Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[pennyJo1960]

Ya Sun has been in and out here. We are like 62 outside I scraped the tables in the coop...

 

[RR funky chick house]

Same here - 60's & chilly but no rain

Worked on expanding the run today - the girls seemed to like it!

 

[Bonkerelli]

Hey everyone. It's been awhile since I've been on this thread. WAY to busy. Mainly with my jobs.. and just been offered a 3rd one.. not sure if i want it. Since I'll be working another part job soon. BTW, if you couldn't tell im a workaholic, lol.

It has been nice in my part of the state for a few days. Though it has rained on and off.. we need surely need it!

Getting the garden ready, have 15 chicks i hatched and 6 eggs in the incubator. Almost done with the 2nd coop. Too much stuff to do!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Your going to have lot's of fun my hatch of 12 now down to 10 is pullets going to a bud getting a life started for her self.

 

[PopoMyers]

Good morning!! Ugh, wet day. The sky is bawling, the sky is bawling! Says Henny Penny.

On another note, The crumble food I had put in the new feeder wasn't falling properly. The food seems to be too fine and packs down, not letting the crumbles fall out of the holes. I think I got a bad bag, and may have to strain out the "dust", or cut the holes larger, not what I had in mind, since I would have to deconstruct it. Has anyone else had this problem? I'll use the dust for mash. Grrr, more work.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Rained here also .. I use mash, never used crumble ..
So not help there ...

 

[Hinotori]

I use bowls or a treadle feeder

 

[Weeg]

Hey everyone, I'm in Western Wa and on the look out for Cayuga ducklings, or adult hens preferably. If anyone has any leads, I appreciate it! Thanks fellow Washtonians!

 

[WhySayWhat]

What a day it's been...youngest has therapy Monday mornings, so had to get her up early to get showered before eating breakfast and taking her. Home to get some school done, we only got about half of the planned work done, before I had to drive clear out to the Valley location for my hand surgeon to remove the stitches he put in my hand 10 days ago! When I got home around 5, I went out to feed the gals their Mash and collect eggs. Buddy, my PBR, was still on the nest. So, I knew I was going to have more eggs to collect at 9 tonight. After getting the kids off to bed, our security system decided that was the perfect time to crap out on us!

Spent some time trying to troubleshoot, but got stuck in rebooting. Went out to deal with the chickens while Hubby took over the alarm situation. Collected Buddy's egg and was giving her a pet when I noticed her lower abdomen was super "squishy", almost water balloon-like. I've watched enough Dr Pol to know that isn't a great sign and took a closer look at her belly.

Now, Buddy is by far my heaviest hen, she's "up there" in size with the fluffy white Cochin and my BCM (the other hen in the photos, but I'll get to that in a minute). She is also my most "unfriendly" hen and her favorite thing to do is bite me when I try to collect eggs from under her. So, I'm sure you can imagine, she was less than thrilled when I attempted to pick her up and flip her into her back so I could see her belly better! Other than being very bald, I can't see any issues...no evidence of mites or lice...other than taking her sweet time to lay her egg in the afternoons, she never lingers once the egg is laid. So, I don't think she's broody? I had a suspicion that some of the gals were going though a super drawn out slow molt, but that turned out to be Buddy deciding to be a bully and she's been nailing everyone else in the head and plucking head/face feathers.

My BCM is Penguin. She's also not very fond of being picked up, but once she's up, she's down for some snuggle time! She just laid back against me until I started taking belly pics, then she was like "I didn't agree to pics!" But, she is also totally bald on her belly! The only other time I have seen this is when Lady went broody at Christmas and literally sat on an empty nest for 2 months! There are feathers everywhere in my coop and run...is this more bullying or something I can treat medically?

As soon as my hand heals enough for me to use it again, the plan is to do a full coop clean out and replace the wood shaving deep litter with a sand/wood ash/DE mix (for flooring and a nice, dry dustbath spot for everyone, since they are doing it in the deep litter now anyway).

 

[PopoMyers]

But, she is also totally bald on her belly! The only other time I have seen this is when Lady went broody

My barnyard mix did that almost all summer last year, had to put her more than once in broody breaker jail. Her belly stayed bald until she had a hard molt, then her feathers grew back in. If she is still laying, then no worries. If not, and she is broody, jail might help if she's not setting any eggs.