Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[Molpet]

Now that hunting season has began my partner is going to ask my neighbour to track him. They used to kill a lot of game on the property and they weren't happy when we fenced the whole of it.

Hopefully they get it

 

[BDutch]

It was his 50 birthday yesterday, but we stayed at home resting and just made a nice dinner.

Congrats with your partner! I hope you had a very nice day.

I think I will also give it a try, I am quite used to treating myself with EOs and I have some of those that could be useful without taking too much risk.

I wonder what EO stands for. Can you explain?
Any way, good luck with the treatments.

And good luck with the boar.

 

[RoyalChick]

Congrats with your partner! I hope you had a very nice day.

I wonder what EO stands for. Can you explain?
Any way, good luck with the treatments.

And good luck with the boar.

I think it stands for Essential OIls.

 

[Perris]

But if you think of it, many of the medications and modern treatments also require a precise dosing and some can have side effects and actually be dangerous if not used appropriately. I don't know why we are surprised and shocked that it would be the same with more natural remedies.

indeed. Some 50% of modern medicines are derived from plants. "Up to 50% the approved drugs during the last 30 years are from either directly or indirectly from natural products and in the area of cancer, over the time frame from around the 1940s to date, of the 175 small molecules 85 actually being either natural products or directly derived there from." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3560124/
And today there's a report of a randomised trial showing that turmeric is as effective as a standard drug for dyspepsia. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/11/turmeric-effective-as-medicine-indigestion-study

 

[RoyalChick]

indeed. Some 50% of modern medicines are derived from plants. "Up to 50% the approved drugs during the last 30 years are from either directly or indirectly from natural products and in the area of cancer, over the time frame from around the 1940s to date, of the 175 small molecules 85 actually being either natural products or directly derived there from." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3560124/
And today there's a report of a randomised trial showing that turmeric is as effective as a standard drug for dyspepsia. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/11/turmeric-effective-as-medicine-indigestion-study

Turmeric it turns out is quite the thing - and in the attached I just love that its bioavailability is increased massively by the addition of black pepper.
Curry anyone?!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5664031/

There used to be (maybe still is for all I know) a whole research effort by pharmaceutical companies who scraped the hulls off boats that had sailed through less populated waters and screened the scrapings for biological activity. I think there are several anti-viral drugs and several anti-cancer drugs that are on the market that were found that way.

 

[BDutch]

Essential OIls.

still abracadabra for me. Which oils?

And today there's a report of a randomised trial showing that turmeric is as effective as a standard drug for dyspepsia.

I learned to be careful with such ‘medicines”
My experience is herbal ‘medicines’ work well for the problem but after some time I often get side effects.
I used a lot of ginger root (slices for thee, in soups etc. ) because it calms my intestines.
But I started to vomit too easily. And my doctor told me the ginger might be causing this. A few months after quitting things got back to normal.

Graviora quaedam sunt remedia periculis, : some medicines are worse than the disease.

 

[RoyalChick]

still abracadabra for me.

When you squeeze that twist of lemon that is sometimes served with espresso you are releasing the lemon oil into the coffee. You can sometimes see the droplets.
That is an essential oil with a 'mechanical' extraction method.
You can also extract plant oils with solvents (e.g. alcohol) and a variety of other ways depending on how pure you want the oil to be.

 

[ManueB]

Curry anyone?!

Golden latte is exactly based on that principle. Heating Turmeric and pepper in fat.

still abracadabra for me. Which oils?

From Wikipedia "An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile chemical compounds from plants".
It's most commonly obtained by distillation.

I learned to be careful with such ‘medicines”
My experience is herbal ‘medicines’ work well for the problem but after some time I often get side effects.
I used a lot of ginger root (slices for thee, in soups etc. ) because it calms my intestines.
But I started to vomit too easily. And my doctor told me the ginger might be causing this. A few months after quitting things got back to normal.

Graviora quaedam sunt remedia periculis, : some medicines are worse than the disease.

Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. Plant remedies need precise dosage and awareness of secondary effects. Even some common cooking ingredients like garlic in some situations are counter indicated. Ginger is a very potent root.
There are some good ressources on aromatherapy for animals but mostly for mammals, not birds, so I will do more research before deciding how and what to use.
*************

Nieva was at the vet today. I’m not very happy that they had her under anesthesia to open the scab. She had to leave at 7am and she was back at 7.30. It's so long and makes it so complicated to be so far away, that I really question every time if it's worth taking them to the vet. The vet told my partner to keep up what we’ve been doing, but that it's possible she will never completely heal. She doesn't think that she is in danger of a generalized infection but to watch for any signs of pain, which hasn't been the case up to now. She ate and drank a bit and went to roost with the other chickens.

It was a good thing that I had to get up before her to pick her off the roost (she is impossible to catch otherwise) because there was a slight drizzle totally unforeseen, and it's been dry for so long that we had tons of stuff scattered around outside.

The other chickens had a nice day. Since about ten days ago, Nougat the ex-batt had understood how to get out of the yard using a hole in the chicken netting, and my partner has mended that hole yesterday. It makes a big difference because she is Gaston's favourite, and now Gaston stays inside with her, and this means Merle and Léa also stay more inside as they look to him for protection from petit Blanc, who keeps trying to jump on them drop behind by surprise.

The chickens are having some issues at roost time. There is a lot of bickering and quarrelling and they are especially picking on Laure. I think it has to do with the facts that with the actual setup, once a chicken has set himself in a certain place, the others can't pass him by ; and once they are all roosted, they are stuck. In the previous setting there were two parallel roosts on both sides, so they always had the possibility to change place without going down on the floor. However, it was impossible to catch them on the roosts, the roosts were too high, and it was horrible to clean. I think what we’ve done isn't ideal though better, but before we change anything, we’ll have to really think about it, because it's not easy for them to adapt and sometimes the changes don't work out as planned. Maybe we could add another roost where there is already an old cow hay rack that some chickens use as a roost near the window, and add either another ramp , or stairs in the back.
I was so convinced that my ex-batts wouldn't survive summer and that there were four males in the hatch that I didn't think we would have 19 adult size chickens for some time in there !

Are you missing some feathers Chipie ?

 

[ManueB]

Posting earlier today because we are having dinner at my partner's mother. Then this Saturday we are doing his birthday with his family. I’m mentally prepared, but I know I won't enjoy it.

Nieva looked really tired this morning. She screamed drama before laying, in the hope that a rooster would come - neither did. They don't care for the leghorns at all anymore! Then, after she laid she stayed for a long time in the nest looking completely catatonic, not moving or reacting. She did eat a bit when I brought her mash. I was beginning to worry but after that she got out and behaved normal again. Maybe she was just really tired from yesterday. We haven't had a look at the foot yet, we’ll do that tonight before leaving.
It's very warm and windy, we were supposed to have a thunderstorm but it seems the wind will chase it off. We need some rain now.

I’m finding interesting to see how the cockerels behave. I forgot to mention that I heard pied beau truly crowing for the first time yesterday, in the coop ! There was no doubt that it wasn't his first try but I think he crows very rarely, so I hadn't had a chance to hear him. Anyway, now the pullets spend all morning inside the yard with the adults. Pied beau sometimes follow them, but Petit Blanc always stay outside. Both of them are terrified of Gaston, however Gaston is really patient with them ! He doesn't drive them away at all like Théo was doing with him when he was that age. He just ignores them. If Petit Blanc forces a hen to mate, he rushes to the hen, and that's enough to make petit Blanc leave, but he doesn't threaten him.
I wonder if it's a different temper ? Or because there are so many more hens now ? Or if it's because Gaston's focusing on harassing Théo ?
Both adult roosters however are courting the pullets, and they are not trying to mate them by force or willingly. They are probably waiting until they are nearer to laying. I still don't know what happened that one time Gaston tread on three weeks old Melisse !

My neighbour hasn't called me back on the roosters. I hope she hasn't changed her mind, she sounded really enthusiastic. You never know with people.

Morning scenes

Alba on the left, Nieva on the right.

Size difference between Piou-piou and Gaston. She doesn't let him mate her now and she’s outside most of the time, except when she goes to lay and at nap time.

Piou-piou going in to lay ; Nieva waits outside wanting to lay too, but not daring to go in with Piou-piou and no rooster to protect her.

Blanche and Nougat.

The three ex-batts, all three are molting now, though not heavily yet.

No, little devil, the world doesn't need your offspring.

Théo approaching Laure.

Sleepy Pied Beau.

 

[ManueB]

So, what did we find when we tended to Nieva’s foot yesterday evening? First, that the bandages they had made were so thick and tight and sticky that we wondered if we would be able to take them off. I use a middle size pair of scissors that cut very well but have round ends, deliberately because I ’m always scared when the chickens struggle while I cut the bandage off that I will hurt them. With such a tight and rigid bandage it was not efficient and I would have needed tiny sharp scissors. I have some old sewing scissors that are the right shape but I would have been very tense using them.
Then, there was a lot of blood. The wound was clean with a rather small and deep hole. It was still bleeding quite a lot, or maybe it started bleeding again when we took the dressing off.
The vet told my partner to stop using corn dressing and to use gauze soaked in betadine, so that's what we did.
She seemed better today though she spent a long time in the nest again. She puffed up when I went to see her so i’m wondering if she could possibly be having broody instincts ? Anyway both her feet are quite swollen still and it looks like it could indeed take a lot of time to heal.

On broody instincts, both Merle and Léa are showing signs that they will turn broody again. Is it possible that they turn broody while molting ?

Unfortunately we had no rain and it seems today again the thunderstorm will avoid us, but the grey, cooler weather is a relief from the heat. Today the younger pullets stayed with the adults until the middle of the afternoon, and the cockerels were close by outside, on their own. Pied Beau tried to mate Piou-piou, I think it's the first time I actually see him attempt to mate and not just run and collide as hard as possible. If he also turns hormonal and painful with the hens like Petit Blanc, we will have to re-home them soon.

Petit Blanc spends a lot of time trying to convince that this is the best place for a nest, even when there are no hens in sight ! Is he practicing ?

Adults and pullets.

Melisse, Lily and Lulu.

Nieva and Piou-piou.

Kara’s beak hasn't grown back at all. It doesn't seem to bother her from what I can see.

Léa and Piou-piou are always fighting but they look like sisters.