Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[ppruitt]

It was a lovely afternoon after a damp and dreary start to the day. Apparently we are going to be paying for it tomorrow.
I've had to make some alterations to the new coop frame, hence the coop on it's side.
Most of the chickens were absolutely fascinated by me drilling holes with my hand drill, fitting screws and all the moving of things around. Once the coop went back on its base they were going in and out like a train station public toilet.
Fret of course did what she does best and fretted throughout the whole business. One could imagine her telling the others they shouldn't go in and the coop was going to fall over and Bucket Boy would drop that piece of wood he was carrying on them...
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Fret sounds like my Mother-in-Law.

 

[Shadrach]

Worming starts tomorrow. I bought two 10 Kilo bags of premixed flubenvet and layrs pellets.
Why two bags you may wonder.
So I can roughly calculate if C gives them the required 1 Kilo of feed in the mornings. I'll be doing the evening feed as usual.
My preference is to worm individually by measuring the dose, adding a very little water and soaking it up with a piece of bread and then feeding that to the chicken. Not really practicable with this lot in the keeping circumstances. I know two have worms and I assume some of the others have as well.
It's been over a year since they were last wormed C tells me.

 

[Shadrach]

Fret sounds like my Mother-in-Law.

She's very old for such a young hen is Fret. She's lovely but she is a complete old women about a lot of things.

 

[MaryJanet]

Worming starts tomorrow. I bought two 10 Kilo bags of premixed flubenvet and layrs pellets.
Why two bags you may wonder.
So I can roughly calculate if C gives them the required 1 Kilo of feed in the mornings. I'll be doing the evening feed as usual.
My preference is to worm individually by measuring the dose, adding a very little water and soaking it up with a piece of bread and then feeding that to the chicken. Not really practicable with this lot in the keeping circumstances. I know two have worms and I assume some of the others have as well.
It's been over a year since they were last wormed C tells me.

I recall Mark the vet's preference for treating a flock rather than an individual hen - he wasn't speaking of parasites at the time but I think the argument holds.

 

[Shadrach]

I recall Mark the vet's preference for treating a flock rather than an individual hen - he wasn't speaking of parasites at the time but I think the argument holds.

It does make sense on many grounds. However, in the past mass treatment has rarely been necessary and I'm not keen on worming as a routine treatment. In the past I have been able to see when worms were a likely problem and the dose by individual means one knows each chicken has had the correct dose.
It's almost impossible to know this through mass medication.

 

[no fly zone]

Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) deficiency. I have been treating a case of this for some time now. It is an almost miraculous cure over about 3-4 days.
My little lady went from completely paralyzed on her left leg to now normal left leg function. I eased up on the B2 supplements and her right leg got paralyzed. I re-upped and she is now more-or-less normal in both legs. I don't know whether I will need to maintain the supplements for her life.
The good news is B2 is very safe so you can put large amounts in feed and water and it does nobody any harm. It is bright yellow but it washes out easily.
I am giving Bernadette human dose levels - I just buy capsules at CVS and put them in the water, empty it onto her mash. I think she likes yellow so I don't even need to mix it in much she goes for the yellow sprinkled food first!

I picked up some B complex vitamins after work. We crushed one and mixed it with water and the little roo drank some. We added some fermented mash to that and mixed it further. He ate a bit more. His crop felt maybe a quarter or a third full. Hopefully that does the trick.

 

[RoyalChick]

I picked up some B complex vitamins after work. We crushed one and mixed it with water and the little roo drank some. We added some fermented mash to that and mixed it further. He ate a bit more. His crop felt maybe a quarter or a third full. Hopefully that does the trick.

Hope it works for him. Remember B2 (aka riboflavin) isn’t stored in the body so he will need it every day at least until he gets back to normal (if indeed this is the cause of his issues).

 

[ManueB]

It was a lovely afternoon after a damp and dreary start to the day. Apparently we are going to be paying for it tomorrow.
I've had to make some alterations to the new coop frame, hence the coop on it's side.
Most of the chickens were absolutely fascinated by me drilling holes with my hand drill, fitting screws and all the moving of things around. Once the coop went back on its base they were going in and out like a train station public toilet.
Fret of course did what she does best and fretted throughout the whole business. One could imagine her telling the others they shouldn't go in and the coop was going to fall over and Bucket Boy would drop that piece of wood he was carrying on them...
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I think it's a good thing chicken are so nosy as they tend to be worried about anything new. People usually associate exacerbated curiosity with females (and step mother's especially) but my rooster is just as busybody as my most curious hen. I don't know if he's an exception or if roosters are also curious. Did Henry take part in the rush in and out of the public toilet ?

Worming starts tomorrow. I bought two 10 Kilo bags of premixed flubenvet and layrs pellets.
Why two bags you may wonder.
So I can roughly calculate if C gives them the required 1 Kilo of feed in the mornings. I'll be doing the evening feed as usual.
My preference is to worm individually by measuring the dose, adding a very little water and soaking it up with a piece of bread and then feeding that to the chicken. Not really practicable with this lot in the keeping circumstances. I know two have worms and I assume some of the others have as well.
It's been over a year since they were last wormed C tells me.

I don't see how you could do it individually. I'm amazed at people who own 30 chickens in their home and do it individually. It was a struggle with the two hens I had to deworm using a syringe, I'll definitely try the piece of bread tip first next time.

Absolutely. It's always the hen that chooses the rooster if she is able.

I find utterly fascinating that the hen may chose to exert birth control if she does not crouch when mated. I don't know if any other specie have such an ability ? Imagine the power it gives the hen as reproduction of the specie depends not only on her body, but on her good will. It took us humans million of years to come up with equivalent solutions that are so much more complicated to use.

 

[ManueB]

Still no chicks out though we saw a little head showing out from under Chipie's body, and very little peeps compared to yesterday.
I'm not planning to assist with hatching, but when should I consider it's over and remove the eggs that didn't hatch, and move Chipie ? She still growls when I come near. We're on the morning of day 22.

 

[Perris]

It's been a very disappointing hatch here; Eve is still on the nest hoping to hatch the rest, but so far only 3 of the 8 are out, and I don't think any more will appear; there's no sign of pipping there. The laggards are formally only 1 day late, but I think the first hatched Friday, so I reckon it 2. Bizarrely we seem to have 1 each of the 3 breeds she set, though there were 4 Braekel eggs and 2 each of Isabella leghorn and (homegrown) Swedish Flower. I have no idea what the problem might have been; I'll autopsy the eggs when she leads the chicks out and we'll know more then. The three out are very cute though, and being just 3 puts less pressure on accommodation space of course