What did you do with your flock today?

[Soujrnr]

I installed my Coop Cam yesterday and last night it triggered twice. I can't get the video to upload, but the motion sensing camera filmed a raccoon twice overnight, about three hours apart. My security is good for the girls, but I have a couple areas I'm going to beef up a bit.

 

[Smokerbill]

I guess I'm feeling pretty confident about my chickens' ability to take care of themselves while they're let out of the run to do some free ranging. I let them out over an hour ago, then came inside to take a shower and get the dirty dishes washing. A few minutes ago I realized that they were left to their own devices.

Five of them were on the roosts in the run, and the other three were just outside the run's door. The garden hadn't been ransacked, and they were all calm and collected.

 

[LTAY1946]

Not a fun day at our place today. I lost my all time favorite little hen over night most likely to a genetic problem. She was my little scissor beak baby that has been at my side every minute possible since she was a few weeks old. Last week I fell out on the apron to the carport and could not get up. My wife had forgot to turn on her WalkiTalkie and all I could do was call out to her and she couldn't hear me but Scissors came running. She sensed I was in trouble and started crying like I've never heard a chicken do. l finally crawled close enough to the house that my wife heard me and Scissors stayed right beside me until I was back inside. She will be missed as long as I live. I still have Cassidy (short for Hop-A-Long Cassidy) and Godiva (For Lady Godiva). Cassidy has a bad lower leg and runs normally to evade a rooster but has a funny walk when just getting from point A to point B. Godiva Looked like a Naked Neck instead of a White Giant when I found her. Both of those girls are on the mend quite well but may or may not return to there flockmates. Burying Scissors was a hard job.

After finding Scissors this morning I discovered a Bresse 6 month old pullet walking like a penguin. I had seen the thread about another member's pullet doing that and read that thread and went to town and got needed meds to treat her. Depending on the outcome will decide if she becomes a part of a pet flock. I've been treating a young Bresse cockerel for being abused by flockmate roosters since last night. He was in a deep shock when I found him during evening chores. Over all a rough 24 hours. Things have got to be better by tomorrow.

 

[kurby22]

Not a fun day at our place today. I lost my all time favorite little hen over night most likely to a genetic problem. She was my little scissor beak baby that has been at my side every minute possible since she was a few weeks old. Last week I fell out on the apron to the carport and could not get up. My wife had forgot to turn on her WalkiTalkie and all I could do was call out to her and she couldn't hear me but Scissors came running. She sensed I was in trouble and started crying like I've never heard a chicken do. l finally crawled close enough to the house that my wife heard me and Scissors stayed right beside me until I was back inside. She will be missed as long as I live. I still have Cassidy (short for Hop-A-Long Cassidy) and Godiva (For Lady Godiva). Cassidy has a bad lower leg and runs normally to evade a rooster but has a funny walk when just getting from point A to point B. Godiva Looked like a Naked Neck instead of a White Giant when I found her. Both of those girls are on the mend quite well but may or may not return to there flockmates. Burying Scissors was a hard job.

After finding Scissors this morning I discovered a Bresse 6 month old pullet walking like a penguin. I had seen the thread about another member's pullet doing that and read that thread and went to town and got needed meds to treat her. Depending on the outcome will decide if she becomes a part of a pet flock. I've been treating a young Bresse cockerel for being abused by flockmate roosters since last night. He was in a deep shock when I found him during evening chores. Over all a rough 24 hours. Things have got to be better by tomorrow.

I’m so sorry you lost Scissors, she sounds soo very special! Sounds like you have a wonderful motley crew of special chickens I hope your Bresse heals and it’s a one time issue—I lost one to something similar so I hope yours is luckier! I have a baby we named Pegleg “Peggy” because she managed to get her ID band too tight and lost all her toes on one foot. 40 other chicks and not one other band was an issue. I had hoped we caught it in time, but alas they slowly all died. But I managed to keep it from getting infected so I guess that’s a win. She gets along fine without it, but she’s our special girl now Hugs and hopes for a better day tomorrow!

 

[PopoMyers]

That sounds pretty good. $10 a month for security and entertainment.
If not you can still spy without the recordings right?

I can with live camera. No feeds without subscription, though.

 

[PopoMyers]

Not a fun day at our place today. I lost my all time favorite little hen over night most likely to a genetic problem. She was my little scissor beak baby that has been at my side every minute possible since she was a few weeks old. Last week I fell out on the apron to the carport and could not get up. My wife had forgot to turn on her WalkiTalkie and all I could do was call out to her and she couldn't hear me but Scissors came running. She sensed I was in trouble and started crying like I've never heard a chicken do. l finally crawled close enough to the house that my wife heard me and Scissors stayed right beside me until I was back inside. She will be missed as long as I live. I still have Cassidy (short for Hop-A-Long Cassidy) and Godiva (For Lady Godiva). Cassidy has a bad lower leg and runs normally to evade a rooster but has a funny walk when just getting from point A to point B. Godiva Looked like a Naked Neck instead of a White Giant when I found her. Both of those girls are on the mend quite well but may or may not return to there flockmates. Burying Scissors was a hard job.

After finding Scissors this morning I discovered a Bresse 6 month old pullet walking like a penguin. I had seen the thread about another member's pullet doing that and read that thread and went to town and got needed meds to treat her. Depending on the outcome will decide if she becomes a part of a pet flock. I've been treating a young Bresse cockerel for being abused by flockmate roosters since last night. He was in a deep shock when I found him during evening chores. Over all a rough 24 hours. Things have got to be better by tomorrow.

So sorry for the loss of a very special and loyal chicken. You sure have your caring hands overly full, and may all your efforts to heal be rewarded positively. You are OK, after falling, we hope. Falling is never good. I tripped over my brother's big dog's foot, and did a face plant into the concrete, scratching my glasses and bruising my lower orbital bone (eye), and strained or bruised a muscle in my side and pulled something in my foot. Fortunately no blood. Iced the face right away, and very little bruising and swelling.

 

[PopoMyers]

So, today, my neighbor sent me a picture of Pikake, who had escaped and went to his house looking for treats. Little Stinker! I was not home, so when I got here she had made her way back to our yard. She followed me, the treat dispenser,

to the gate, as did the rest of the gang. Threw treats inside the fence, then opened the gate, and she went inside. Now, where can I put my camera to catch her in the act? She doesn't do this all the time. Also still have to catch the egg eater, which does so only on occasion.

 

[Shetland lover]

Like a 13 year old boy.

I was going to say it's like a teenage boy's voice breaking when they start to crow! Hopefully they'll eventually end up with nice, deep baritone voices. Not like my two - Ferdy's is a shrill two note eh!-eh! Whereas Stan has quite feeble but surprisingly loud soprano - eh, eh, ehh....eehhhhhh!

 

[Soujrnr]

The girls are looking rather spry today. We started our training regiment today to teach them to come when we call. I hope it works. I guess it can take 10-14 days to train them, give or take. We had another predator stop in around midnight last night, but whatever it was, I couldn't see it on the camera. It tripped the light and alarm and must have fled really quickly. No signs of any attempts whatsoever to get into the Henitentiary, so that's a plus.

Today, I'll be adding more shavings to go for the "deep litter" setup. I didn't realize there are two methods in that regard; deep litter and deep bedding. In my own defense, we've only been at this for a week.

Going to go get some more food today. We bought crumble the first time. I'm wondering if we should switch to pellets. What are your thoughts on that? They seem to waste an awful lot of the crumble. We did put a pan underneath the feeders to try to catch it, but they get all the spilled food mixed in with the pine shavings, and they poop in it too.

 

[kurby22]

This week is starting off both in good ways and sad. We spent the past two weeks doing a lot of chicken/yard work, but I’m happy to say that the Cooplex is almost ready to finish, my porch no longer looks like a run down and messy wood shop, all my chickens are outside during the day, and the quail will be headed outside soon! My house feels like mine again, it’s sort of clean, and I’m figuring out what I need to make it more clean.

On a sad note, I decided it was time to find some homes for roosters that don’t fit the plans. They are like tiny band aid rip offs so Aria can handle the process :-/ So I started with Rolley since he was in rooster jail and then immediately went back to beating the crap out of Ruby and Aria was SOBBING. There’s no way we could say goodbye to Ruby, so we decided Rolley needed his own ladies somewhere else :-( I cried…he’s a really nice boy to everyone but Ruby

And there was someone on my local Facebook looking for a rooster that was a guaranteed gentle boy because the last one they had was terribly mean and traumatized her children. So I thought it was a good time to offer one of my MANY bobtail roosters to her. This was VERY upsetting to Aria and took several hours to work through but I got her there finally.

So we chose RooPaul to rehome because it’s going to be a free range boy and RooPaul is the darkest and most capable of being a tougher boy. George and Willie are wimps that love people and hugs The baby is too young so he wasn’t an option at all!

The sick babies have not gotten worse…but there’s hope for wry neck baby—who I decided to name Noodle Neck, or Noodle . I’ve been giving them both vitamin E and Selenium twice a day and fed them egg yolk yesterday. Noodle was actually keeping her head upright some and cleaning her neck feathers…so hoping the supplements will do some good

This is a big improvement!

Today is the first day in I can’t recall how long, that we have nothing at ALL going on after work! So, I’m going to spend some time tonight sitting with the chickens and enjoying them instead of stressing over them for a change!