The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[ronott1]

Thank you LM. My boys have the same color and more of it. Their wattles are also very very swollen. The only pictures I've seen that come close are pictures of coryza but it's not that. There are no respiratory issues at all and it happens overnight.

One bantam male has it on one wattle (the side facing the coop door) which I have subsequently closed.

I will try try to get pictures tomorrow and I can promise you, they will make you cringe.

The feed pans might be an issue with some of them but the one that is the worst has a feed pan only about 3" wide, maybe a little more. When I've watched him eat, his wattles would still be outside the dish so not laying in the ff. Maybe I can get a narrower dish for them anyway and see if it helps.

Tomorrow though, I think I'm going to be bringing roosters in the house to feed them and get some moisture to them. They'll go back out and depending on the temperature and any wind, I may or may not keep their coops closed.

Did you see the post from Alaskan abut using plastic instead of metal pans? Metal transfers cold and causes frostbit.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I use only plastic feed pans with the fermented feed because of the acidic nature of the stuff.

 

[lalaland]

@lalaland
How is your flock doing health-wise?

still looking fine. No overt signs of mareks. I have a few that seem light weight to me and am going to buy a scale so I can keep an eye on the flock and a cat that has food allergy issues.

The hen with the misshaped pupil is still molting, its a very very slow molt and that might indicate underlying health problems.

back to more normal temps (8 below zero F) which is sad.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I THINK my worst boy looks a little bit better this morning. Of course he hasn't eaten and drank anything since the first day and today is the third day so I'm gonna have to bring him in to feed/water. Right now though, he's stretched out soaking up the morning sun so I will let him enjoy the warmth for a while first.

I have two others that either cannot get into the sun or don't feel like jumping down out of the coop to find the sun so maybe I'll do them first.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Here is my poor boy. He is the worst one by far and he looks better than he did yesterday. Can you even imagine?

I have three that I brought in to feed. The two that have had this condition for three days were harder to get to eat. I got about 4 tablespoons of ff in them so about 1/4 cup. The one that had it for just two days was much easier to feed and he ate heartier. He had double what the other two ate.

The other two, I plan to bring in tonight after I feed the rest of them their dinner and feed them some more. Hopefully they'll eat more than 4 tablespoons worth!

I'll try to take progression photos to show how they're doing. I was pretty sure when I went out this morning that I would find this guy dead. I thought his throat was swollen and that it would cause breathing issues. The throats are not swollen, just the wattles and the very base of the wattles and this one in particular has earlobes that even look bruised but the throat is not being constricted at all. That much is a relief.

 

[Leahs Mom]

That boy has some HUGE wattles! Just touching those against the feed or water pans will be painful so I can see why they don't want to eat. I do think they can heal if they're kept dry. "Mister's" wattles looked quite like that except his weren't so large so it wasn't covering as much territory. In his case I know it was the ff because I changed the way I was giving it and that very day he got the frostbite. When I changed it back he didn't continue to get damage.

I'm still thinking it's the wet feed. But....how is your waterer? Can they get wattles in the water?

My thought would be to quit the ff until they can heal so they don't keep getting them wet. I think you'd find that takes care of the problem. [This year I'm offering both wet (ff or overnight soaked depending on what I have at the time) and dry feed and letting them free-choice what they want but I don't currently have a roo.... "Mister" went to a new home as I didn't want to breed crests.]


This is what I did with my feed pans last year... I have several pyrex pie pans setting on various types of heat units during the winter. If I left the pans open, they'd get wattles in so I put an inverted pyrex leftover dish in the center. It kept wattles outside of the pans. You can kind-of see them in these photos.




This one is a pyrex pie pan setting in a heated bowl then it has the pyrex in the middle. Feed is all around the edge of the inverted dishes. It made just enough restriction to keep them from getting wattlers in there. And...this one is a metal heat unit and I wouldn't encourage using that one for the roos that have as large of wattles as yours do. As Ron said, if they're laying against that metal it wouldn't be a good thing. Only my hens used this dish. (I haven't had to use any of the heaters yet this year.

 

[COChix]

Saw an ermine on my deck this morning. Fortunately one of my dogs spotted it before it could get to the coops. There are definitely some gaps in the new run that this thing could squeeze through. I know they are around, but hadn't seen any before today. Looks like I will be spending the morning improving security. Any suggestions for deterring these critters ? Does ammonia help?

Greetings from snowy Colorado, what is an ermine?

Sorry, haven't been posting here but I have been reading through posts on here off and on, I know most of you all (myself included) are not using light in their coops this winter, but was curious about heating? We are going through another cold snap in Colorado, tonight suppose to be -5 with tomorrow predicted to be -17 I am not going to use a heat lamp tonight,but am debating about tomorrow. My reluctance is this the concern of frost bite due to increased humidity. Last cold snap I panicked some (first winter with chickens) threw in not one but two Infared lamps. Ended up with frost bite on one of our Wellies comb. She healed fine, wasn't too bad. Anyway, I have since done a bunch more reading and the bigger concern is humidity. Our coop isn't air tight as it was an old shed converted, so it is insulated probably 20+ years ago. We have venting at the top of the coop for moisture to escape, the coop venting faces north and our winds run north to south usually and east a lot. We have three roosting bars for the gang, deep litter method about 4 ft currently on bottom of coop, 25 birds all cold hardy.

Don't know if this helps...

Opinions please?

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
Yes... please post a photo. That's one I don't know.


ETA: Just looked it up. It's another name for a particular weasel.

 

[Leahs Mom]

3 EGGS TODAY!

2 pullet and Charlie the EE laid one too. (Charlie will be 3 in March. She was in the box when I went out early this morning.)

 

[COChix]

3 EGGS TODAY! 

2 pullet and Charlie the EE laid one too.  (Charlie will be 3 in March.  She was in the box when I went out early this morning.)

I would give you a thumbs up but apparently I am over my rating allotment and I can't. I guess I am overly generous with my ovations. Anyway, I was reading your pullets didn't lay before winter, but I guess they got the notice that they should be laying this winter. Yeah, ours started laying at the end of July (might be August,Ido t remember for sure) but are continuing to lay this winter for the most part. We have 23 and are averaging 15 now, two weeks ago when I had their protein higher I was getting 18-19/23.We have had several broodies already and as well as some went through an 8 month old soft molt, which can happen in some breeds.

Does anyone grow fodder here?