Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[pennyJo1960]

I know Skeksis appreciates everyone's love. My sweet girl is still fighting.

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Hopefully she will win the fight.

 

[Shadrach]

Was that you who posted about preening your rooster's neck, @Shadrach ?

I tried it, today.

More preen and less stroke. Yup, I know it's difficult not to stroke them but.
What you are trying to get the rooster to believe is you are pulling off dead quills and stray feathers etc. If you watch a hen do it that is the kind of action you should aim for with your fingers.

Your chap seemed to like it anyway.

 

[Shadrach]

I think as we age screaming anything is not well tolerated.
Hello X Batts I have a friend that comes over her kids say in her car.

Some days I can tolerate children like that more then others. On no days can I tolerate parents that let their children behave like that.
I was stressed with worrying about Lima and the mites in the coop and the awful transport situation without that going on as well.

 

[Shadrach]

Some people are not fit to raise children. That raises a point of concern though... Can you lock the chicken area so that the terrors cannot get to them when you are not there? I doubt that super mom would have the bottle to keep them from tormenting the the chickens.

I have dealt with this risk in no uncertain terms. The children keep their distance from me and the chickens. Also, when the chickens are out on the allotments, I'm out there as well.
It was the eldest of these children that climbed into the old coop a few years ago and put his foot through the floor. Parents response at the time wasn't what one would expect to hear.

 

[Shadrach]

Thoughts for Skekis, Ella and Lima.

As for the kids, how old are they ? Under six or seven, I can understand that kids who are possibly confined in the city all week could have a lot of spare energy to let out to the point of becoming a nuisance.
But obviously the allotment is not the right place for it. If this is an allotment holder I think it would be useful to have a little talk with this person, before you get so angry that you kill one of the kids.

Around that sort of age I think. The boy maybe nine or ten.

 

[Shadrach]

A better day today. It rained properly overnight and this morning. The air smelt fresh and the temperature this afternoon didn't get much above 20C. It did drizzle for a few minutes.
I only found five live mites this afternoon when s stripped out the roost bars and inspected the rest of the coop. I think I'm winning. There is an allotment about a mile away West of here and they've had terrible red mite problems. One person has burnt their coop and the other I know about is on day six of an eradication program.

There is a lot of advice on dealing with mites on the forum. From reading some of the post one could get the impression that one dust the coop and chickens and it's all over.

There is an excellent article by TwoCrows on the topic. One of the reasons I like it is she is one of the few people who seems to know why chickens dust bath.
If you haven't read it, do and review it while your there. This will help push it up the list and hopefully it will get read in preference to some of the less informative article or those that are just plain wrong.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-fleas-dealing-with-external-parasites.74599/

Three hours today. Hard watching Lima struggle but she's still eating and drinking and was the first out of the gate when I opened up and was already around the corner foraging by the pond when I took this picture of the rest.

I lost track of her for a minute or two and found her on one of the plots digging around the edges looking for bugs and stuff. Later she came and napped under my chair. Fret kept her company. They get on well do Fret and Lima although Lima never lets Fret forget whose boss.

 

[MrsNorthie]

I have dealt with this risk in no uncertain terms. The children keep their distance from me and the chickens. Also, when the chickens are out on the allotments, I'm out there as well.
It was the eldest of these children that climbed into the old coop a few years ago and put his foot through the floor. Parents response at the time wasn't what one would expect to hear.

I am glad to hear that the chickens are safe from the kids. It is sad, that parenting style is doing them nor society any favours.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good evening one and all!

Temperature is in the 70s.

Hope all the girls get better.

Have a great day!

 

[TropicalChickies]

I know Skeksis appreciates everyone's love. My sweet girl is still fighting.

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Thinking of you Skeksis...

 

[TropicalChickies]

@TwoCrows gives very good advice and also wrote an excellent article on crop disorders, underlying causes, and treatments that has been extremely helpful to me as well.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...op-disorders.67194/?page=9#ams-comment-524305

I was glad to see the external parasite article included sticktight fleas (or "stickfast" --same thing). Sticktights are more common in tropical and subtropical climates and because these articles are often written by and for people in the northern hemisphere, sticktights often aren't mentioned. But with climate change and global trade, it's only a matter of time before some boat from the Philippines or Ecuador or Ghana with sticktights hiding on it docks in the Gulf of Mexico and the Global North will have its own sticktight problem.

One of most important things about treating for parasites effectively is (as Shadrach mentioned) understanding that each one has a different life cycle. Knowing when the insect emerges from the eggs, moves onto the birds, and then lays it's eggs is absolutely key. Just like with internal parasites, one-time treatment is not sufficient. Because the eggs are so darn resistant, you have to kill the existing pests, then move in again when the eggs hatch to kill the next round. Otherwise, the problem never improves.

Understanding the life cycle can also help abate chemical abuse and overuse. For example, sticktights live about 20-22 days on chickens and lay their eggs directly on the birds in the last few days of their life cycle. One "good" thing about sticktights is they are fairly obvious, usually attaching and clustering on the combs and cheeks. Birds with "strawberry" combs like Lucio tend to get them worse because the fleas get into all the little gaps and nodes of the comb and really get embedded there. But if I grabbed the permethrin every single time I saw new fleas on birds during the 21 days, I'd be using it constantly, and low toxicity or not, that's not good for me or the chickens.

So by understanding the life cycle, I developed a strategy. The most important thing is not to let the chickens carry the eggs into the coop! There will always be sticktights outside; I'm not going to spray hectares of land growing forest and organic crops.

So when I see the fleas attaching for the first 15 days of the cycle, I treat by removing with tweezers and applying Vaseline and/or goopy sulphur soap to smother the rest and keep new ones from attaching. I do this every 3-4 days as needed.

Then in the last five days of the cycle, I treat every bird with permethrin thoroughly, making sure I kill all of the fleas before they deposit their eggs on the bird. The eggs are also visible, they look like tiny seeds. If I'm late in doing this and I see eggs, then I have to treat the coop as well and that's a big job, so I really do my best to prevent the eggs from being carried inside by the chickens, while using less chemical treatments.

At any rate, the "dust and done" hypothesis is nonsense, no matter what parasite you are dealing with. They each have a life cycle, and understanding it will save you time and energy and the chickens from suffering, anemia, or worse.

There is an excellent article by TwoCrows on the topic. One of the reasons I like it is she is one of the few people who seems to know why chickens dust bath.
If you haven't read it, do and review it while your there. This will help push it up the list and hopefully it will get read in preference to some of the less informative article or those that are just plain wrong.