline is just a barrier.

 

[DwayneNLiz]

It is a snack and in the morning I give him one egg yolk cooked with about a tbsp of cottage cheese. I leave out the crumble for him to eat whenever but it doesn’t seem to be disappearing very fast. They used to all get one snack a day but I’ve been bringing him 2 warm ones since he’s been alone.
He’s not ready to let me balm his comb... I’ll have to get Aaron out there with me so I can hold him.

he needs more protein to encourage healing, i would give less oatmeal and maybe add some tuna or fish meal

The myth I've heard is that brown eggs have more protein. Lol. Well, my double yolker had more protein it was brown so therefore the myth is fact.

eggs are only about 12% protein, though they do have a lot of good vitamins and minerals in them

If you put something on his comb, I would suggest castor oil, not vaseline. CO has medicinal properties, vaseline is just a barrier.

or raw honey

 

[AaronandAlice]

he needs more protein to encourage healing, i would give less oatmeal and maybe add some tuna or fish meal

eggs are only about 12% protein, though they do have a lot of good vitamins and minerals in them

or raw honey

I do have meal worms in there, even more protein than those?

 

[CSS]

Hi there,
I am fairly new to raising chickens- we got our first flock this past spring as day old chicks. We live in Maine and it's been cold- but all had been fine so far. This afternoon I brought the girls out a treat of some raisins and bread. Yesterday, I had fed them a head of Romaine lettuce prior to seeing the news about possible E. coli contamination. I added a little warm water to their dish. I picked my daughter up from school then went back out around 5:30 to change out their water dish for the night and found one chicken pretty unresponsive to touch. The others were sleeping normally (they didn't have their heads flopped on the floor and their necks stretched). I came inside and after my son got home I warmed up a towel to go back out and see if she was just cold. It's been colder than tonight and they've all been fine. When I went back in (it had been about an hour and 15 minutes) there were now 7 chickens who appeared to be dead- leaving only 5 living. When I went out at 2:15 pm they all seemed fine and I closed them into the coop for the evening. There is no way for animals to get in- I am totally freaked out as to what could've caused this. I was talking to my husband and the only recent changes were that I cleaned their coop Wednesday and added a very light layer of coop and compost under the shavings, and I added a bag of feather fixer to their food because some were losing feathers. The one thing I didn't think of then, but I did now, was that I had given them a head of Romaine lettuce yesterday. I looked last night online and couldn't find any information as to whether or not chickens could be infected by it- but it was fresh. I buy the bag with 3 heads in it and they get one every other day usually. I haven't found anything online and now I'm wondering if we should even eat the eggs they've lain in the past couple of days. It's upsetting because they're like pets, I just don't have any idea what went wrong. Thank you for any help.

I'm so sorry for your chickens. I agree that ecoli wouldn't hit them so fast. We live in Arizona and have sly predatory animals that have killed several of our friend's chickens.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

he needs more protein to encourage healing, i would give less oatmeal and maybe add some tuna or fish meal

eggs are only about 12% protein, though they do have a lot of good vitamins and minerals in them

or raw honey

That was supposed to be a joke. 12% is good stuff though. So the double yolker had double that.

 

[lazy gardener]

Agreed with @DwayneNLiz regarding the higher protein for now. Time to clean out the freezer, and see what you got in there that might be a bit frost nipped but fine for him.

 

[DwayneNLiz]

I do have meal worms in there, even more protein than those?

yep, they are high in protein and amino acids BUT they are wicked expensive and the amount you would have to feed to get his protein intake up would be horrendous

nutrition info found here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4739691/