- Jun 28, 2011
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Hi, I live in deep dark South Africa (especially dark with all the power failures we've had lately), but we're emigrating to the U.K. as soon as we sell our properties here. My husband's a Brit. So in case anyone was wondering why I reply to your posts at such odd hours, we're miles ahead of you! it's 21:56 here now, think you still have sun by you?
Well, chicks... had a fabulous brood of 12 with a wonderful mom. She took very good care of them and all. One day one disappeared, then another died, don't know why. They were about 6 weeks old when she decided to wean them. We lost 3 in about an hour. And another and another, two of my chicks that I was raising disappeared. Turned out we had a cute furry creature called a mongoose who thought we'd opened a soup kitchen... In total we lost 9 chicks. Then I decided to keep my chicks in the house with us and not let them out. You can imagine, poo everywhere, chaos at bedtime... Went on like that for weeks. So mongoose got clever and started stealing eggs. Caught it red handed. Borrowed a trap from a friend and bye bye mongoose. I didn't like killing it, but I had enough. What was next? Killing hens?
The above mentioned mommy had another broody spell earlier this year. Gave her eggs and all, but madam decided she wasn't really into this sitting thing, so she'd get up during the day, sit at night, up all day... It was really hot then and the outside temperatures was over 100 during the day, so the eggs stayed warm. From mid-February 'till end of March the chicks hatched one by one. It was incredible and incredibly sad. We managed to save only 5 from a total of about 25 eggs. (I added some after the first two chicks hatched in February. My last baby, Joy, hatched after 5-6 weeks. Took us completely by surprise! I named her Joy, because I was so happy she made it. I gave up on the eggs by the time she was born. She's cute as hell, growing very very slowly, she's a 1/4 of her brother's size, and spoiled! No-one can resist her. In-between the February chicks and Joy we lost many of them. Some hatched only to die within an hour. The hen broke some eggs before the chicks were mature enough to survive... It was hell. The mongoose caught one of the survivors right outside our back door when she slipped past my son. I lost the plot a bit when I lost that chick. I swear that hen will never sit again. It was such a waste of lives. I went crazy with those chicks dying like that, one of them stayed alive for more than 24 hours, then the, too, died.
I've got 4 chicks with a mom hen and another 4 in the house, which I'm raising, but I'm trying not to get attached. I'm terrified of losing them...
Sorry it's not a nice story, apart from Joy.
Can't help you on the chicken food question, we're limited to cracked corn, chicko (starter) mixed seeds, broiler grow meal and lay pellets/meal here. I feed chicko and ground corn to the youngsters and cracked/whole corn to the older ones with beaks and ground corn to the debeaked hens with a bit of lay pellets. And treats of course. Bread, green things like spinach etc.
Haven't picked up roadkill yet, but I did see this weird dude on T.V. who collects and eats it.
Not that desperate yet.
Debt and bills are hell. We're lucky we co-own this property (not the co- bit!), but living costs here are just unbelievable. Electricity just went up again, way up, so everything else follow suit. We work harder and harder every year to get ahead, but we just keep up with inflation.
I had to sell my car this year and borrow quite a lot to replace her, now the new car's given us problems. I'm torn between selling her to get out of debt and keeping her now she's sorted. It's personal loans, but I don't like owing anyone money and we need a car... I wish our place would sell. That would sort everything.
You know what happened here? My vet friend's keeping very updated on the bird flu problem here (yes, about 20 miles from us!!!). Apparently the farmers with infected ostriches bought them at an auction. So someone sold their sick birds at an auction, now a few farmers lost everything... you'd think someone would've checked. I'm so freaked out about this bird flu. Had my chickens tested and all. The government won't make innoculations available to us "because that means they admit we have a problem". Hmmm.
Anyway, gotta go now.
Sorry 'bout your Ply, best to ask before you give anything. I also heard the epsom salt story, but I'm scared of doing the wrong thing.. Salt is bad for chickens, very bad.
Now go give Stormy another kiss from me, back of the head's a good spot. I'm going to sleep now, else I'll be here all night talking to you late risers...
Well, chicks... had a fabulous brood of 12 with a wonderful mom. She took very good care of them and all. One day one disappeared, then another died, don't know why. They were about 6 weeks old when she decided to wean them. We lost 3 in about an hour. And another and another, two of my chicks that I was raising disappeared. Turned out we had a cute furry creature called a mongoose who thought we'd opened a soup kitchen... In total we lost 9 chicks. Then I decided to keep my chicks in the house with us and not let them out. You can imagine, poo everywhere, chaos at bedtime... Went on like that for weeks. So mongoose got clever and started stealing eggs. Caught it red handed. Borrowed a trap from a friend and bye bye mongoose. I didn't like killing it, but I had enough. What was next? Killing hens?
The above mentioned mommy had another broody spell earlier this year. Gave her eggs and all, but madam decided she wasn't really into this sitting thing, so she'd get up during the day, sit at night, up all day... It was really hot then and the outside temperatures was over 100 during the day, so the eggs stayed warm. From mid-February 'till end of March the chicks hatched one by one. It was incredible and incredibly sad. We managed to save only 5 from a total of about 25 eggs. (I added some after the first two chicks hatched in February. My last baby, Joy, hatched after 5-6 weeks. Took us completely by surprise! I named her Joy, because I was so happy she made it. I gave up on the eggs by the time she was born. She's cute as hell, growing very very slowly, she's a 1/4 of her brother's size, and spoiled! No-one can resist her. In-between the February chicks and Joy we lost many of them. Some hatched only to die within an hour. The hen broke some eggs before the chicks were mature enough to survive... It was hell. The mongoose caught one of the survivors right outside our back door when she slipped past my son. I lost the plot a bit when I lost that chick. I swear that hen will never sit again. It was such a waste of lives. I went crazy with those chicks dying like that, one of them stayed alive for more than 24 hours, then the, too, died.
I've got 4 chicks with a mom hen and another 4 in the house, which I'm raising, but I'm trying not to get attached. I'm terrified of losing them...
Sorry it's not a nice story, apart from Joy.
Can't help you on the chicken food question, we're limited to cracked corn, chicko (starter) mixed seeds, broiler grow meal and lay pellets/meal here. I feed chicko and ground corn to the youngsters and cracked/whole corn to the older ones with beaks and ground corn to the debeaked hens with a bit of lay pellets. And treats of course. Bread, green things like spinach etc.
Haven't picked up roadkill yet, but I did see this weird dude on T.V. who collects and eats it.
Not that desperate yet.
Debt and bills are hell. We're lucky we co-own this property (not the co- bit!), but living costs here are just unbelievable. Electricity just went up again, way up, so everything else follow suit. We work harder and harder every year to get ahead, but we just keep up with inflation.
I had to sell my car this year and borrow quite a lot to replace her, now the new car's given us problems. I'm torn between selling her to get out of debt and keeping her now she's sorted. It's personal loans, but I don't like owing anyone money and we need a car... I wish our place would sell. That would sort everything.
You know what happened here? My vet friend's keeping very updated on the bird flu problem here (yes, about 20 miles from us!!!). Apparently the farmers with infected ostriches bought them at an auction. So someone sold their sick birds at an auction, now a few farmers lost everything... you'd think someone would've checked. I'm so freaked out about this bird flu. Had my chickens tested and all. The government won't make innoculations available to us "because that means they admit we have a problem". Hmmm.
Anyway, gotta go now.
Sorry 'bout your Ply, best to ask before you give anything. I also heard the epsom salt story, but I'm scared of doing the wrong thing.. Salt is bad for chickens, very bad.
Now go give Stormy another kiss from me, back of the head's a good spot. I'm going to sleep now, else I'll be here all night talking to you late risers...
Maybe we'll just scare it to death this time.
