Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[pennyJo1960]

I have 6 cockerels now, and one of the older ones is attempting to mate the pullets. It's time to put all the cockerels together into the bachelor pad and move the younger pullets in with the older ones.

Do you still want to buy a few pullets @pennyJo1960 ? If you don't, no problem!

Guess I need to rid myself of cockerels as in 2 I did get 13 eggs the other night so really found did not need more, just need to get randy boys away.

 

[Smokerbill]

13 eggs is a lot. My six older pullets are laying good now, 4 to 6 eggs a day, and the four younger pullets are starting to get red combs so they're getting closer to laying. Glad my neighbor likes eggs. LOL

I think I'm going to take the easy way out with my garden this year and direct seed everything in the garden, even the tomatoes. The three tomato plants I grew from seeds in the garden last year did pretty well.

 

[ValerieJ]

I was thinking it was time to get my seedlings going. I didn't want to do it in February again because they got too tall. This time, if that happens, I will be trimming them down. There are varying opinions about that, but I'm going to give it a try. They did turn out fine last year. Will play it by ear I guess. Or, is that by sight?

 

[pennyJo1960]

I need to get my tail on digging out the garden.
Spent most the afternoon cleaning the loft in the cat room.
The dust in there was 4 inches deep. Took my dyson to the carpet.

 

[TeePants]

Ah!

One of my silkie girls started laying and today I went out to see them and her vent is prolapsed.

I’ve never had this happen before. I’m soaking her vent in an Epsom solution right now and I sent my wife out for some prep H. The plan is to keep her in the basement bathroom with the lights off.

Should I bring in a buddy for her or keep her isolated? I never had this problem before and I’m worried about what I did wrong. They just started laying this week so I’ve mixed their layer feed in with the grower feed as I was under the impression we aren’t meant to transition them too quickly.

She’s also had some stools that look like they’ve got grain in them, which isn’t great either. She’s very quiet. I’m a little extra upset because she was my favorite.

 

[TeePants]

So I wrestle this bird into the house, get a soak ready and - now her vent looks normal.

I’m keeping her inside anyway for observation but what the heck?

 

[TeePants]

Last update: I soaked her vent anyway, then gave her a bath because she smelled like chicken coop and it’s a tiny bathroom. For now she’s in there with some food and water and a night light, on newspaper, but I’m going to put some wood chips down on top the newspaper once I pick up some more. I just used what I’d had to clean the coop.

She’s kind of just standing there - but I did just give her a bath and blow dry for the first time ever, haha.

I’m a little worried about how quiet she’s being; I’m wondering if it could be something like coccidiosis; we did introduce a new hen recently. I have Corid powder but I don’t know if I should treat just in case or not.

I did clean the coop and added fresh bedding to the run, and I am going to take the feeder and waterer apart and scrub them in the morning.

For now her water has electrolytes and probiotics. I’ll swap for plain water in the morning and see how she’s doing. Her droppings are a little watery, but not terrible.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens. This is a great place to hang out.
Her comb is red so she is not bad off silky can scare the tar out of us.

 

[TeePants]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens. This is a great place to hang out.
Her comb is red so she is not bad off silky can scare the tar out of us.

Yeah, I noticed that too re: comb.

I just-in-case dosed with Corid for hers and the coop waterer, 3/4 tsp powder to a gallon. I assume it wouldn’t hurt them. She had a few weird looking stools. I’ll keep an eye on her and the others and do a 5 day course, but when I checked on her before I put kids to bed she was much more alert and chatty, and had eaten some of her crumble.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I am so happy to hear she is more like herself.