Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Iluveggers]

Chickens pulling muscles and even tendons was a regular problem with the tribes.
One has to make a judgement on the severity of the injury. In general if they were still keeping up with the tribe I used to have a good look at them, feeling for heat or a lump at hip and knee joints. If it all felt good, I left them to it and in a few days time the limp went.
A couple had quite serious pulls, to the point I was worried they had dislocated something. I brougt these into the house and put them in a pet carrier with folded towls on the base. I used to let them roam around the house for an hour or two and then put them back in the pet carrier. Given they were in and out of my house all day this didn't put them under much stress and they rested the limb much more than they would have done out and about with their tribe. I think I had Mora in for two or three days before she looked able enough to be running around.
There isn't much else one can do and a dislocation really needs a good avian vet to put right.
I think the advice one would get from a doctor (well, I know it is) is keep the limb warm and rest it as much as possible.

If you were considering giving the hen something for the pain I wouldn't. The pain helps the chicken rest the limb. If the pain isn't there they will try to carry on as normal and cause further problems.

Thank you for the advice! It looked a little less favored when she was walking today, I let them out when I got home for awhile to observe & explore, so hopefully by the weekend it will look normal. Fingers crossed!

Here she is:

 

[Shadrach]

It was a sunny if a bit windy afternoon. I got caught out by a few buses getting cancelled and the trains on strike as well. What should have been three hours at the allotments dwindled to two.
I know who roost where because I take a picture most nights. This has made poop checks a lot easier. Nobody in the coop is pooping anything horrendous; not perfect but within a reasonable range. A lot of them are moulting but the coop doesn't look like a pillow fight. Some are regrowning their neck feathers that Henry pulled out but looking a few of them over there are odd patches of regrowth and repair.
I checked five this afternoon and couldn't find a mite or louse on them apart from SLM which is an issue here.

I can do this everyday easily with this coop; pick the poop and damp shredded paper out, sort of sift the rest to one side and scrape and sweep, then do the other side. With the current wind strength the coop doesn't smell. Once the tarp is up that might change.

Out and about. Well fed. Crops all full enough apart from one Legbar who has gone off the commercial feed while she's moulting. She'll remove fingers should they happen to have a bit of mackerel in them though.

 

[RoyalChick]

Thank you for the advice! It looked a little less favored when she was walking today, I let them out when I got home for awhile to observe & explore, so hopefully by the weekend it will look normal. Fingers crossed!

Here she is:
View attachment 3282963

When Maggie sprained her leg (a bad landing after flying to escape a fox - chickens like Maggie were not really intended to fly and she landed like a canon ball), it took 6 weeks for it to heal fully and not be noticable to me watching her walk.
Six week is about what it typically takes for a human to heal from similar injuries too.

 

[Iluveggers]

When Maggie sprained her leg (a bad landing after flying to escape a fox - chickens like Maggie were not really intended to fly and she landed like a canon ball), it took 6 weeks for it to heal fully and not be noticable to me watching her walk.
Six week is about what it typically takes for a human to heal from similar injuries too.

Thank you!

 

[Shadrach]

Thank you for the advice! It looked a little less favored when she was walking today, I let them out when I got home for awhile to observe & explore, so hopefully by the weekend it will look normal. Fingers crossed!

Here she is:
View attachment 3282963

It's one of those things I think a lot of free range chicken keepers have to deal with. I've always told them to peck it before they kick it. I've watched them get a foot stuck under a root they've been scratching underneath.

This is one of the forage team. She's had that puffy eye look at rest since she's been here and the extended lower beak. She's also moulting and not looking at all well. I was inspecting her on my lap and di her legs while she was there. A few pages back I posted a picture of her with her nostrils covered in mud. She had one side blocked again this evening wihich I cleaned up. She almost gapes once in a while but doesn't twist her neck as if there was something in her crop or throat causing an obstruction. She's eating and bathes and drinks. I'm going to worm her on the off chance she has gapeworm but I think it's unlikely.

I mentioned many pages back that a couple of the hens were wheezing/gurgling a bit. I'm fairly convinced that the conditions in the old coop were responsible. The old coop has serious ventilation problems. Lots of ventilation works, but effective ventilation is better. There are no high vents in the old coop and the pop door is at one end. The pop door like as present with the new coop catches the Westerly wind at an angle and a Southerly directly through the door. There was nowhere out of the wind in the old coop while the pop door was open and it was always open. One can an idea of how important wind shelter is to the chickens my the normal roosting distribution in the new coop at the moment by their preference for the RHS and even the floor.
Since roosting in the new coop the two other hens who had breathing problems don't make any sounds when breathing now.

On the watch list.

Henry.
His legs still look a mess. He's had two treatments of Ivermectin and his legs don't seem to irritate him, but they're a mess. I'm waiting on some Iodine to mix with Vaseline and I'm going back to using this for SLM. It has always worked in the past even on legs like Henry's.

 

[no fly zone]

Got up to make repairs on the chicken coop. Had gone to home depot to buy heavy duty plastic to place down instead of a tarp. The store was completely out, but then i remembered there was some in the garage that was left by the previous owners. Got some pressure treated wood instead of those plastic panels. Still need to cut the last piece to size, put sealant in the tiny gaps between boards, and staple down the loose edges of the plastic that hang out.

 

[Iluveggers]

Aww Shad, she looks pretty rough. I hope she pulls through!

 

[BDutch]

It's one of those things I think a lot of free range chicken keepers have to deal with. I've always told them to peck it before they kick it. I've watched them get a foot stuck under a root they've been scratching underneath.View attachment 3282980

This is one of the forage team. She's had that puffy eye look at rest since she's been here and the extended lower beak. She's also moulting and not looking at all well. I was inspecting her on my lap and di her legs while she was there. A few pages back I posted a picture of her with her nostrils covered in mud. She had one side blocked again this evening wihich I cleaned up. She almost gapes once in a while but doesn't twist her neck as if there was something in her crop or throat causing an obstruction. She's eating and bathes and drinks. I'm going to worm her on the off chance she has gapeworm but I think it's unlikely.

I mentioned many pages back that a couple of the hens were wheezing/gurgling a bit. I'm fairly convinced that the conditions in the old coop were responsible. The old coop has serious ventilation problems. Lots of ventilation works, but effective ventilation is better. There are no high vents in the old coop and the pop door is at one end. The pop door like as present with the new coop catches the Westerly wind at an angle and a Southerly directly through the door. There was nowhere out of the wind in the old coop while the pop door was open and it was always open. One can an idea of how important wind shelter is to the chickens my the normal roosting distribution in the new coop at the moment by their preference for the RHS and even the floor.
Since roosting in the new coop the two other hens who had breathing problems don't make any sounds when breathing now.

On the watch list.
View attachment 3282983View attachment 3283029

Henry.
His legs still look a mess. He's had two treatments of Ivermectin and his legs don't seem to irritate him, but they're a mess. I'm waiting on some Iodine to mix with Vaseline and I'm going back to using this for SLM. It has always worked in the past even on legs like Henry's.
View attachment 3282984

I wonder, if it’s natural for chickens to roost in a tree, then why do chickens have a problem with the wind?
In a tree the chickens endure all kind of weather. And I always believed (from reading) they don’t live long out there because of nightly predators. Never heard that they die from the wind. But I can imagine that ex-bats who lived in a warm cage for 2 years don’t handle natural weather very well afterwards. Or the specialism of the laying hybrid’s ‘breed’ is not fit for natural circumstances anymore. I wonder what’s you’re view on this?

I’m surprised that such legs can look normal again with vaseline and iodine. Fortunately my chickens never had these mites/parasites. Do the ex-bats take them from the factory farm to the allotment and infect the healthy chickens with it?

 

[Molpet]

Found one of my roosters dead in the coop this morning. He hadn't been looking too good the last few weeks. Comb was purple half the time. He wasn't mating and letting a grandson handle it. Glad he went before winter because I was thinking he was one that needed to be culled.... but I wasn't looking forward to it.
He was one of the few with a name. "Lucky's son " from 2018.
Pic from when he was young

His mom was Lucky, she survived a hawk attack at 16 wks and spent oct to may in the living room to in a parrot cage. She lived a couple years afterwards.

 

[Perris]

Found one of my roosters dead in the coop this morning. He hadn't been looking too good the last few weeks. Comb was purple half the time. He wasn't mating and letting a grandson handle it. Glad he went before winter because I was thinking he was one that needed to be culled.... but I wasn't looking forward to it.
He was one of the few with a name. "Lucky's son " from 2018.
Pic from when he was young
View attachment 3283650
His mom was Lucky, she survived a hawk attack at 16 wks and spent oct to may in the living room to in a parrot cage. She lived a couple years afterwards.

sorry for your loss Sounds very similar to what happened to Phoenix; unlike Henry, he didn't get over whatever was making his comb tips darken. I think there was something genetic at work here too though, because of a clutch of 6 from the same breeder, 3 boys and 3 girls, all the boys have died with dark combs, aged between 9 weeks and 15 months, and all the girls are absolutely fine.