The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[bbdal]

Any symptoms with the birds? Or are they acting like normal, eating, laying, etc?

They all act fine. The broody is close to hatching her eggs so her comb is pale like our other hens have been at end of 21 days.
I googled this and fowl pox popped up. Most of the pics look way worse than mine but could this be the beginning? It doesn't seem like fowl pox causes long term problems with eggs and/or meat and it just has to run its course from what I read. Any advice?

I have been giving the broody boiled egg, yogurt, ff, etc so she has good options for her food.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Lost the last remaining member of my original flock to day. When I went out to the coop this morning she was in one of the nest boxes. This afternoon I noticed one of my new birds checking out the box but then I saw that the other one was still in there. Opened the box and it was obvious she was dead. My guess is egg binding - her vent was prolapsed and a couple of days ago it seemed like she might have been straining, but she seemed fine otherwise. I feel badly for not having taken a closer look. My neighbor was looking after my birds while I was away for a couple of weeks so I have no idea if she was looking off. Should have done a necropsy but I'm not (yet) set up for that and this was a wake-up call that I need to be.

Curious how old your girl was?

 

[lalaland]

Quote:
rowerjen, I'm sorry to hear that, it is always a hard thing. I put off doing necropsies (spelling?) for a long time, but it isn't as awful as I anticipated. really, all you need is newspaper, a good poultry shears or kitchen shears, and a sharp knife. Newspaper for the table or counter if you have to do it inside. just trying to encourage you to to take the plunge, although I am hoping you won't have the opportunity for a long time. I felt I learned a lot, from the one on my own hen and from the two I've helped someone do when it was their first time too. Am still learning how to identify the various organs and things. Sally, sweet kitten. sometimes I think people are horrible, and sometimes I think they are just so shut down and traumatized that they can't feel or think. glad the kitten was at your coop. and your hen?

 

[loveourbirds]

rowerjen - sorry to hear about your hen. i had one bind and didnt know it, i was new to chickens and thought she was just calm for some reason. i felt terrible when i realized what it was

, and that i could have saved her. watch your other hens closely, at one point i was feeding a high protein and not enough oils/calcium. we had a small outbreak of it here on the farm - fortunately we were able to save 6 of 8 who all returned to the flock later with no further issues.

 

[BlueMouse]

Well, today we had an unforntunate accident involving a guinea who didn't move when my husband moved the mobile coop. Ended up with a broken leg. Thankfully we've been through our first round of butchering and I was able to calmly and cleanly end it's suffering. Sadly it was one of the females, not one of the excess males. She's now resting in the fridge and will be dinner on thursday. Sorry to lose her, but she still serves a purpose.

The interesting part/question I have through all of this is, when I opened her up there was a lot of clear gold liquid and some clear gold gelatinous material in her body cavity. Also, her liver was much more orange/yellow than bright healthy red. Her bile gland seemed comparatively small and empty as well. I'm curious about this for two reasons, first, I had to let her sit for an hour or so before I could pluck/butcher her, because the kids were up, and trying to pluck and butcher a bird with two toddlers and an infant under foot.... ha ha ha (last time I did this it was a fish, and I had to answer variations of "fishy sleeping?" about a thousand times). I don't know if the delay between death and butchering could have been the cause of the fluid? She was always considerably smaller than the other birds, and I wonder if she was just not thriving for some internal reason. Any opinions?

 

[delisha]

Well, today we had an unforntunate accident involving a guinea who didn't move when my husband moved the mobile coop. Ended up with a broken leg. Thankfully we've been through our first round of butchering and I was able to calmly and cleanly end it's suffering. Sadly it was one of the females, not one of the excess males. She's now resting in the fridge and will be dinner on thursday. Sorry to lose her, but she still serves a purpose.

The interesting part/question I have through all of this is, when I opened her up there was a lot of clear gold liquid and some clear gold gelatinous material in her body cavity. Also, her liver was much more orange/yellow than bright healthy red. Her bile gland seemed comparatively small and empty as well. I'm curious about this for two reasons, first, I had to let her sit for an hour or so before I could pluck/butcher her, because the kids were up, and trying to pluck and butcher a bird with two toddlers and an infant under foot.... ha ha ha (last time I did this it was a fish, and I had to answer variations of "fishy sleeping?" about a thousand times). I don't know if the delay between death and butchering could have been the cause of the fluid? She was always considerably smaller than the other birds, and I wonder if she was just not thriving for some internal reason. Any opinions?

cook and feed her to the chickens if you are worried.
Watch this and see if yours is close

An hour should not be a problem unless she was sitting in the sun outside.

 

[Sally8]

rowerjen - so sorry to hear about your hen. We just culled one a couple of hours ago due to egg binding. My 2nd one in 5 years. The first one, I didn't really check my birds (meaning that I just fed them and gathered eggs and once in a while we would lose one but never knew why) Same with this Delaware. Actually, that was how I found BYC, by looking up what could be wrong with her. When I put her in the tub, I noticed that her whole underside was black (peritonitis) and realized what pain she must have been in. I said I would never let another one suffer if I could help it. Today was day 4 or 5, I had been watching a RIR, and I brought her in to see if I could see anything wrong. She was also egg bound and in just those few days had become ill. We culled her. She was probably one of my oldest hens and I do feel a loss. I've realized that even though it's not easy to make that decision, I feel good that she isn't suffering any longer.
Cecilia seems to be doing great. I need to put NuStock on her again tomorrow but I want to bring her in and do a thorough check on her. It's hard when they have a thick coat of that smelly stuff on. lol I've been meaning to get another picture. She's with all her chicks now as I had to rob the cage she was in to put the kitten in. Tomorrow the kitten will go to the vet just to be sure that it isn't going to pas anything on to my others and then I can let her out to mingle. This morning she was spitting and hissing and tonight she was falling asleep in my arms, purring. She does have a fat, wormy stomach though.

 

[jockeyeba]

...

I know ya'll have talked about it plenty but my brain is not good at remembering

Yes you can:

1 gallon of apple juice/sludge or plain water...I use the apples on the ground and just cook them..I add to the water to make a gallon. I give the birds the cores, stems and skin after they are cooked.
1/2 cup of brown sugar or alternatives like stevia or honey
1/2 cup kosher salt
soak for 6-12 hours in the fridge and cook to your liking

I have also used frozen lemonaid and lemon slices instead of the apples I do not add additional sugar if I use frozen lemonaid

Thanks for the info

 

[aoxa]

Aoxa--this is why hawks are so deadly...awesome video, if it works.

Great video!

On the kitties -

My daughter and son in law live in a "country setting" right behind an apartment complex. When the purchased the house, there were cats all around reproducing. Presumably getting dumped from the apartments.

They adopted 2 themselves that came in and became house cats.

Then they found the organization in our area that spays/neuters and returns to the wild like you talked about. They bought certificates to have several of the cats "fixed" and let them back out. They still hang around for goodies.

We have organizations that do the same thing here.

I have found kittens dumped on a bridge and took them home and rehabilitated them. They were 3 weeks old and very sickly. I got them healthy and found a good home for them to go together.

Some people are just cruel.

 

[Mrs Hutcherson]

About the kitties, all of my kitties are rescues, we used to live behind a bar, and people would dump off cats left and right, we didn't have any kind of no kill shelter to take them to, the ones we did have would put cats down in 3 days if nobody picked them up. We ended up taking in 15 cats and giving them a home at one point, yea I was the crazy cat lady! lol but we found homes for all but 4 when we moved to virginia. Love they kitties! Lol