Urgent: Airway/breathing obstruction or just Heat Stroke?

[NorthFLChickenChick]

Hi, nice to meet you! Welcome to the Glen lol. We live a few miles just north of Glen off hwy125, then just off Bob Burnsed Rd.
Got any old roosters you dont need?

We are literally on 125!! Right across the street from where they are building some massive solar plant (so we’ve just been told)…no old roosters…all our birds are babies, I think only one Silkie is a roo, the other might be too…not sure…hope they both are…
Post in thread 'Silkie or Orpington Roo ?? 8 weeks'
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/silkie-or-orpington-roo-8-weeks.1587098/post-27060630

 

[dawg53]

Wow, you live right around the corner from us, literally! Small world lol. Yep, I make dump runs twice a week. That sure is a huge project they're building back there. The guy that works at the dump told me it was going to be all solar panels.

I have a few Black Star pullets that I'm looking for an older roo (1.5+ years or older) to put in with them. The older roos take better care of the girls IMO.

I saw your roo, looks like a Silkie to me.

 

[NorthFLChickenChick]

Wow, you live right around the corner from us, literally! Small world lol. Yep, I make dump runs twice a week. That sure is a huge project they're building back there. The guy that works at the dump told me it was going to be all solar panels.

I have a few Black Star pullets that I'm looking for an older roo (1.5+ years or older) to put in with them. The older roos take better care of the girls IMO.

I saw your roo, looks like a Silkie to me.

Yep, hubs makes the dump runs too…have you seen the wild chickens that hang out there??

Did you get your chickens from Charley’s in Baldwin or TSC? We got ours from Charley’s due to the variety of breeds available during “chick season”. I originally wanted to get a polish because they are so darned hilarious looking but they didn’t have any the week we went to pick our birds, and since we have two silkies in a flock of 13, it didn’t make sense to add another ornamental chicken…lol. But we are adding another run in the fall so I may entertain the thought of adding some polish and speckled Sussex next year bc they really add some “pop” to the flock!

 

[dawg53]

Ye

Yep, hubs makes the dump runs too…have you seen the wild chickens that hang out there??

Did you get your chickens from Charley’s in Baldwin or TSC? We got ours from Charley’s due to the variety of breeds available during “chick season”. I originally wanted to get a polish because they are so darned hilarious looking but they didn’t have any the week we went to pick our birds, and since we have two silkies in a flock of 13, it didn’t make sense to add another ornamental chicken…lol. But we are adding another run in the fall so I may entertain the thought of adding some polish and speckled Sussex next year bc they really add some “pop” to the flock!

Yes, they are all drop offs from what I've heard, all Bantams. They seem to be thriving too.

I've bought a few chicks from TSC in town before. However I usually buy chicks at Standard Feed close to downtown Jax. They have an online schedule of delivery and breeds of chicks. They dont have a minimum purchase neither unlike TSC. Here's their schedule:
https://www.standardfeedandseed.com/23-chick-schedule.html#/

I wont buy chicks from Charley's. On their website they say that their chicks are vaccinated for Marek's. I dont buy vaccinated chicks. My birds are non vaccinated.

I've also ordered chicks directly from hatcheries before as well.
I currently have 17 birds, all standard breeds including 3 roosters. I love my roos, they are all good boys.

 

[NorthFLChickenChick]

Ye

Yes, they are all drop offs from what I've heard, all Bantams. They seem to be thriving too.

I've bought a few chicks from TSC in town before. However I usually buy chicks at Standard Feed close to downtown Jax. They have an online schedule of delivery and breeds of chicks. They dont have a minimum purchase neither unlike TSC. Here's their schedule:
https://www.standardfeedandseed.com/23-chick-schedule.html#/

I wont buy chicks from Charley's. On their website they say that their chicks are vaccinated for Marek's. I dont buy vaccinated chicks. My birds are non vaccinated.

I've also ordered chicks directly from hatcheries before as well.
I currently have 17 birds, all standard breeds including 3 roosters. I love my roos, they are all good boys.

Wow, 3 Roos in a flock of 17? That’s cool, and they all get along well? I really want a roo for predator protection (and breeding someday), but not sure how my Silkie is going to fill that role. We have two German shepherds and an old Florida cur hound, but only our young female GSD can be trusted out w the hens…I’d love to free range without being with them all the time but right now I’m just too nervous

 

[dawg53]

Wow, 3 Roos in a flock of 17? That’s cool, and they all get along well? I really want a roo for predator protection (and breeding someday), but not sure how my Silkie is going to fill that role. We have two German shepherds and an old Florida cur hound, but only our young female GSD can be trusted out w the hens…I’d love to free range without being with them all the time but right now I’m just too nervous

LOL. The roos have their own pens with their hens, all separated from each other. If they wernt separated, it would be a fight to the death, almost had it happen by accident before.
I love it when all 3 of them get into a crowing contest. I join in and start crowing too! Hahaha.
Currently I have 5 pens.

All my birds are penned due to the all the hawks around here. I wont let them free range at all. There are other predators around, mostly at night though.
Rats can be an issue. I know how to successfully deal with them.
We have a Havanese dog, he stays in the house. But I let him chase squirrels and rabbits. He's caught several squirrels.

 

[NorthFLChickenChick]

I hear ya about the hawks, seen them flying up around the trees behind our yard…hear a lot of crows too though. We only let them out when my husband or my daughter or I are out, and we are training our shepherd…she is really good with them (see below). I know ALL ABOUT RATS. We had a 2 year full on war with them in Maryland. Being first time Chicken owners, we were all about the predator proofing with the foxes, raccoons, etc with hardware cloth around the perimeter…didn’t think about little brats digging tunnels underneath the ground. Even after we poured concrete in the run floor they still chewed their way through. Then we spent WAY too much money on fancy traps that killed a lot of them, but those roof rats are impossible to eradicate once they find a way in. The people who bought our house had four cats though, so I’m guessing they moved on

 

[dawg53]

Hahaha, I see your Shepherd is really eyeballing that one hen hahaha! Nice pic too! Thanks.
Yeah, rats use underground tunnels. I've put poison bait cylinders in the holes and covered the hole with a paver.
I bought a few electronic traps at TSC and put a cylinder of Just One Bite poison bait in the trap. The rat enters the trap and is electrocuted. The traps work really well.

However, the best thing and the cheapest thing to use is ammonia soaked rags hung low on the chicken wire going all around the pens, spaced about 6 feet apart.
The ammonia fumes burns the inside of their sensitive noses. After no more than 3 nights of hanging the soaked rags, no more rats! It works great! A jug of ammonia is dirt cheap and I let the rags soak in a 5 gallon bucket and hang them when it's dark and after the birds have gone in their coops at night. I also hang their feeders high up in the pens.

Once in awhile a stray rat will hit one of the pens and if the electronic trap doesnt get him the ammonia soaked rags drives it away pronto lol.

I'm sending you a PM.

 

[NorthFLChickenChick]

Hahaha, I see your Shepherd is really eyeballing that one hen hahaha! Nice pic too! Thanks.
Yeah, rats use underground tunnels. I've put poison bait cylinders in the holes and covered the hole with a paver.
I bought a few electronic traps at TSC and put a cylinder of Just One Bite poison bait in the trap. The rat enters the trap and is electrocuted. The traps work really well.

However, the best thing and the cheapest thing to use is ammonia soaked rags hung low on the chicken wire going all around the pens, spaced about 6 feet apart.
The ammonia fumes burns the inside of their sensitive noses. After no more than 3 nights of hanging the soaked rags, no more rats! It works great! A jug of ammonia is dirt cheap and I let the rags soak in a 5 gallon bucket and hang them when it's dark and after the birds have gone in their coops at night. I also hang their feeders high up in the pens.

Once in awhile a stray rat will hit one of the pens and if the electronic trap doesnt get him the ammonia soaked rags drives it away pronto lol.

I'm sending you a PM.

Wow, ammonia, eh? That’s a new one, but I don’t doubt that it works! This time around we learned from our previous mistakes and created an impenetrable double layered system of hardware cloth and 2x4’s under the run and even between the platform of the coop and the floorboards. I spent a buttload on hardware cloth, covering every nook and crannie under the eaves of the roof and anywhere that I could stick my baby finger through. About 3 weeks after we moved the pullets in a saw a rat sniffing around the outside of the run and I went into panic mode. The next morning a saw a turd in the run and my blood started boiling…HOW???? I started looking fir every possible breech and there it was…my run, a pre-fab cat structure from TSC, had a failure and the rat found it…or rather EXPLOITED it…literally took a tiny opening between the wood planks screwed down between the open air roof and sides with a shorter screw and PUSHED it up enough to squeeze it’s nasty little body through! So got the power drill and put deck nails through the rest of the structure and no more turds