Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Sortacountrychicken]

We are having our first 50(10 C) degree day today and this girl couldn't wait for the slowpokes and is out enjoying the grass by herself.

She left everyone else in the dust (mud?) at the other end of this tree line.

Back with the others and settling in for a bath

I am being admonished for not bringing a handout

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good afternoon one and all!

The temperature is 67 with rain off and on.

Have a great day!

 

[Shadrach]

Is there any truth to wood ash helping prevent mites. I burn a lot of oak and spread the ash in the favorite bathing places. We've never had a chicken with mites but I don't know if it is the wood ash or just good luck.

There is some truth in many of these home brew solutions to parasites and chicken health in general. The general rule as with most things is keep an open mind but not so open that your brain falls out.
Wood ash comprises very fine particles. In theory if you cover a mite in very fine dust it will suffocate. Throwing a light coating on top of some feathers hoping that a mite is stupid enough to roll around in it seems a rather forlorn hope imo. If you've ever dealt with mites you will know that as soon as you part a chickens feathers to look for them they scury off to somewhere with better cover, on the chicken of course. Even lice, which to me at least don't seem as mobile, or as intelligent as mites, will try and hide as soon as anything invasive disturbs the chicken feathers. Finding mites is like hunting in a way. You have to sneak up on them and chase the little feckers. During the chase one is likely to find that there are quite a few more, all trying to hide.
Lots of chickens ime carry a few mites. When you can see lots easily, you, but more so the chicken, has a problem. You could sit there for countless hours chucking handfulls of wood ash at them and you might get one or two. Essentially this is what chickens do in a dust bath. They scratch up a a bit of dust and chuck it over their backs. The front part of a chicken of course is in the dust and this will work a lot better than the chucking dust approach. One will have noticed that despite a chickens best contortion acts when dust bathing they don't seem to do that unpside down stuff so their backs and under their wings etc doesn't get much of the dust at skin level. The mites seem to know this. In fact, come chicken bath time if you listen carefully you can hear the mites shouting to each other "bath time chaps. Everybody head for high ground."
It would be wonderfull if we could all go the right on organic route and give the chickens something harmless to both them and the poor little mites that would just make the drop off and go elsewhere. I don't believe in Santa Claus either.
The horrible truth is, if one of your chickens has gots mites and you've noticed then there are lots and lots of them. As mentioned, you can plot up in the feathers and take pot shots at one or two as they pass or you can just nuke the lot and be done with the problem.
Current easily delivered nuke option is a chemical called Permethrin. Mites don't like it.
What gets overlooked more often than I would like is it doesn't matter what you use, it's a chemical of some sort most of the time; sulpher, lime deet, whatever. Some chemicals some people have designated as "bad"chemicals and others as good chemicals.
I like those get the job done chemicals.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm curious to know, if it's not being too inquisitive, how you are adapting back to British weather ?

I'm not. I'm pretending it isn't happening.
I think I'm very fussy about my climatic conditions. Above 15 degrees centigrade and below say around 28 degrees centigrade with bountiful sunshine and most of the rain at nght when I'm asleep would be handy.
I don't do well in the cold. I do even less well in the damp cold.
However, overall, if the sun comes out a bit more than it has been as the year goes on I prefer the weather here to months of 30C to 40C in Spain.What I miss is the Catalonian mountain winter; the sun shines lots and while it's shining,it's warm. Many winter nights are well below freezing but a couple of hours after sunrise that's all forgotton.

 

[Shadrach]

In the study, they took the old-timers sulfur in the dust baths method and put the sulfur in bags for the birds to brush against.
I have used it on my dog and my pants to keep ticks off. But my sense of smell is bad and I don't see people unless I go to town for supplies. I shower and have town clothes so I haven't noticed any strange looks

I knew I was doing something wrong. It's going to town in my work clothes and not showering.
I had someone comment on the mud on my clothes while on the bus a while ago. He mentioned I had a lot of mud and asked what I did. I explained most of it wasn't mud as such, more like slightly diluted chicken shite. He didn't talk to me any more.

 

[RoyalChick]

There is some truth in many of these home brew solutions to parasites and chicken health in general. The general rule as with most things is keep an open mind but not so open that your brain falls out.
Wood ash comprises very fine particles. In theory if you cover a mite in very fine dust it will suffocate. Throwing a light coating on top of some feathers hoping that a mite is stupid enough to roll around in it seems a rather forlorn hope imo. If you've ever dealt with mites you will know that as soon as you part a chickens feathers to look for them they scury off to somewhere with better cover, on the chicken of course. Even lice, which to me at least don't seem as mobile, or as intelligent as mites, will try and hide as soon as anything invasive disturbs the chicken feathers. Finding mites is like hunting in a way. You have to sneak up on them and chase the little feckers. During the chase one is likely to find that there are quite a few more, all trying to hide.
Lots of chickens ime carry a few mites. When you can see lots easily, you, but more so the chicken, has a problem. You could sit there for countless hours chucking handfulls of wood ash at them and you might get one or two. Essentially this is what chickens do in a dust bath. They scratch up a a bit of dust and chuck it over their backs. The front part of a chicken of course is in the dust and this will work a lot better than the chucking dust approach. One will have noticed that despite a chickens best contortion acts when dust bathing they don't seem to do that unpside down stuff so their backs and under their wings etc doesn't get much of the dust at skin level. The mites seem to know this. In fact, come chicken bath time if you listen carefully you can hear the mites shouting to each other "bath time chaps. Everybody head for high ground."
It would be wonderfull if we could all go the right on organic route and give the chickens something harmless to both them and the poor little mites that would just make the drop off and go elsewhere. I don't believe in Santa Claus either.
The horrible truth is, if one of your chickens has gots mites and you've noticed then there are lots and lots of them. As mentioned, you can plot up in the feathers and take pot shots at one or two as they pass or you can just nuke the lot and be done with the problem.
Current easily delivered nuke option is a chemical called Permethrin. Mites don't like it.
What gets overlooked more often than I would like is it doesn't matter what you use, it's a chemical of some sort most of the time; sulpher, lime deet, whatever. Some chemicals some people have designated as "bad"chemicals and others as good chemicals.
I like those get the job done chemicals.

Does ivermecting work against lice, mites etc.? I would think so but haven't looked into it. I have Permethrin on hand so would probably use so just curiosity really.

 

[Shadrach]

People are so not speaking about anything of importance this world is soooooo strange

Flexi laid an egg this morning

View attachment 3025650

Whatareyouonabout. How much more important can anything be above Flexi laying an egg?

 

[Marie2020]

Whatareyouonabout. How much more important can anything be above Flexi laying an egg?

you cheeky boy.

She hasn't been as sociable for some time now but today she was back too old flexi, confident and even seeking attention ,everytime I was outside and after my friend.

 

[Shadrach]

Does ivermecting work against lice, mites etc.? I would think so but haven't looked into it. I have Permethrin on hand so would probably use so just curiosity really.

Currently it is thought that Ivermectine is still effective against mites. It is apparently no longer effective on worms. The does it work on lice is an interesting question because lice don't bite the chicken and eat dead skin and stuff so in theory they are unlikely to get a strong enough dose to kill them. Some say it works; some say it doesn't. I don't know. I've use ti a few times for roosters and non laying hens to treat both lice and mites. It seems to have worked for both on those occasions.

 

[Shadrach]

you cheeky boy.

She hasn't been as sociable for some time now but today she was back too old flexi, confident and even seeking attention ,everytime I was outside and after my friend.

I'm serious. A chicken you know and can do something about is far more important than all that garbage in the news.