The Front Porch Swing

[vehve]

Blooie, sorry for your loss.

 

[Blooie]

We found the problem. She had a tiny piece of thin wire about halfway down. It never made her bleed - not even where it was resting, but if giving her the bread that first time pushed it down a little farther and that's why she seemed to get better that would make sense. Sorry I had to resort to such an exam, but I at least know that it wasn't something that was going to infect the rest of them. She must have either picked it up in the yard or in the orchard somewhere when she was free-ranging. I feel bad that it was something I would have picked up if I'd seen it laying around but you just can't see every little thing, especially if it's buried down in the grass.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Aw, sorry to hear you lost Pearl, Blooie. She was so pretty. Glad to hear that it wasn't anything contagious to affect the rest of your flock.

Deb, so glad to hear that everything is going better. The pressure we put on ourselves is awful, and I am glad everything is back on track. I would like to put in a word of support for your son, he is doing what he likes and I hope that he will do well. He is taking some pretty hard classes, so I hope he can find his time and place for relaxation with all the schoolwork because the downtime is important for learning also.

 

[enola]

Blooie,

I have butchered lots and lots of chickens over the years....... I have found many, many different things in chickens gizzards. Pieces of glass, pieces of pottery, small screws, washers, a tack, a beer can tab, half of a marble, a piece of metal that I have no idea what it used to be; and then the grit, small pebbles, bigger pebbles and small rocks that should be there.

Did you know that cows also (accidentally) swallow metal? You can buy bovine magnets at TSC that you administer to your cow like a bolus. The magnet stays in the cow's belly for the rest of her life catching small pieces of metal, so the metal doesn't kill her.

 

[MistyMountain]

Oh Blooie, so sorry to hear about Pearl. She was so pretty. I am happy you figured out the problem. The last owners here were not so careful when it came to picking up litter. I recently found out that they must have broken a glass in the area where my coop now resides. Tiny pieces that are thick, not so sharp. I found it because the chickens go crazy for it and many ate some before I could get it up. I can say it works it's way through and comes out smoother and smoother. I then have to pick the poo up or they will start the cycle all over again.

Thinking of you

 

[perchie.girl]

Blooie,

I have butchered lots and lots of chickens over the years....... I have found many, many different things in chickens gizzards. Pieces of glass, pieces of pottery, small screws, washers, a tack, a beer can tab, half of a marble, a piece of metal that I have no idea what it used to be; and then the grit, small pebbles, bigger pebbles and small rocks that should be there.

Did you know that cows also (accidentally) swallow metal? You can buy bovine magnets at TSC that you administer to your cow like a bolus. The magnet stays in the cow's belly for the rest of her life catching small pieces of metal, so the metal doesn't kill her.

I lost a horse once from a teeny little piece of wire. about half an inch long. .... The entrolith was five pounds when it killed her. Entroliths in horses are formed by the body's need to protect the gut. Calcium gets deposited on sharp objects till the object gets large enough to be swept on through the gut and defecated.

In her case it didnt move on it expanded the gut out and thinned it so manure could pass. Eventually it ruptured a blood vessel. She simply felt a sharp pain and got sleepy laid down and died. Because there were no symptoms I rode her that evening goofing around doing some dressage and going for a long canter on the race track. Cleaned her up gave her a treat and put her in her pasture. The next morning she was dead.

I had a necropsy done.... for peace of mind... The vet said it was a painless peaciful way to go. Mom took the Entrolyth and gave it to dad. It was the size of a softball and the shape of a cobble stone. The vet said it was the largest one he had ever seen and had been forming for a good five to eight years. Dad took it to an industrial exray machin and it was soo dense it took almos a half hour to get an image... of a teeny piece of wire.

Home depot carrys a magnet sweeper that is about as wide as a small push broom. It picks up little bits of wire staples, nails... you name it. But it wont pick up anything else.

Your Hay also can bring in bits of foriegn matter in the baling process. I do a spot check to see if the bales have "stuff" in them. Usually its a plastic bag or a bit of baling twine. But the last thing I found was a tube of Gear lube with Lithium. I pulled the whole bale out. Told the feed store and they replaced it. didnt even ask for me to bring it back.

deb

 

[Blooie]

Deb, that's a shame about your horse. I felt bad when I read that. I don't use hay anywhere - never had a bale of it here. But I do know about the magnet thingy - Ken's family owned a ranch for many years and he had some of the magnets that are swallowed in addition to the ones that you just sweep. We rigged something up with the guts of an old stereo speaker and ran it repeatedly around the coop and the run until the last two passes came up clean. We were trying to be careful as we built the coop and run, but when you're working with chicken wire and hardware cloth and wiring them together bits can get dropped. We could well have missed something. Thing is the wire we found didn't look like the size we'd used - this little bit was really thin.

Quite a find in that bale you got! I would love to have seen the feed store guy when you told him about that!

 

[Tomtommom]

Oh Blooie, so sorry to hear about Pearl. She was so pretty. I am happy you figured out the problem. The last owners here were not so careful when it came to picking up litter. I recently found out that they must have broken a glass in the area where my coop now resides. Tiny pieces that are thick, not so sharp. I found it because the chickens go crazy for it and many ate some before I could get it up. I can say it works it's way through and comes out smoother and smoother. I then have to pick the poo up or they will start the cycle all over again.

Thinking of you

My yard is like that, years of people not picking up it seems. Every time we do work in the yard we find pieces of bottles, bottle caps, hair ties, dog chews, old nails and bolts etc. Most of it appears to be fairly old.

 

[Alice28]

Kendra is going to be the flower girl at Little Diane and Dustin's wedding!  Gonna put her in a cute little white dress with red flowers in her long, beautiful dark hair, and then put red flowers on the spokes and handle of her wheelchair.  Dustin's little brother Brynner is 9 and he's the ringbearer - he's going to push Kendra's chair up the aisle to the front  so she can see every thing that's going on!  What a wonderful thing for Diane to think of!  And it fits in perfectly with our desires for Kendra - to always be part of what's going on, never sitting on the sidelines.  She's going to be disabled if we teach her that she is.....and that's not acceptable. So three cheers for a wonderfully loving cousin and her fiancé.  So proud of Little Diane for thinking of this.

That sounds beautiful! Love that your decorating the wheelchair. My niece, who was in a wheelchair, was one of my flower girls at my wedding Her mom pushed her down aisle and her sister (also a flower girl) walked next to her. She couldn't wear a dress like her sister because of her feeding tube, but I made necklaces for the flower girls and they all got one (my husbands niece was a flower girl too). Everyone had so much fun. We had a very small wedding and the only hard thing was finding a place to get married outside that was wheelchair accessible. The place I really wanted to get married there was no way Allison could have gotten there and that was the most important thing to me. The first thing I asked when calling places is "is it wheelchair accessible?" I hope you post pictures of Kendra at the wedding

 

[enola]

I have picked up enough nails, bolts, screws, pieces of wire, chunks of glass, roofing nails, bottle caps and beer can tabs to almost fill a 3 gallon bucket. I have only lived here 22 months. I do not understand how people can be so trashy!

Every day I pray that my horse doesn't step on any of this crap.