Silkie thread!

[I<3MyChickens-Jewel&Flash]

Yes, I use a cat scoop.

awesome thanks so much

 

[Suzierd]

awesome thanks so much

Your very welcome, I love sand it's so easy to keep things clean.

 

[FoxholeFarm]

I think I have the weirdest silkie ever. She wants to roost. So much so that she is roosting on her food bowl rather than nesting on the ground like every other silkie I have ever known. Unfortunately she still sleeps with her head down like a dead chicken so she falls off her roost all the time. Fortunately the rim of her food dish doesn't leave her far to fall.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

I used to have a Silkie rooster who roosted . When we first got him, he had 3 Silkie hens that didn't roost, and he would stay on the floor with them. When a raccoon managed to find a way into our coop, the only birds it got were those little Silkie hens, leaving my poor little rooster as the lone Silkie in the coop. So, since he didn't want to sleep alone, he managed to figure how to roost with the other chickens, about 7 ft off the ground. I have no idea how he got up there, but he would sit in the middle of all the big hens every night! My husband and I used to joke that they'd piggy back him up there when it was time to go to bed.

Anyway, most of the Silkies I have now roost, but they have their own coop and the bar is only about 10 inches or so off the ground, so they can easily hop up there without much work

 

[tillymay78]

Hello all, I am new to this thread and the silkie world. I recently (two weeks ago) bought 5 chicks from My Pet Chicken. I think I may have just found out the hard way that silkies need supplement vitamins... One of my five fuzzy babies whom my six year old son named Love, broke her leg really badly. Unfortunately when I took her to the vet she informed me it was in her best interest to just let her go and euthanize her. It was a hard decision but she was suffering so. The vet mentioned it could be a vitamin deficiency that contributed or even possibly Mareks. When Mareks was mentioned I immediately decided to opt to have a necropsy performed to give me peace of mind and not to mention her four sisters that have been in contact with her. I have read a couple other comments about silkies and supplements now that have done some research...Oh this has just been so terrible. I just hope it will be okay. I bought rooster booster soluable vitamins to put in their water. I'm praying that this is all it was. My poor babies..

 

[lightchick]

The
Quote:

Quote: Thanks. I think one of her LF sisters got the burs out and the tomato stuff is coming out by itself. She's a pullet right? I'm 99.99% sure, but

She's 20 weeks old.
She looks like this now.

Her crest did look like this before.

 

[lightchick]

Hello all, I am new to this thread and the silkie world. I recently (two weeks ago) bought 5 chicks from My Pet Chicken. I think I may have just found out the hard way that silkies need supplement vitamins... One of my five fuzzy babies whom my six year old son named Love, broke her leg really badly. Unfortunately when I took her to the vet she informed me it was in her best interest to just let her go and euthanize her. It was a hard decision but she was suffering so. The vet mentioned it could be a vitamin deficiency that contributed or even possibly Mareks. When Mareks was mentioned I immediately decided to opt to have a necropsy performed to give me peace of mind and not to mention her four sisters that have been in contact with her. I have read a couple other comments about silkies and supplements now that have done some research...Oh this has just been so terrible. I just hope it will be okay. I bought rooster booster soluable vitamins to put in their water. I'm praying that this is all it was. My poor babies..

Hope your other babies will grow up to be nice and healthy!

 

[FoxholeFarm]

Hello all, I am new to this thread and the silkie world. I recently (two weeks ago) bought 5 chicks from My Pet Chicken. I think I may have just found out the hard way that silkies need supplement vitamins... One of my five fuzzy babies whom my six year old son named Love, broke her leg really badly. Unfortunately when I took her to the vet she informed me it was in her best interest to just let her go and euthanize her. It was a hard decision but she was suffering so. The vet mentioned it could be a vitamin deficiency that contributed or even possibly Mareks. When Mareks was mentioned I immediately decided to opt to have a necropsy performed to give me peace of mind and not to mention her four sisters that have been in contact with her. I have read a couple other comments about silkies and supplements now that have done some research...Oh this has just been so terrible. I just hope it will be okay. I bought rooster booster soluable vitamins to put in their water. I'm praying that this is all it was. My poor babies..

Broken leg isn't a common symptom of maerek's disease. She probably got stuck in something of jumped too far down. Silkies don't have the wing power to soften their landing.

From the Wikipedia for Marek's disease:

<I>There are six syndromes known to occur after infection with Marek's disease. These syndromes may overlap.

Classical Marek's disease or neurolymphomatosis causes asymmetric paralysis of one or more limbs. With vagus nerve involvement, difficulty breathing or dilation of the crop may occur. Besides lesions in the peripheral nerves, there are frequently lymphomatous infiltration/tumours in the skin, skeletal muscle, visceral organs. Organs that are commonly affected include the ovary, spleen, liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, proventriculus and adrenals.

Acute Marek's disease is an epidemic in a previously uninfected or unvaccinated flock, causing depression, paralysis, and death in a large number of birds (up to 80 percent). The age of onset is much earlier than the classic form; birds are four to eight weeks old when affected. Infiltration into multiple organs/tissue is observed.

Ocular lymphomatosis causes lymphocyte infiltration of the iris (making the iris turn grey), unequal size of the pupils, and blindness.

Cutaneous Marek's disease causes round, firm lesions at the feather follicles.[2]

Atherosclerosis is induced in experimentally infected chickens.[3]

Immunosuppression – Impairment of the T-lymphocytes prevent competent immunological response against pathogenic challenge and the affected birds become more susceptible to disease conditions such as coccidiosis and "Escherichia coli" infection .[4] Furthermore, without stimulation by cell-mediated immunity, the humoral immunity conferred by the B-cell lines from the Bursa of Fabricius also shuts down, thus resulting in birds that are totally immunocompromised.</I>

 

[tillymay78]

Foxhole Farm, I am relieved to hear that. My poor little one. I just want her sisters to have a chance and that Mareks is awful! I wish the Bantams could be inoculated. I wonder, I should have asked the vet if they can be once they get to a certain age. Can they? That would put my mind at ease.

 

[FoxholeFarm]

Foxhole Farm, I am relieved to hear that. My poor little one. I just want her sisters to have a chance and that Mareks is awful! I wish the Bantams could be inoculated. I wonder, I should have asked the vet if they can be once they get to a certain age. Can they? That would put my mind at ease.

Marek's vaccines are usually given pre-hatch or within the first 24hrs after. I don't know about vaccines later in life, but I do know that lost chickens have been exposed by the time they are 6 month old. Not all chickens develop symptoms. Most of them just fight off the virus and it never affects them in any way.