Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chickielady]

Got our big pen up, so now are flock is no longer free range and the cyotes and hawks no longer have an "all you can eat".
I will get some pictures when it stops pouring!

 

[Chickielady]

Question for buff orpington owners: This is my 11 week old "girl" going through her second juvenile molt and the tail feathers are making me think she may be a rooster. Her comb and wattles are a bit bigger and redder than the other's but not enough to be a giveaway. The hackles don't look pointy to me but I'm new at this. So do you all think "she" is just having a molt and will grow more tail feathers? Or are those very obviously sickle feathers? When she fanned out her tail earlier it looked more like a hen's does but I'm still confused. I will probably be guessing til I hear a crow or see an egg. Is it normal for roosters to make sort of regular sounds before trying to crow? Because I definitely heard and saw this one making noise the other day but it wasn't a crow at all. I haven't noticed any rooster behaviors, but that tail is crazy!

At about 1 mo of age, all male birds will show signs of hackle, emerging on the saddle area (just in front of the tail) and the neck (also called the cape)
These long skinny feathers are only on males of hard to medium feathered birds, of course that excludes silkies.

Hold your bird as a baby, and dig around on his back just in front of his tail, and look through the feathers, and look for sharp skinny long feathers coming out.
They are shinier, longer and sharper than the bird's body feathers.
They show up early on the back of the neck also, and are quite often a different color than the body.
Not so in Orps, though, on Orps, the hackle & body featers are all the same color.


Hen Buckeye neck feathers, rounded and short, like a finger.
Male, below, glossy, long & skinny and eventually falls off the saddle.

By the time a male is 2 mo old, these feathers should be very visable.
By 3 mo you do not need to dig to see them, and this male Buckeye above, is 4 mo old.
Hope this helps.
Oh, and the other give away is the male will have much larger shanks, and feet and grow taller compared to the rest of the birds his age & breed.

 

[Chickielady]

I just found something on another thread that I thought I should share. It's a very detailed account of one person's battle with the Red Mites ChickieLady has warned us about recently. Here's a link to the post.

I'm not sure if his advice for protecting the hens before an infestation is valid, but his account of trying to get rid of them is well worth reading.

Forwarned is forearmed, right?

Please note that Eprinext did NOTHING to get rid of the last outbreak we had here.
Hand dusting with Sevin dust, and spraying, and I mean GUSHING every single square inch of coops, almost daily to get rid of new hatches of mites was required.

And when you have as many birds as we do, it is a freaking nightmare !
I still do not think those teeny black mites were RED NORTERN FOWL MITES.
I have seen red fowl mites before & they are RED and they are bigger and easy to kill.

The ones we got hit with were teeny, almost could not see them at all.
And they were EVERYWHERE, on walls, crawl up your arm, and black.
On microsope inspection they had a small yellowish horseshoe shape on their backs alot like a juvenile deer tick.

I really believe they are the dreaded song bird ticks that have migrated up from SoAmerica & are devastating our Eagles and songbirds.

Here is a link:

http://www.sfgate.com/science/artic...k-in-state-s-eagles-5119073.php#photo-5686666

and another:

http://susankwilliams.blogspot.com/2006/06/what-bird-nest-mites-look-like.html

There are many web sites with posts of horror stories lately, of song birds, nesting pigeons in attics, etc that have been infested by these mites and they move right into the home.

They DO bite humans !
They did bite me !
NEVER have fowl mites bitten me before or "infested" human living areas for lack of a fowl to bite.
This is yet more evidence (to me) that these new invaders are NOT northern red fowl mites, but "burrowing mites" also called "depluming mites" which usually are not even in this country...........oh globalization strikes yet again !
The depluming mites burrows in & bites, the itching is so intense the bird with pluck out it's feathers to get at the bugs.
This makes them helpless & unable to fly, and feed, so they die.
The depluming also multiply like nothing I have ever seen before !
NEVER !
I was in a 3 mo freak out trying to get rid of these critters, and after dusting & spraying daily for 3 weeks (everyday) I relaxed & did not see any bugs, but 3-4 days later, all you-know-what broke out again.
I hope I never have them again, but I am convinced that songbirds migrating north (in spring) bring them into our area, so it is just a matter of time before it happens again.
Liquid concentrate Sevin, in a Hudson Sprayer, at strength of ticks, and Sevin dust, used for plants & mites.
Mites also hate Sulpher, but sulpher dust stinks to high heaven & is awful so I never used it.
Get that on your hands & you smell like old nasty rotten eggs for a week.

Gutting coops & nests can help, but the birds carrying mite eggs will just spread more, so best to spray, and saturate til the nests & bedding is dripping wet.
Stir to mix & dry, leave doors & windows open to dry.
Birds going in & out were not affected by the spray, and at that point there was no other way to get rid of the mites.

And always have the necessary 'tools' on hand.
And always watch your birds.
If they are digging & acting itchy, GO LOOK.
Go in the coop at night & flip a bird & dig in to see what is going on ON THEIR SKIN, around vents and crotch area between their legs.
Another issue with these new mites is they do not lay eggs on the fanny feathers like northern fowl mites do.
Northern fowl mites lay eggs on vent feathers & make the birds look like they have extrememly dirty muddy butts.
Another thing is how I could rest a hand on the roost, and if there was any of these bugs in there, even during the day, they would crawl up my arm, and soon be in my hair (I think they migrate to the ceiling & then fall off when they 'smell' a warm body NO LIE)

Hate Em !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chickielady]

Oh man. I have a couple of small projects left on the duck pen, and I am getting ducklings on Thursday. I am totally pumped, but a little nervous. There are some 3-5 week old muscovies in Everett that I think i'm gonna get. I have a heating pad on order (this feels like a much safer option than a heat lamp) and I'll swing by Bothell Feed for some food. Do I need to use chick starter for creatures that old, or would I be OK feeding a standard adult food with some grit?

Any input on how old they should be before I offer them unsupervised access to a pond?

They should be fine with no heat at that age.
Feed them Flockraiser pellets (or equivilent high protein, but must be a pellet), and I add a scoop of scratch to the bag & mix it up.
Ducks strain feed through ridges in their bills, and crumbles go right through & is wasted.

Mine are fed in a 6" high bucket...and are doing great.
They also must have fresh water to blow their nose out, so clean it a few times a day.
A big bucket & they'll be sitting in it.

 

[Hinotori]

And now I'm itching ALL over and need a shower just from reading that. I feel for you Chickielady

 

[Chickielady]

And now I'm itching ALL over and need a shower just from reading that. I feel for you Chickielady

I hope it never happens to you...but it might.
We have not had any mites here since, its been about 9 months ?
Never had any before that for over a year, and those were easy-to-kill northern fowl mites.

If you remember, Kim Hunter had the same issues, and FlyRobinFly had a silkie that repeatedly had TONS of the tiny bugs on him no matter how many time she applied Ivomectrin or Eprinex, or anything else.
kim went to help her but the bird died by then.

These bugs will take hold and stick.
To this day, I think FlyRobinFly is afraid to have more birds.
Her favorite Silkie Cock bird..................I have not heard from her since.
Kim now has a vendetta against all mites, red northern or deplumming like no other woman I've known !

Kim Hunter is a gorgeous, intelligent, very special person who will help any of you with your birds if she can.
She is in Woodinville.

 

[Hinotori]

Kim Hunter is a gorgeous, intelligent, very special person who will help any of you with your birds if she can.
She is in Woodinville.

She's very nice. Didn't even say anything bad about the silly chicken purse I crocheted her for the facebook group's gift exchange last fall.


I've had issues off and on with the northern fowl mite. Eprinex helped some but it was getting ridiculous. I started using the Frontline and that has done much better on keeping them away.

 

[Duck Drover]

Oh man. I have a couple of small projects left on the duck pen, and I am getting ducklings on Thursday.  I am totally pumped, but a little nervous.  There are some 3-5 week old muscovies in Everett that I think i'm gonna get.  I have a heating pad on order (this feels like a much safer option than a heat lamp) and I'll swing by Bothell Feed for some food.  Do I need to use chick starter for creatures that old, or would I be OK feeding a standard adult food with some grit?

Any input on how old they should be before I offer them unsupervised access to a pond?

As long as you have a ramp so they can get out they can have unsupervised swim time. It also helps to keep the water level as close to the top of their water source as possible. Ducklings raised by their mama are more water resistant than brooder raised ducklings that don't have the hen's oil coating on their feathers. I have to blow dry my tiny babies after a warm bath so they don't get a chill while the babies outside don't ever seem to get wet. I would love to have a way to collect oil glands from butchered ducks in order to extract the oil for baby ducklings but I have bantams that are not meat ducks.

I give my ducklings wet Flock Raiser until they are mostly or fully feathered and outside full time. If you give them dry food they will dump it into their water to wet it so they can swallow it and that makes more mess than the food dribbles that get into their water. I use the water with food in it to moisten their food and then clean the water dish and fill it with fresh water. Ducks are messy eaters but they love to bathe so they stay pretty clean when they have bath water. I let mine swim and bathe twice a day while they are inside, beginning at a few days old.

 

[CoopDeDoo]

I've had issues off and on with the northern fowl mite. Eprinex helped some but it was getting ridiculous. I started using the Frontline and that has done much better on keeping them away.

I use Frontline as well. Happy with it so far.

 

[LaurelC]

Excellent.

There's a person on CL in Everett w/ 3-5 week old ducklings, and another person in Mill Creek with 10 day old ones. I think I'd prefer the younger ones, but we will see if the Mill Creek person gets back to me or not.