UK Member Please Say HI

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi everyone

Hope everyone is well? How are everyone's poorly or under the weather birds? All doing better I hope

@rebrascora
Are you ok up there Barbara?

 

[rebrascora]

@Yorkshire Coop

Hi Kim

All OK here thanks apart from having another chick with Marek's from the same hatch as the one I had to cull last week. I'm hoping this one might beat it, but that's a long shot. I have eventually built a little pen for the Maran's that Ian brought back from the auction, which has enabled me to get them mucked out and ship shape so I am muck happier about that now. One is laying daily and the other pullet is just starting to pink up. Ian wants me to set the Marans eggs and Portia is keen to oblige but I'm not sure they will be fertile and being her first eggs, it's always best to wait a while although she seems to be producing very regular size shape colour on a daily basis, so her system seems to be settled.... just not seen the cockerel mating her. Eggs are terracotta rather than really dark brown and shells are not as hard as I would like, but might give Portia a few to try.

Horses have been naughty. They have broken a window in the holiday cottage that backs onto their field. Of course, it's because people feed them through the window and then, when there is no more and they close the window, the horses paw and it appears one of them has had a foot up on the sill and smashed the bottom pane as a result....I'm blaming Rascal of course, although if people didn't feed them, there would be no problem. Thankfully it is just a small single glazed pane and no injuries but it's aggravation that I don't need and I will have to look at fencing them off the windows somehow. For the time being I've moved the electric fence. Carriage driving with Ian tonight as we have some family and friends coming for a drive sometime in the next few days when the weather allows and we haven't driven them for
ages so, need to do a practice run, just to make sure they aren't going to misbehave.

Chicks (from Frances' eggs but under lavender pekin) due to hatch tomorrow. I ended up with just the 5 from the legbar's clutch. Two brown chipmunk striped welsummer/legbar crosses and three light sussex barnyard mixes.... one white with Columbian pattern, one blue and one black, so they are a pretty little group and all doing well so far. My pekin cockerels are pretty well behaved but they are in with large fowl mixed flock, so the bigger older hens and older cockerels are keeping them in line..... either that of they are just slow developing. I think it's pretty important for young cockerels to grow up under a head cock bird to keep them in check.... they need a father figure or dominant female to make sure they don't get too big for their boots. My little gaggle of 11 juvenile pekins (my flower pot chicks) don't have that down at home and it will be interesting to see if those boys have attitude problems. The pekin pen isn't big enough for me to put them into it with the adults, so they have the run of the garden and everyone who walks past stops to watch their antics.

Think that is all my news. Have you been riding recently? I have but only on Ian's horses. Must get mine out this next week.

Best wishes

Barbara

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi Barbara,

It sounds all go at yours right now! Sorry to hear you have another mareks case in your flock That really is such a shame. Good going on the new pen, I could do with you down here! With how the other half is carrying on we maybe keeping some of these Pekin. The sale of the females fell through so I've still got them all, including the cockerels! I really need to bite the bullet and get shot of them but they are just too cute They are still in the shed but can jump out of the run I have round them so they are just in the garden whenever they fancy it. Need to get something sorted at there is chicken poop all over.

I would say set the eggs if they look ok, you never know unless you try No excuses needed here for more chicks!

Sounds like rascal is still living up to his name Pain in the backside for you though. Could you not put a note through the cottage door about not feeding the horses? Might save you some work in the future. The carriage driving sounds fun, hope it all goes well this evening. I am afraid no riding going on here I was emptying a water bucket last Friday and my back went Been in agony with it but I have an appointment at the chiropractors this afternoon to get it put back right. Was the earliest I could get in so have had to put up with it for now. Lots of pain killers, hot baths, heat packs, cold packs. I even resorted to some of Harry horses leg ice gel to try and ease it. Think I've slipped a disc or something on my sciatic nerve as I have shooting pains down my right leg. Driving me mad now not been at full working speed but I'm hoping for a quick fix this afternoon

Hope Zak is still going well for you and Ian of course. Hope you get to get out on your own horses soon, or you may have more chickens as thank you gifts!

Have a lovely weekend Barbara and catch you soon

Kim xxx

 

[timon]

Hi everyone

Hope everyone is well? How are everyone's poorly or under the weather birds? All doing better I hope

Well, sorry for not keeping you all updated.
Despite isolation, and then popping her back in the run with all the others, after 12 hours I took her back out again and put her back into a box in the living room. She had stopped moving round the run and just stood still - sometimes on one leg.
I kept her with acv in the water and yoghurt mash, but she didn't make it through the night. I got up before everyone else to check if she was alive, but sadly no. I and was able to clear up before my little ones found her. I've been feeling sad all week and thrown myself into work. Perhaps I let her back in with the others too early. So now I only have 6 rescue girls.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Well, sorry for not keeping you all updated.
Despite isolation, and then popping her back in the run with all the others, after 12 hours I took her back out again and put her back into a box in the living room. She had stopped moving round the run and just stood still - sometimes on one leg.
I kept her with acv in the water and yoghurt mash, but she didn't make it through the night. I got up before everyone else to check if she was alive, but sadly no. I and was able to clear up before my little ones found her. I've been feeling sad all week and thrown myself into work. Perhaps I let her back in with the others too early. So now I only have 6 rescue girls.

Hey don't be sorry. I am so very sorry she didn't make it I personally don't think you put her back with the others too soon. She will have enjoyed the company and if they were leaving her alone I'm sure it was not too soon. Those commercial girls have such a tough life, you could see that just by how they looked when you first got them. It's brutal for them and some illness with them is to be expected when they leave that life. You did everything you could for her and I'm sure her passing was peaceful and quiet in the warmth of the house.

 

[Psychochick]

Well, sorry for not keeping you all updated.
Despite isolation, and then popping her back in the run with all the others, after 12 hours I took her back out again and put her back into a box in the living room. She had stopped moving round the run and just stood still - sometimes on one leg.
I kept her with acv in the water and yoghurt mash, but she didn't make it through the night. I got up before everyone else to check if she was alive, but sadly no. I and was able to clear up before my little ones found her. I've been feeling sad all week and thrown myself into work. Perhaps I let her back in with the others too early. So now I only have 6 rescue girls.

Awww bless her, I'm so sorry for your loss I've had a couple from rescue that have just died within the first week, it's heart breaking. Focus on the fact she died loved and with her freedom x

My badly behaved birds are doing my nut in right now. 18 hens, I got 2 eggs in the 'nesting' boxes at one point this week. It's been like Easter. Eggs all over the friggin place. In the compost heap, behind the surviving leylandii, in the tree stumps from the ex-leylandii, in the brambles behind the apple tree (joy of joys) and my personal favourite behind the wood workshop where no-one but a hen can get. I can see them. I just can't get them

Not to mention 3 of my newest dirty stop-outs decided to hide in the brambles again this week. Nothin better than a torch lit chicken hunt, is there...?

 

[timon]

Eggs all over the friggin place.  In the compost heap, behind the surviving leylandii, in the tree stumps from the ex-leylandii, in the brambles behind the apple tree (joy of joys)  and my personal favourite behind the wood workshop where no-one but a hen can get.  I can see them. I just can't get them    Not to mention 3 of my newest dirty stop-outs decided to hide in the brambles again this week.  Nothin better than a torch lit chicken hunt, is there...?

Lol. I'm not brave enough to let them roam free yet !! They're all still penned in their run, plus the roosters are outside the run (still banished, though they're not impressed to say the least!)
Somewhere I read don't let rescue hens free-range till they run towards you at the sight of food. Has anyone a sensible plan of when to let them out?

Also... Anyone want up to 3 roosters ? The ones that I picked up from a school turned out to be all boys despite me thinking they didn't know how to tell if they're boys or girls. Obviously they did know !

 

[Rudies Roost]

@Yorkshirecoop

All good here (for now)....many thanks for the pred, I haven't given her any yet as you suggested. She's still got a slight head tilt, whether the muscles have just settled there or if it's still the wry neck, I have no idea. I'm giving all the flock some vits and adding selenium liquid to food here and there so what will be, will be. I do have a young Thuringian that doesn't look great, a few sniffles going round so it may have a touch of Mycoplasma....guess I'd better get sone Tylan from the vets soon.

@timon

Sorry the hen didn't make it, as other members said, they have a rough life so Lord knows what underlying problems she may have had.

Have a good weekend everyone, what's left of it...we've got to tackle the area of lawn that the chucks aren't allowed on, do some prep of the plants for the impending Autumn, trim some hedges (how tedious) and put up some shelves in the garage, but as F1 nuts, the Monza Grand Prix will hold that up!

Kids back to school on Wednesday....yay!! Dreading getting back to the routine school run though, I've enjoyed not rushing round like mad in the morning. My daughter is starting secondary school so I'm anxious how that will go, she can't wait but I'm nervous, no one likes being a little fish in a big pond!

Have a good one all xx

 

[GroningerGeens]

Hello everyone.

It's been a few weeks sincebi have posted - all work and not much play for me.

I'm sorry to hear the sad stories by a few,but it is all a learning curve.
I last posted when I had to dispatch a Sussex hybrid because she had a bumblefoot syst which I acted way way too slow to.

However now I will know what it is and operate immediately.

Good news though -my culder ranger went broody again. I put silkie eggs under her this time
Two reasons -they look lovely and funky but also because I would like to have regular broodies. That way i am hoping to keep a meat supply coming.

 

[kimskolfield]

Hi I'm Kim from Hertfordshire I've got three hens a guard cockerel and am attempting to raise three silkie chicks who are still indoors !!