The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

She doesn't sound good.

No, this is unexpected and very worrisome. Leg injuries this bad don't often come out well.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

No, this is unexpected and very worrisome. Leg injuries this bad don't often come out well.

It does sound more involved than just a sprain, or strain. Hoping she hangs in there.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Do you have any liver in the freezer? If you do, you might try chopping some up real tiny - or grinding it - and see if she would eat it. Just for an experiment. Let her have as much as she wants over a few days...

 

[getaclue]

Sometimes bad sprains can take awhile. I'm hoping that's all it turns out to be. In the meantime, help her with her dustbathing. I had to do that with one of my hens for a little while.

We did Halloween very different this year. The grandkids agreed they would rather come eat supper at grandma's, then for the whole family to play Mario Party, than to go trick-or-treating. I had gotten cupcakes as a surprise treat for everyone. We had a great time, and the kids didn't want to leave. They wanted to spend the night, but they have school tomorrow, so that will have to wait for a weekend. When they went to leave, I had goodie bags for them, with candy in it.

 

[speckledhen]

If she has to stay in a cage in her own wet poop in cold weather, she'll end up with pneumonia like she gave Atlas last year. I moved Atlas's group to the next pen where the roost bars are not quite as wide *he had 10" wide shelves, basically, but now the Brahmas have those* and Liz was actually roosting on top of the file cabinet nest box or the shorty roost bar we put in for hassled birds so Atlas was having a better situation for himself, no wet Lizzie lakes of poop, now this. I hope it resolves itself, one way or another, before the weather gets really cold again. We're back into warmer weather for a week, thankfully. She has a reptile bulb over the cage so she is warm right now, but if this continues very long, well, I just don't know.

 

[speckledhen]

Do you have any liver in the freezer? If you do, you might try chopping some up real tiny - or grinding it - and see if she would eat it. Just for an experiment. Let her have as much as she wants over a few days...

No, we don't eat liver. I can buy her some chicken livers and cook them for her. I did that years ago when a big batch of chicks seemed to be very pale from a horrible bout of coccidiosis-that was before I could find Corid and was using Sulmet, which is harder on their intestines. Miss Prissy (Angie) suggested the livers and they helped build them back up.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I sure wish I lived close to you.

The farm I get my grass-fed from GIVES me any of their organ meats that other folks don't want. Most folks don't want any at all, so if they send in 4 beefs, I get the liver, heart, tongue, etc. from ALL of the animals cut and packaged. I started doing it so I could use the liver for the chickens - which I can feed raw because I know the source is healthy.

I literally have about 30 lbs of liver wrapped by the lb in the freezer.

I actually haven't given them any liver in a long time (probably over a year...laziness). I guess I should get some out for them again. I also know some folks that use it for their families by making pate, etc., so I give some to them as well.

You should see amazing activity when you give tiny little chicks some liver. It's so fun to watch them!

ETA: The liver is for a couple of the "b" vitamins that are often lacking or compromised in chicken feeds and are often the cause of leg issues - especially in chicks. I have some documentation on that if anyone is interested. Brewers yeast (not supplemented, just plain) is also a good source.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I got the recipe for the pate so I'm going to try it for us. Not sure we'll like it but if we can acquire a taste for it, that would be a good habit to form.

The folks that make the pate are a couple in which the wife is from Ukraine and the Husband from Russia. They have 2 little boys the LOVE pate.

 

[kitkat5505]

I hope Lizzie recovers. I’ve seen people make a type of sling for chickens that can’t move well, to help hold them up a bit while they recover. Don’t know if something like that would help.

I like the holidays, but not all the stress leading up to them. I was finishing costume parts until the last minute yesterday. Wish my older kids wouldn’t be so picky, the younger kids I can just pull out all the old costumes and tell them to pick one lol. And my house is a disaster because we’ve been too busy the last few days for anyone to get chores done. And with so many kids the messes pile up fast if not dealt with every day.

We’re getting less eggs now as the days get shorter and colder, but still 4-5 a day from 10 chickens. 2 of our 30 week girls still haven’t laid so I’m not sure if they will until spring now. 1 girl was acting off last week, I was worried she was egg bound again, but she’s acting fine now but hasn’t laid since then so I wonder if she’ll take the winter off. Another has only been laying 2 a week and slowly further apart so she might take a winter break too. The other 6 are pretty regular with my black sex link still going strong every single day.

My husband was asking what we will do when our hens are old and passing on, he agreed that we won’t be eating them when they stop laying, they are pets lol. I was telling him about all your old girls. Though ours are hatchery birds so I doubt they’ll last that long, but we’ll let them live out their lives here.

 

[speckledhen]

I sure wish I lived close to you.

The farm I get my grass-fed from GIVES me any of their organ meats that other folks don't want. Most folks don't want any at all, so if they send in 4 beefs, I get the liver, heart, tongue, etc. from ALL of the animals cut and packaged. I started doing it so I could use the liver for the chickens - which I can feed raw because I know the source is healthy.

I literally have about 30 lbs of liver wrapped by the lb in the freezer.

I actually haven't given them any liver in a long time (probably over a year...laziness). I guess I should get some out for them again. I also know some folks that use it for their families by making pate, etc., so I give some to them as well.

You should see amazing activity when you give tiny little chicks some liver. It's so fun to watch them!

ETA: The liver is for a couple of the "b" vitamins that are often lacking or compromised in chicken feeds and are often the cause of leg issues - especially in chicks. I have some documentation on that if anyone is interested. Brewers yeast (not supplemented, just plain) is also a good source.

I wish you did, too! We got a tub of chicken livers at Walmart. Will see if she likes them.

I hope Lizzie recovers. I’ve seen people make a type of sling for chickens that can’t move well, to help hold them up a bit while they recover. Don’t know if something like that would help.

We did that for Zane, made one from a bowling ball sling when he was in bad shape from the hock becoming infected. It was my friend, Lynn's idea-she is HenHaven on BYC, but I don't think she has posted in years. She sent me the sling and we "hung" Zane by it to get pressure off the leg and improve circulation. Eventually, he just lost the use of it and it stiffened in a bent position. We may have it around somewhere, but it would be too small for Liz, I bet. He was only about 20 weeks old at the time and was losing a lot of weight, too. Thought we'd lose him for awhile. A friend's vet told us to give him antibiotics though he had no actual wound, that soft tissue damage could cause infection, which it did. And Dr. Peter Brown, bless his heart, sent me more than one antibiotic to try to knock out the infection when penicillin would not do it. Finally, Cipro kicked it out and he began to gain weight and became the sweet, wonderful rooster we all loved for years. You can tell how bad off he was in the photo, thin with shrunken comb, etc.