Silkie thread!

[emvickrey]

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 smel

There was a brief time just before it turned fall that I had no chickens in the house. I put my house hen outside in the juvenile pen till the boys got frisky. She came back in and I moved the boys out to a pen of their own. I had kept the last of my young ones on the front porch where my brooders are till they out grew the brooder then they went to the old trough thats on my carport room. The same ones that I lost 3 of last month. Right now I have the house hen, recovered sizzle hen and a lone chick in the house. I have a broody with 7 eggs due the 10th in the trough in the carport room with a heat lamp and my special needs pair I just took out of the trough today and put them in their own pen also in the carport room. I know the broody would be pecking at them once her babies hatch so I moved them before they hatch to save them all the stress. I have 24/7 access to all the birds in the house, porch and carport room without having to bundle up and go out to check on them. One of my special needs i've been having to clean his eye out since he was a week old. He's been to the vet but will have to go back. I have to constantly check on his eye because stuff gets stuck to it and I have to clean his eye out. If I could put an eye patch on him I think his eye would get better. If I ever figure out how I'll do it. The other one thats with him had gotten her top beak broken when she was very young and to prevent her from getting picked at by the others I keep her with the other one with the eye issue. They get along great.

I'm not one much for alot of house cleaning. Chickens do make alot of dust but so does the roads around here and no matter if chickens where in here or not there would be dust and i'm not spending my life worrying about a little dust. I clean their cages and brooders often to keep the smell down. Chicks are the worst as far as dust but when I have several they go out on the porch with a heat lamp. Right now I just have 1 chick. Not alot of dust to worry about just yet.

My house hen and other chickens have had free range in the house more than once. I just clean up after them as it hits the floor. I have all wood floors so it's easy to clean up. As long as DH don't mind neither do I. If any company is offended then they can just go home. I prefer my birds over most people anyway. My 2 boys make more of a mess than the chickens do. They both love the mud and if they can't find any they will make it then walk thru the house. BTW the chickens stay mostly in their cages. I just let them out for exercise.

 

[emvickrey]

Another picture of my boy Incy, not the prettiest roo but smh he makes up for it in personality.

Oh he's not ugly. You should've seen the one I had. Noe he was UGLY. His head was anyway but he produced the ost beautiful babies. I don't have partridge silkies just sizzles now.

 

[Sylvester017]

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.

It's all a matter of preference. The whole idea of chickens as pets made me chuckle at one time too. We have 4 hens & each one has been in our house from the time they were chicks or juveniles. You'd be surprised how easy it is to keep chickens inside. We changed kennel liner at least once, sometimes 2x a day, had up to 2 chickens at a time w/diapers (special made by me) walking around the kitchen which turned out to be their favorite place. It was also a good way to socialize each bird with us before introducing them gradually to the main flock. We are so solicitous of cleanliness that even our outdoor setup emits no odors. Of course, having no youngsters, being retired, & having the time for upkeep makes a big difference. Also being in So Calif might have something to do w/ milder weather & less humidity to ferment odors - but it is no different than caring after a smelly dog, feather-shedding parakeets or cockateils, sloppy food-slinging parrots, or cats & their litterbox, all of which we have had during our lifetime. You just have to be a good housekeeper whatever pet you own, have common sense in evaluating ur priorities, & don't have more than u can humanely care for - Smiles

Thank u for your post as I love learning how others manage their flocks.

 

[Sylvester017]

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

GOOD photo at the bottom. The boys are so funny sounding when they start to crow, & crow, & crow, & crow w/o stop! Don't u just LOVE him though? I love the little boys even more than the girls but the boys DO love to be noisy - unfortunately too often for our neighborhood to put up with :-(

Once the boys get older, they get a very distinctive stately stance that instantly distinguishes them from the rounder butterball stance of the girls. Besides the sweet personality I think it's the boys' stance that endears me most about the Silkie appearance.

 

[Sylvester017]

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.

Thanks for giving more info about how you handled your birds. It helps to get a good complete post rather than snippets of what happened. There are just so many conditions chickens can get & the chickens always seem to have the same symptoms for all sicknesses that you just can't diagnose the cause of, or what the actual malady is w/o professionals.

Since discovering organic Poultry Protector I have been so turned off to chemical pesticides in general. Even in the veggie garden I only use organic OMRI approved natural pesticides/fertilizers because of the foraging chickens. We get a lot of wild birds in the yard so being lice/mite free is not possible so we monitor our girls often but so far the only infestation of lice was on juveniles out of the box shipped to us from a breeder. Safe organic Poultry Protector for the pullets took care of that problem for us. I don't even work for Poultry Protector - they should pay me for the free advertising LOL. For my girls I use Ivermectin for worming 2x/yr approved by my vet. Worms along w/ lice & disease can also be brought in by the wild bird population & it's a pipe dream to think wild birds can be avoided around chickens! Your previous pig property may not be the problem but the wild bird population could be - birds are more likely to share diseases. Wild birds can keep infecting each other & bringing it to the chickens. What a happy thought - NOT!

Oral meds are a problem and go into the hen's lungs if not administered properly. Because I worry about that, I put the liquid (in my case baby vitamins) a drop at a time on the side of the hen's upper beak (away from nostrils) & the liquid trickles down. Eventually it annoys the hen enough to open her beak & the droplet leaks onto her tongue. Works every time w/o having to force the beak open w/ fingers. 2 hens open their mouth & LOVE the vitamins & 2 hens resist but the drop on the side works w/ them. Occasionally they shake their head & we get splashed w/ vitamin LOL !

From what I understand vets are schooled about birds along w/ dogs, cats, etc but if they don't practice w/ birds they get rusty. My vet started out w/ cats, dogs, exotic birds but got taken over by cats/dogs. He was so happy to get our Silkie in his office. His office said he loves chickens and would have a flock in the office backyard if the city would let him!!

 

[emvickrey]

Our vets deal mainly with dogs and cats. People bring horses to them and I'm sure they do house calls for the cattle and swine. The people where I live mostly don't raise more than yard birds. Chickens for egg laying and meat. Thats what they call them here is Yard Birds. If they get sick they just die. The first time I brought in a chicken, it was the weekend and after hours. By the time the vet arrived the chicken died as he drove up. He was at home on his computer looking up symptoms. I ended up having a necrpsy done and he died from mycolpasm. Which if I had caught what he initially had it could have been prevented. I have practically a pharmacy for my chickens since then. I had an internal layer that I managed to keep alive for about 6 months and it took a few months to figure out what was wrong with her in the first place. The only cure was a hysterectomy and nobody in the state of TN would do it so I kept her as comfortable as possible. When she showed signs of infection I gave her a round of antibiotics then followed that with probitics and a cocktail of vitamins. Her light was limited as well as her feed to reduce the natural happenings of producing eggs that where just building up inside of her. While I was away at a show DH lowered the heat in the house when he was gone at work and she couldn't handle being cold and she died.

I also worm my birds 2x a year. Some people give a cocci preventative to youngsters but I don't. I only treat if I see signs and I treat all in that pen. DH works at the local CO-OP and gets discounts on the fertilizer and other things for the garden and they don't make the chickens sick. The only ones that get let out are the Orpingtons anyway. They are really big and heavy and are very hard for a hawk to fly away with. My roo would fight to his death to fend off a predator and he is HUGE. I did loose a hen to a copperhead last year.

I don't have alot of problems with mites or lice. Just ocassionally. I know sevin dust isn't good for the birds to injest but it kills the bugs on contact then get shook off when the birds do their thing. chicken Dance. lol When our garden is producing the chickens always get greens from it. I grew a whole turnip area just for them. It was so funny to see them all run to the side of their pens waiting for me to pick a bucket full and bring to them. we also have this weed that they all love. It's like candy and when I feed it to them they produce eggs like crazy. Up until 2 weeks ago it was still growing but the deep freeze finally killed it off. Everything around here is covered in ice. My silkies and sizzles get mostly layer pellets, a little scratch and greens and scraps. The Orps get both pellets and scratch in about the same amount and also greens and scraps. I don't feed the juveniles anything other than chick starter with a little scratch and my chicks strictly only chick starter. I make a concoction that all my chickens love. It's cooked brown rice, crushed boiled eggs shells and all, oyster shell, a can of salmon, applesauce, apple chunks, green beans cooked and fresh spinach. I mix up a bucket and go around and spoon it out to them all. If I have juvies that are close to laying I will give them some too along with grit. I had an EE that would jump up to get into the bucket. She would come to the front door and peck on it as if she was wanting in. lol. I don't have EE's anymore, just silkies, sizzles, orps and a few geese.

 

[Sylvester017]

To emvickrey - Sounds like we're on the same page as far as a garden and feeding produce etc to our chickens.

It's so heart-wrenching when a sweet little chicken is hurt or sick. I'm so sorry about the loss of your girl. We feel so guilty that if only we could've, should've, would've & beat ourselves up - but I guess it's Nature's natural culling process to preserve the hardy. We lost a pullet & a chick within a 2-week period last year. We were devastated! Nature had a better plan for them.

The breeder I got my APA Ameraucana & Buff Leg from said to feed them extra protein w/chick starter until near POL & then start on layer feed. The pullets know what feed they needed to pick out to eat but she said the protein was very important to the chicks or moulting birds. She would feed raw eggs to them since she had lots of chickens but I never did that - always paranoid the raw egg will give them a taste to eat eggs later but that's just me - I always feed "boiled" eggs & use the crushed shells for gardening calcium. The chickens eventually find the crushed shells in the soil anyway when they forage at end of gardening season. Besides they have oyster shell at-will all year. The breeder advised medicated chick starter too - but since I only had a couple juveniles at a time and we kept the litter changed everyday, we didn't go w/ medicated starter. I think you would only need medicated if there are a LOT of babies in confinement in a brooder. Chicks under a mother hen wouldn't need it either.

We spoil our girls w/ food concoctions to supplement their soy-free non-GMO organic layer crumbles w/ about the same stuff u use - we use crumbles because the pellets aren't Silkie friendly. Our Silkies are wild about cooked rice & cucumbers & the Ameraucana loves the cooked sweet potatoes & fresh shrimp/wild salmon & all of them get brewers yeast, quinoa, rolled oats, shelled raw sunflower, wild bird mix, & whole grain wheat for at-will grazing. We give hi-protein canned cat/kitten food or canned wild salmon as backup if we don't have fresh proteins at hand. There's a lot more we give but the list would wind up 2 blog pages long ! We try to avoid farm-raised seafood as the diet fed to farmed fish isn't the natural diet of the ocean - just like packaged chicken feed isn't the only thing that should be fed to chickens. Nothing is 100% safe these days but we do the best we can. Mom always said the birds will selectively eat what their body needs at the time. Don't know if you read my thread where a blogger didn't know how selective his chickens were since they were eating a styrofoam block in his backyard & another blogger answered not to worry that it would come out in the same form it went in & meanwhile the chickens were having fun!

Read somewhere that the grasses/weeds provide the omega that makes yolks orange which is another reason we began free-ranging from the start w/ all our fowl. Soy seems to interfere w/ animals' reproductive cycles (egg-laying in hens) so we stay away from it whether organic or not. Somehow it interferes w/ hormones in animals/humans? Originally soy was produced to feed to swine but even they have a 25% lower piglet birth on soy so one farmer wrote. Goodness, we should itemize & reference all these gems of wisdom & write a chicken manual LOL !

 

[Onespirit03]

Like your pics, I have silkie eggs in bator, plan to incubate another batch.

 

[K Epp]

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. 

Mine came in when he was sick. Here the typical low is in the 20's with a occasional teen. This winter has been very wet and then the Polar Vortex hit and honey let me tell you there wasn't any of us Southern Belles ready for that. I'm in Georgia and had -20. The Welsumer who only sleeps inside got frost bite on his big beautiful comb while in the garage. My little d'Uccle roo would have died if I hadn't brought him in and I wasn't sure he wasn't going to for a few days. I got him over it and he started calling me to food and when he started dancing at my feet when I was cleaning his cage I brought my calmest pullet a Silkie in to keep him company. Since the crowing started he is now in the garage with the others. The Trio are in there for quarantine. I just got them a week ago. My boy is recovered, but I can't put the two back in the non heated coop the drop in temps would be to harsh and kill them. Yes they can be messy, but less so than my 5 lb dog and like someone said way less messy than children. LOL.

 

[laseterlass]

I live in SE Alaska. Our winter has been mild this year and my flock does alot of ranging.

Normal winters they would stay closer to the coop. I only bring them in if they show signs of illness, I did lose one hen that has always been thin. She had been weak since hatch though, had I left her to hatch on her own she wouldn't have.