What did you do with your flock today?

[TropicalBabies]

This is nice. I shut garden gates and let pasture cockerel out of roo pen for a little freedom. After awhile he hopped the fence and uneventfully mingled with the flock. Just like that.

My chickens are awesome. I wonder where everyone will go to sleep tonight?
It has been raining off and on all day. A little heavy right now and pretty awesome. Good day today.

 

[FBMcrazy8]

This is nice. I shut garden gates and let pasture cockerel out of roo pen for a little freedom. After awhile he hopped the fence and uneventfully mingled with the flock. Just like that.View attachment 3335622
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My chickens are awesome. I wonder where everyone will go to sleep tonight?
It has been raining off and on all day. A little heavy right now and pretty awesome. Good day today.

That is totally AWESOME!!! And yes your chickens are completely awesome!! It does look and sound like you had a great day. Im so excited for the fact that a pasture boy was able to mingle with the flock…

 

[TropicalBabies]

That is totally AWESOME!!! And yes your chickens are completely awesome!! It does look and sound like you had a great day. Im so excited for the fact that a pasture boy was able to mingle with the flock…

Just like that lol. Maybe tomorrow will be fireworks. IDK. Something about that pasture humbles chickens. I'm glad he is a good boy. He is really big and handsome too. Not naming him yet. Still got the add out and will get nice photos of him asap.

 

[kurby22]

Ugh you guys…I gotta find a way to get rid of the RATS!! I found a whole corner of my big coop door chewed off today so they can get inside the coop! Little jerks!

 

[FBMcrazy8]

Just like that lol. Maybe tomorrow will be fireworks. IDK. Something about that pasture humbles chickens. I'm glad he is a good boy. He is really big and handsome too. Not naming him yet. Still got the add out and will get nice photos of him asap.

I can’t wait to see nice photos of him! Or what the name will be…..I hope everything will go well tomorrow too!

 

[PopoMyers]

@TropicalBabies , luckily, the flock actually enjoys cold moreso than heat, unless their molt isn't quite grown in. Managing heat waves entail more work and watchful care than the cold we have. Lost a hen 2 summers ago from heat stroke. It only drops into the 20's, occasionally teens. No additional heat necessary for the coop. Tonight supposed to get down to 26. Snow on the way. They usually don't mind being on it, but we do shovel at least some so they can still get to the soil. Snow doesn't stick around very long as we get above freezing, and then rain melts it away. Right now my run is muddy and stinky. Yuk. Although there are dry areas, they'd rather run around in the muck. Makes for dirty eggs.

 

[FBMcrazy8]

Ugh you guys…I gotta find a way to get rid of the RATS!! I found a whole corner of my big coop door chewed off today so they can get inside the coop! Little jerks!

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That is hebi-jebi kinda stuff! I wish I had something for you. Im still battling mice in my house…little . It isn’t terrible terrible but I hate those things. One is one too many.

I have seen something where you use oil and it makes them slick enough that they can’t climb out but then to be humane you would need to clean them and set them free. My way of humane is a quick death.

 

[Shetland lover]

So today I had a shell less egg. It wasn’t the one I had problems with before, and she has been laying eggs beautifully. They have access to layer feed now and all flock, oyster shells, which they still won’t touch, and egg shells. The egg shells are their own and store bought. So that way I’m not just recycling their eggs back to them and the calcium is just depleted each time. I have read that I can give them crushed calcium tablets (human vitamins) but I’m not sure if that will help or not. I don’t like see this because I know they are pulling calcium from their own bodies and the damage that can cause. I feel a little defeated.

If some eggs are shell-less followed by a normal egg, it may not be a calcium issue at all. It may be that the affected eggs are passing through the reproductive system too quickly and not sitting in the shell gland long enough to get a shell on them. My ex-batt, Connie, laid the occasional shell-less egg because of this. She even laid a completely 'naked' egg once. Not even a membrane - it looked just like when you crack an egg into a pan. None of the calcium boosts in the world help in that situation.

One of my other ex-batts, Maud, also laid a range of shell-less and paper-thin shelled eggs towards the end of her laying life. She  did have a calcium issue and she had a calcium citrate supplement every day ( just a normal human one crushed up). Can you get a product called 'nutrobal' over there? It's a calcium powder supplement designed for reptiles, really easy to mix with food and fast acting. She had two weeks of that them started the crushed up tablets. It absolutely helped.

Tropical Babies is correct, short term supplementation won't hurt any of your hens. If they can't use the extra calcium, it'll be excreted on the shells in little lumps. I'd definitely supplement for a couple of weeks to see if it helps.

I'm observing a uterus removal on a hen as part of my course on Wednesday. Would you like me to ask about your situation and see if anyone has any ideas?

 

[PopoMyers]

I don’t give them scraps. About every other day I give them some veggies or fruit. I only give cracked corn on the days it is really cold. I haven’t given the meal worms in a while either. It’s WAY to cold for them to dig around in the dirt to find these things too.

Good to know that I can’t hurt them with too much Calcium. I just worry about my cockerel cause he literally eats everything I offer. I may have to separate him some how so the girls can get calcium without him getting it. Cause I’m sure he is eating the layer feed along with the All Flock.

Luckily I only have one now laying…well shell less. It wasn’t yesterday, which blows my mind, how it goes from a nice shell to no shell. I don’t feed them much spinach, even though it has calcium. But I put it with apple cider vinegar so it helps absorb the calcium and basically off sets the part of spinach that keeps them from observing calcium (I forget what it’s called). The one that was laying soft shells started laying beautiful eggs after the second one.

I find soft shell and shell less eggs especially when the girls start up laying as pullets, or after molting. Nothing to worry about unless it continues. Water retention is called ascites. I've had two hens die from this secondary symptom of reproductive problems which lead to liver/ organ failure, causing ascites.

 

[FBMcrazy8]

I haven't caught up yet, hopefully I have time to do that later today.

Poor Molly is just getting worse. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but the closest thing I could find was edema, but there's not a lot of info of that in chickens (and when there is it's all in their abdomen) and at least in humans it's a symptom, not a cause. And there are so many causes, it's hard to narrow it down. I'm thinking she must have some sort of liver/heart/kidney/something else failure, but IME those are always fast-acting. : ((



@kurby22 I saw your post about Fluff. I'm so sorry for your loss, he looked like such a sweet boy, and I know how special he was to you.

I wish I had something for you for Molly! Im so sorry! I also wish there was more information out there about chickens in general! Sending you lots of positive thoughts for Molly!