Silkie thread!

[greenbeetle]

Nope they are in the den in my house. They have been for a month. It's 73 degrees in there. I will put them back out in the spring. They were only supposed to be in the house for a week and it's been a month. Stupid winter. They range from 4 months to 2 years old. I think they are just lazy lol. Btw there are 12 of them. I also have a momma and her 5 chicks in the house. I need springtime. Like tomorrow.

I know how you feel, I have 8 silkies living in my spare bedroom right now, so ready for spring to get here i can't stand it. So sick of this winter area.

 

[kabhyper1]

I know how you feel, I have 8 silkies living in my spare bedroom right now, so ready for spring to get here i can't stand it. So sick of this winter area.

Do you feel like you can't get your house clean enough? I love those little fluff butts, but they belong outside in fresh air and sunshine. I belong in a clean house HA!

 

[Sylvester017]

Nope they are in the den in my house. They have been for a month. It's 73 degrees in there. I will put them back out in the spring. They were only supposed to be in the house for a week and it's been a month. Stupid winter. They range from 4 months to 2 years old. I think they are just lazy lol. Btw there are 12 of them. I also have a momma and her 5 chicks in the house. I need springtime. Like tomorrow.

OMG that's funny! In a way I envy u having all those sweeties so close to u ! We had 2 pullets shipped to us last June and 2 more pullets shipped to us last August - a friend & I went halfsies w/ the orders. Both times they were quarantined in-house in a 4x4 dog pen but in our LIVING room because the den didn't have enough floor space w/ our books, desk, files, exercise equipment etc. It's so much fun having them in-house but they were juveniles and not chicks so they were anxious to join the girls they saw outside. We had to cover the indoor kennel w/ netting because they wanted to fly out all the time. It wasn't unusual to occasionally discover an escaped Buff Leghorn or Ameraucana walking to the dinette sliding door to watch the girls outside.

 

[kabhyper1]

OMG that's funny! In a way I envy u having all those sweeties so close to u ! We had 2 pullets shipped to us last June and 2 more pullets shipped to us last August - a friend & I went halfsies w/ the orders. Both times they were quarantined in-house in a 4x4 dog pen but in our LIVING room because the den didn't have enough floor space w/ our books, desk, files, exercise equipment etc. It's so much fun having them in-house but they were juveniles and not chicks so they were anxious to join the girls they saw outside. We had to cover the indoor kennel w/ netting because they wanted to fly out all the time. It wasn't unusual to occasionally discover an escaped Buff Leghorn or Ameraucana walking to the dinette sliding door to watch the girls outside.

Aww,. I do like having them close, but I know they need to be outside. Mine are in a short box and don't try to get out at all. They like it in there. Little weirdos. (disclaimer that box goes way farther to the right, it's not as small as it looks. Btw are you guys finally getting some rain??? We have had enough snow for 10 years here.

 

[K Epp]

I just moved my Milli d'Uccle roo and Splash Silkie hen in their rabbit cage to the garage. I already have a Welsumer roo with a broken toe and a trio of D'anver in kennels in there. I have a heat lamp going to knock some of the chill off. I turned the light on in their cage, but I couldn't deal with them in the house any longer. The mess and the fact he found his crow and has been practicing. ...a lot! I can sleep through the 13 roos crowing out side, but not one little guy in the living room. Now maybe I will sleep past 5am on my day off

 

[Sylvester017]

Aww,. I do like having them close, but I know they need to be outside. Mine are in a short box and don't try to get out at all. They like it in there. Little weirdos. (disclaimer that box goes way farther to the right, it's not as small as it looks. Btw are you guys finally getting some rain??? We have had enough snow for 10 years here.

GORGEOUS! Now I'm more jealous than ever! It's just for a little while so enjoy them! Time goes by quicker than u realize!

 

[Sylvester017]

I just moved my Milli d'Uccle roo and Splash Silkie hen in their rabbit cage to the garage. I already have a Welsumer roo with a broken toe and a trio of D'anver in kennels in there. I have a heat lamp going to knock some of the chill off. I turned the light on in their cage, but I couldn't deal with them in the house any longer. The mess and the fact he found his crow and has been practicing. ...a lot! I can sleep through the 13 roos crowing out side, but not one little guy in the living room. Now maybe I will sleep past 5am on my day off

OMG! I thought we were the only crazy chicken people in the world. Our friends think we're nuts to have chickens in the house. No stranger than having dogs or cats in the house - right?

 

[flocknfoal]

I don't mean this to sound rude or anything, but I don't understand having chickens indoors. The highs here have been in the single digits. The lows, with the wind chill, have been 8 to15 degrees below zero. I have 15 chicks in a brooder in the garage. Grant it, the garage isn't as cold as out in the wind, and they do have a brooder light, but they are doing fine in there. All of the other chickens, including a mama with 3 chicks, are in the coop. The run is covered, and enclosed with hardware cloth, and there is a brooder light in the coop with the mom and her chicks. Even if I had an extra room, I just think it would be too smelly and dusty to have them indoors.

 

[kabhyper1]

Grayson started crowing today. I am so proud of his horrid little screechings!

 

[emvickrey]

I'm a little concerned that u used pesticide powder or DE so liberally for dust baths. Think maybe the respiratory thing going on w/ your sick chickens could be from either the DE or pesticide dusts? It's easy to conclude that a chest cold is the culprit but chickens know how to regulate temps around each other. I can't stress using organic OMRI Poultry Protector products as a primary preventative & save the stronger poisons only in emergency infestation control. One new pullet we got shipped to us had lice when we got her but organic Poultry Protector cleared her up in less than a week. I wouldn't use the pesticides or DE for routine use but then that's me. When we lived on our 25 acre-farm the chickens did fine in farm dirt baths w/o additives - my folks never had infestations of lice/mites & did routine health checks on geese, ducks, & hens. The only quail, squab, or pheasant we had were the one's Pop brought home from hunting - decades ago LOL.

I love that you have a vet. So many owners hesitate using their services but in the long run it is less costly than losing a whole flock. Try cutting down on DE & dust powders around your birds to see if it saves u future vet respiratory visits and if it does, let us know how it goes.

Let us know the necropsy results. It is not a cheap expense so please share when you find out. Wishing u absolutely the best w/ ur girls as we all love our her lungs. dearly!

The 3 I lost had not been dusted nor had DE provided for them. I had bought 6 chicks from somebody else and they where shipped to me when they where 3 weeks old back in sept I think it was. I had 5 of my own chicks that are the same age. Two of mine turned into special needs and are the 2 that are still in the house now at age 5 months old. The remaining 6 that where shipped and 3 of my own where moved to the juvenile pen outside with a heat lamp. I keep a thick layer of wood shavings on the floor and only let them out into the run on warmer days which had hay on the ground to keep their feet from getting muddy. None of the juveniles have been around DE or sevin dust. I lost 3 of the 6 I bought last month. Everybody else is doing fine. The first one that died had mites real bad. After I lost the other 2 which I actually culled for fear it was infectious I dusted the remaining 6 with sevin dust and sprinkled it around in the bedding. All 6 are doing fine and I actually got 3 eggs from them today. The hen that is in the house has always seemed to spend the winter in the house. I hatched her from somebody's eggs from here at BYC and she apparently carries the double frizzle gene. She tends to go "naked" after breeding for a while. This year she is fully feathered and in the house another winter. I moved all my sizzles to a more confined closed pen to protect them from the cold weather. This pen also had never had DE or sevin dust until I had treated the juvenile pen. The sick hen was already in the house by this time.

A few years ago I had a pullet get lice and I used sevin dust on her and the next day gave her a bath and the lice where gone. I picked off the eggs. That pullet was living with my house hen at the time because she was treated very badly in any other pen I put her in. My house hen never got lice which I think is very strange.

I do take my birds to a vet after I've tried everything I can do. I've had some die unexpectedly before I could get them to the vet. Our vets don't see any other chickens but mine so they aren't very educated with poultry. There is just one vet that knows more than the others and he is the one that saved Moe. He said what she had was a bacterial infection that started in her sinus and went to her lungs. He said if he got to her in time she will recover but there wasn't anything else he could do but what he did. As soon as I heard her breathing hard I got her to the vet. She is loeads better and back to her normal vocal self. For a 5 year old hen I feel she recovered well. She wasn't very cooperative with taking her oral meds but I got it down her and she's better.

We never had issues with mites or lice till we moved to our new house 2 years ago. I didn't loose birds nor other than 1 hen I didn't have sick birds either. I wonder if it's something here. Ages ago 20+ years that is they raised hogs on this property.