Over Thanksgiving we acquired Phillis Diller!!
Phillis had about 20 something other friends who unfortunately did not survive a dog attack while Phillis here is a champ!
She's about 6 or 7 and we figured we would give her a great retirement retreat.
From what I gather Phillis was on a sole ration of scratch with some popcorn…when we first got her she had this nasty sweet smell. While looking her over I noticed that her feet while not deformed they seemed to be smooshed together because she never roosted only laid in hay. The scales on her feet where all lifted with nasty amounts of nastiness under them, and her poops where also black as tar.
I first started her on some mash of chick feed and tuna fish since it has a higher protein content and she was in a weird stage of molt where new feathers where coming in but since she wasn't getting enough protein they just stalled so she had some bald spots. After a couple of days of that I started mixing layer/chick feed together for her with some oatmeal I was also gather as much black soldier fly larvae for her, which she enjoys!
Phillis has been alone for over a year with no other chickens so I was hesitant to show her my other chickens until she got comfortable with her new surrounding because now she's able to have supervised free range (which for her is like a child on Christmas morning)
We have 6 week old chicks so I figured I'd allow everyone to go free range while I was outside and could over see the meeting which went rather well the babies where interested in Phillis but never made a move to get to close to her and she went about her business of finding grubs.
Phillis also got a bath yesterday which FYI looks like nothing like youtube lol I had feathers and water everywhere!! All I did was soak her feet and try to clean as much of the gunk out of the scales as I could which worked pretty well. I will say though that she did enjoy the blow dryer a lot!! Then I applied olive oil to the scales which we had done when we first brought her home with us and they looked much better this time around when I did it they are starting to flatten out.
All in all Phillis is enjoying the retirement life to the fullest she has warm breakfasts every morning and foraging around for yummy bugs durning the day!
Megan
Check us out on Facebook:
The Cackling Hens
Phillis had about 20 something other friends who unfortunately did not survive a dog attack while Phillis here is a champ!
She's about 6 or 7 and we figured we would give her a great retirement retreat.
From what I gather Phillis was on a sole ration of scratch with some popcorn…when we first got her she had this nasty sweet smell. While looking her over I noticed that her feet while not deformed they seemed to be smooshed together because she never roosted only laid in hay. The scales on her feet where all lifted with nasty amounts of nastiness under them, and her poops where also black as tar.
I first started her on some mash of chick feed and tuna fish since it has a higher protein content and she was in a weird stage of molt where new feathers where coming in but since she wasn't getting enough protein they just stalled so she had some bald spots. After a couple of days of that I started mixing layer/chick feed together for her with some oatmeal I was also gather as much black soldier fly larvae for her, which she enjoys!
Phillis has been alone for over a year with no other chickens so I was hesitant to show her my other chickens until she got comfortable with her new surrounding because now she's able to have supervised free range (which for her is like a child on Christmas morning)
We have 6 week old chicks so I figured I'd allow everyone to go free range while I was outside and could over see the meeting which went rather well the babies where interested in Phillis but never made a move to get to close to her and she went about her business of finding grubs.
Phillis also got a bath yesterday which FYI looks like nothing like youtube lol I had feathers and water everywhere!! All I did was soak her feet and try to clean as much of the gunk out of the scales as I could which worked pretty well. I will say though that she did enjoy the blow dryer a lot!! Then I applied olive oil to the scales which we had done when we first brought her home with us and they looked much better this time around when I did it they are starting to flatten out.
All in all Phillis is enjoying the retirement life to the fullest she has warm breakfasts every morning and foraging around for yummy bugs durning the day!
Megan
Check us out on Facebook:
The Cackling Hens
