The Old Folks Home

[vehve]

Al, you got any Vetericyn? That would be good to put on the wounds. Glue works great on the mini nicks, but larger wounds can be hard to close with it. Those birds can be pretty tough, our hawk victim chicken made a full recovery, even started laying again around Christmas, but then the cold snap made her stop. Good luck with your drake.

 

[scottcaddy]

It is a word according to google. Dang.

Bama, you don't even think that our Dear Diva would use a made up word do you?
Scott

 

[scottcaddy]

Those call ducks have such a cute little face... It is hard to think of them attacking.

My DW has a Call drake that runs a full grown Sweet Grass turkey Tom around and away from feed and such.
I hope that your drake makes a full recovery.
Scott

 

[chickadoodles]

Wow Alaskan I have to applaud you for being able to sew your young drake up! I hope he heals quickly!

 

[chickadoodles]

Hello and welcome RavynFallen.

 

[ronott1]

I was thinking about that.... But I am worried that there needs to be drainage sites. I specifically didn't close up the very bottom of the wound so that it could drain...

The problem is that there was some internal damage, so no matter what, his poor body will be working with some tissue die off and the resulting absorption and sloughing off and draining.

I also couldn't clean the wound of all of the blood clots, because I didn't want to cause more internal damage. Again.... Drainage is probably best.

There was also a tear in his wing muscle, I did not sew the muscle back together..... Maybe I should have..... But I decided against it. I decided that it was small enough that sewing it together might cause mire damage than good... Hard to know though.


And no, I didn't dose him with antibiotics... I don't usually do that.... As the healing progresses I will reassess.

Poor thing!

I do not give them anti biotics either.

I think that it also depends on the kind of ducks.

I think the mallard derived ducks are not as ferocious, and do not have as good " weapons", but it has been years since I had "regular" ducks.

The Muscovy have a very strong point on their beak, the claws on their feet are very sharp, and they REALLY like eating meat.

When threatened the drake will rear back on his tail and beat the intruder with his wings, try to cut him with the point on the beak, and jump up and rake the intruder with their clawed feet.

One person told me that their drake killed a great horned owl (owl was dead in the coop). He was super beat up though, his owner took him to the vet.

Thanks for detailing the difference between Pekin based and muscovy Ducks!

 

[WVduckchick]

How's the drake today Alaskan?

 

[Alaskan]

He is still alive.... Surprisingly he looks better than that chicken I did years ago... She stood in a hunched up huddle for three days before starting to come around.

Baby drake still has nice bright eyes, and is looking around. He doesn't want to move now, but that is to be expected, must be as sore as all get out.

I will keep you all updated.

 

[bruceha2000]

@bruceha2000 the important thing to consider about those brackets on the roof..... If it holds the snow on the roof, how much weight that your roof has to carry increases by a CRAZY amount.

Not all roofs are strong enough for that.

making the roof collapse is bad.

Agreed

Agree. I still have my shingle roof on, too. The roofer did not want to put any of the snow breaks on my roof.

I think I was unclear. My shingle roof is still on under my metal roof, ergo, I do not want any additional weight on the roof.

Ah, that explains my confusion with the first post

Personal preference only, I would never save a few bucks and leave an old asphalt shingle roof under a new one. I know "they" say it is OK to put a metal roof or second layer of shingles over the top but I figure if the shingles aren't doing their job any more, why do I want a pile of less than structurally sound material UNDER the new stuff??

Yes, the roof needs to be able to support the weight and when I asked the roofer about it (*) he gave it a 50/50 response. Yes the roof is holding up all that weight and yes it can be dangerous if it comes down all at once. So Felix made me get snow rails

. After learning about snow rails and angels, I started to notice them on old buildings. Always on metal or slate roofs, the type that are more prone to spring slides of devastation. My prior house had a 10/12 pitch roof, asphalt shingles. Nothing ever slid off that roof, not even the year we had a big ice storm. I think the ice and snow lock onto and into the tabs on the shingles.

The current house is a (sadly necessary) rebuilt pre Civil War (the US one) post and beam structure. The rafters are true 4" x 4.5" beams on 43" centers going from the original hand hewn 5 sided ridge pole to original hand hewn true 8x10 top plates on true 8x10 to 10x12 posts (5 original).The decking (and ceiling) is 1" pine on top of which are 8" SIPS. The standing seam roof (double locked) sits on top, pitch is 7/12 or 8/12. I have no idea how much the pine and SIPS weigh but it is a lot.

I watched the SILENT ice slide start, kinda cool. First about 2' at the bottom started to break loose. Some pieces a few feet wide, some a fair bit wider. That all dropped down and hit the deck, not too big a deal but glad I was down between the barns since some "cubes" were spitting out into the yard. Then the slo-mo "oh no" started. HUGE slabs, 4' to 8' "tall" and 8' to 12' wide started to break off, slide, gather speed and slam down at the edge of the deck then shatter into "small" slabs only a few feet wide or tall that flew off the deck into the yard or stayed on the deck to be shot out by the next slab when it hit. There was no ice on the roof within 2 minutes. Wish I knew it was going to happen and had been "armed" with a video camera.

Here is how I look at it: All that ice was on the roof all winter so clearly the roof can hold the weight. If I had the rails, they wouldn't have been holding up anything that wasn't already there. The melting ice doesn't weigh any more than the non melted ice. Better to not have huge slabs of ice sliding off the roof. The roof is "Forest Green" and the sun warms it. If there is anything below the rails, it will melt or slide off but the upper load slowly melts underneath as the exposed lower part heats up and the heat transfers up the metal roof a distance. And if it happens to be above freezing, the upper part can melt from both the top and bottom but not slide on a thin layer of water. The reason I am considering rails on the east side of the house is because the snow that slowly slides down hits a porch roof < 1' below. The porch roof is a lot shallower pitch and is less likely to be able to handle extra snow than the more steeply pitched house roof, triangles are very strong. Snow doesn't slide off of the porch much so the stuff from the house roof gets "stuck" near the porch roof/house joint. Better to keep the snow/ice up on the house roof than parked where melting snow may have nowhere to go but against the house wall at that joint.

SCG: Even with the old shingles under the new metal roof, I would put rails or angels in locations over doors. You don't want that stuff hitting someone and you probably don't want it all sliding off in a big pile in front of the door either.

And if you have rail or angels there, you can put up a short gutter to keep the melting stuff from hitting you and your guests

Without those a gutter is in danger if being taken down by slides.

* went to them to get a replacement "special" flange which turned out to be nothing special, my mangled one was vertical on the downhill side, yet looked like it had been made that way. The roof wasn't even a year old when this happened.

Here are some pics of the chicks Ron. My camera froze up but you can get an idea. lol

I was going to ask if you had considered using the Mama Heating Pad brooder with your new chicks but it looks like they are fully feathered and probably don't need any heat anyway, especially in a warmer place like Alabama. How old are they??

 

[perchie.girl]

He is still alive.... Surprisingly he looks better than that chicken I did years ago... She stood in a hunched up huddle for three days before starting to come around.

Baby drake still has nice bright eyes, and is looking around. He doesn't want to move now, but that is to be expected, must be as sore as all get out.

I will keep you all updated.

Glad to hear hes bright eyed. The fact that he is very young is in his favor... I am stunned about how well he defended. and how much damage he delivered.

deb