ZukerRach
Hatching
Background info: we got 6 chickens last spring— 4 salmon faverolles, 1 buff orpington, 1 black australorp. We keep them in a chicken tractor, 6x10’ with a coop that covers half of it (it’s the medium Green Willow Chicken Tractor, but I modified the plans to make the floor of the coop solid and added 7 sq ft of permanent ventilation (hardware cloth)). During the summer/ fall, we moved the tractor to a fresh part of the yard every morning so they had lots of access to greens and bugs. Once temperatures hit 20 (November), we moved the tractor into the garage and put bedding down in the whole “run”. When temperatures are reasonable (above 0), we keep the garage door open. As soon as we moved them into the garage, they stopped using the coop at all and just stayed in the run, even at night. We feed them Scratch and Peck grub pellets, plus random leftovers from the kitchen, mostly vegetables and meat. They’ve appeared happy and healthy until a week ago.
I noticed one of the favorelles was missing feathers on the back of her neck about a week ago, thought maybe the others were getting bored and pecking at her.. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t do anything about it, mostly because I didn’t know what to do, and life is hectic… I planned to research and come up with a solution this weekend. I suspect I’ll get crucified for neglect on that front. Every day it seemed more feathers were missing, to the point where yesterday her entire neck was featherless… and then I noticed the Australorp was also missing some feathers on her neck. Today, I found the australorp laying under the hanging waterer, with more missing feathers on the back of her head, and her comb is floppy and bleeding. I can’t see the wound itself, just some blood.. but she isn’t moving around at all. I shoo’d the other hens away when I saw them pecking her her, and she didn’t even get up with my panicked arm waving. I moved her into a large dog crate with bedding, food and water bowls… we had a single bite of food and then fell asleep. While I was getting the dog crate ready, I had her out of the run, and she just laid there with her eyes half open. I’m not hopeful, and so sad. I don’t see any mites, but I’m not confident that I really know what I’m looking for… her belly feels soft/normal. Not sure what else to look for/do.
I noticed one of the favorelles was missing feathers on the back of her neck about a week ago, thought maybe the others were getting bored and pecking at her.. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t do anything about it, mostly because I didn’t know what to do, and life is hectic… I planned to research and come up with a solution this weekend. I suspect I’ll get crucified for neglect on that front. Every day it seemed more feathers were missing, to the point where yesterday her entire neck was featherless… and then I noticed the Australorp was also missing some feathers on her neck. Today, I found the australorp laying under the hanging waterer, with more missing feathers on the back of her head, and her comb is floppy and bleeding. I can’t see the wound itself, just some blood.. but she isn’t moving around at all. I shoo’d the other hens away when I saw them pecking her her, and she didn’t even get up with my panicked arm waving. I moved her into a large dog crate with bedding, food and water bowls… we had a single bite of food and then fell asleep. While I was getting the dog crate ready, I had her out of the run, and she just laid there with her eyes half open. I’m not hopeful, and so sad. I don’t see any mites, but I’m not confident that I really know what I’m looking for… her belly feels soft/normal. Not sure what else to look for/do.
