After the trauma of the previous day, I thought the best thing was to distract them with a new chicken. Not so they thought that Snowy was easily replaceable, nor was it to make them cheapen death, but I asked them if they would like another chicken and they said they did.
I responded to an ad on Gumtree which was selling a cheap chicken, but it turned out that they wanted all 3 to go together. Oops, that wasn't part of the plan. Lose one and come home with 3? Now I havae 8 chickens!
These new chickens were all Isa Browns, good egg layers. However, I was surprised when I saw them because I saw something I hadn't seen before.
Debeaking.
It just meant that the sharp bit of their beak was cut off, but it still looked weird. Short little beaks. At first I baulked, thinking these were mistreated chickens, but they seemed happy enough, just funny beaks.
So this is a sad picture of debeaked chicks. It's done with a hot iron/laser so it's cauterised at the end. Some say the beak grows back, but I don't really think it does.
These are my chickens. You can see their short beaks. Some are shorter than others...
Beaker
Peckachu
Puffy
Beaker has the shortest beak - she belongs to my daughter. Peckachu is my husband's chicken, and has white feathers around the neck, and Puffy is my son's chicken, and has a longer beak and is slightly more red than the others.
The good thing about having three is that the bullying is not as bad and they hang around together. They figured out food and water pretty quickly. I was naughty and didn't isolate them, but I did a lice check and didn't see anything. On the first night they slept separately but the second night I tried to get them to go up the coop and they slept on the ground of the coop instead. On the third night I manually put them up there and now they've figured out where home is.
They laid eggs the next day but they didn't know where to lay. I found eggs on the ground the day after I brought them home and also out in the garden the day after that. But once they figured out that the coop was home, they laid in the nesting box.
I can't tell whose eggs they are so it doesn't help me with my egg calendar. It's easy when there are 3 eggs! However they do lay quite big eggs compared to my other chickens, so that's one way to tell.
Poor Snowy. She had a prolapsed cloaca again but this time I wasn't home and she was pecked to death by the other chickens. The worst part was, my daughter had gone out to check the chickens and found her droopy and dying, and went over to pick her up and the chickens came and mauled the chicken in front of her whilst she was holding her. I had dropped the kids home for a few minutes and gone to pick something up but when I got back both kids were screaming and in tears, the poor things, clutching a dead chicken, with her intestines all pulled out.
Anyway, I buried the chicken and comforted the teary kids, and talked about death and dying. The kids kinda knew about that already, but now they had seen it first hand. They were upset at the other chickens, but I told them that the chickens can't help it, it's instinct to peck at red things.
I buried Snowy in the front yard. I hope no dog comes digging her up in the middle of the night.
I also saw she had laid an egg today. That fateful egg. The egg that killed her. The kids wanted to keep the egg as a memory, and I will have to go find a syringe and needle so I can keep the egg for them.
Thinking of you, Snowy! You weren't the most friendly chicken (so I'm surprised the kids were so sad) but you were loved by everyone.
I had my first encounter with a prolapsed vent, and it was ugly. Fortunately, being a doctor, means that I know what needs to be done, and am not fully grossed out by it.
Warning, there are some rather gross pictures coming up.
Snowy was wandering around the yard and hubby noticed that her bottom was "very dirty" and looked like it was bleeding. I peeked out the window and saw that it was very soiled... and then she turned and I saw a big red mass protruding from her cloaca. A quick google search to confirm what I thought it was and what I should do, and I was outside, washing my poor chicken's sore looking protrusion and gently putting my finger into her cloaca to make sure there was no impacted egg or faeces in there.
Ouch! So what they say is to make sure your gloved fingers are well lubricated - they used haemorrhoid cream, but I washed the area gently with warm water, and then applied slow pressure to reduce the prolapse. Unfortunately, as I was examining her, she tried to push my finger out, making the prolapse HUGE!
I could not feel an egg stuck inside, and I held her and applied slow pressure to the prolapse. The problem was, that I was sure it could happen again and I was worried about that. I hoped she wasn't constipated - though she had a lot of vegetables the day before.
There is the vent, prolapse reduced. I needed to clean all those dirty feathers, and keep her isolated, so I have put her on a one day fast with just water and multivitamins so that she doesn't make so much poo and give her cloaca a rest, as well as discourage her from laying eggs. If she lays another egg, it would happen again.
The causes of vent prolapse include:
- obesity
- large eggs
- malnourishment
- low magnesium/calcium
Snowy is not a prolific egg layer, as she goes broody so often, but she does lay large eggs. She lays the largest eggs of all the chickens, and she is not the largest chicken. She is also not overweight, and has plenty of free range room. Could she be malnourished? She is often bullied by the other chickens, but she always looks like she is eating well. Calcium insufficiency seems unlikely since her food has adequate calcium for egg layers (and she doesn't lay all the time), so I am putting it down to large eggs.
I am hoping that she recovers well. I wish she would go broody right now so she can have a break from egg laying!
The next morning the prolapse was back but to a milder degree and I again washed her bottom and I was afraid she would start getting vent gleet. I hope that she recovers well so that I don't have to euthanase her. Fingers crossed for a good recovery!
Before we went to Hawaii we had all our fertilised eggs and I thought it would be fun to hatch some eggs. However, before we went on holidays we came to the decision that the rooster had to go to another home. I took him to a colleague's farm and Luke seemed quite happy there.
Now we wouldn't have anymore fertilised eggs! But once mated, the eggs are fertilised for a month so we still could hatch chicks. Snowy was broody so I took 3 eggs (2 of Princess Layers and 1 of Mary's) and put them under her.
When we came back 2 weeks later from holidays, I candled the eggs and only one had something in it. So on hatching day, I was disappointed nothing hatched. I told the kids we'd give it 2 more days and if it didn't hatch, we'd take it out and do an egg-topsy.
Sunday rolled around and still no hatching and Snowy was busted not even sitting on the egg (she was sitting on different eggs) and the egg was cold. I took it into the house and smacked it with a teaspoon to crack the shell so we could look inside, and as I was showing the kids the egg, the embryo inside MOVED.
Screams from the kids about me killing the egg, should have left it longer... I honestly thought it was dead!
So I tried to cover it with glad wrap to keep it moist (which later I found out was a bad idea) and try to keep the membrane moisty. Unfortunately it got very dry and looked like paper. We also used the heat lamp to keep it warm.
The next day a beak popped through the membrane and on Wednesday early hours, the chick was hatching. I did help it a bit, because that membrane was a bit rubbery, being so dry.
So we had a fluffy little chick for a few days, but the poor thing never wanted to eat or drink, just sleep. I thought that was normal for a newborn chick but as time got on, it was obviously not well and it died about 6 days after hatching, poor thing.
So now I now how NOT to hatch an egg. Next time I'm letting the chooks keep them.
Well it's taken months but Princess Layer now hangs around with the other chickens, AND she started laying eggs in the middle of September. Tiny little eggs, mind you - smaller than when Cacciatore first started laying. I found the first one on the ground and since then she has been laying steadily, and in the coop.
Snowy is being broody again but I thought I would take advantage of her broodiness this time and get her to do some parenting, since I had a rooster fertilizing my eggs. I don't know for SURE if they are fertilized, having not seen a blastoderm in the eggs, but I'll assume that they are since he does his business a few times a day.
However, the crowing at 545 am was getting to me. Before the neighbours started complaining and I got nasty letters from the council, I decided to adopt him out to someone at work, whose father said he would take in my rooster.
So I took Luke down to the farm (he has a dairy farm) and there were plenty of ladies there to keep him busy, as well as only one rooster to compete with. So, I think he will be doing quite well there. The kids said their last goodbyes to him and they gave me the Spanish Inquisition treatment at the end of the day, asking about the farm he went to and whether they could visit.
As to my rodent situation...
After weeks of not catching a THING, I had left the trap empty and open with no food in it (peanut butter didn't work), there was something trapped in there last week. The worst part was that the rodent caught was NOT the one that I had seen running around the yard - this was a mouse. And it was dead - or so I thought. As I went to empty the cage it twitched, but when I put it on the ground to examine, the next door neigbour's dog had his nose to the fence and sniffed it, so I let him sniff it some more, then went to get a plastic bag to dispose of the mostly dead rodent, when ZHOOM! Out sprang a paw from under the fence, trapping the mouse, and then slowly dragging it back to his side of the fence. I was too surprised to stop him - who knew that big paw could get under that tiny bit of exposed fence!
I reset the trap, but did not expect that there would be a victim the next day! This time it was the rat that I had seen frequenting my yard, and unfortunately it was very much alive. I had to dispose of it, which seemed pointless after going to all the effort to trap it humanely. So we killed it and disposed of it and I reset the trap again. Hopefully there will be no more rodents, but there were 2 when I thought I had one, so no doubt there are more there... somewhere.
Now that the days are getting longer, and a little bit warmer, we started having eggs again. Mary was the first to start laying, but now Snowy and Bubbles have started too.
It's been 3 months since we had eggs. Looking forward to having lots of eggs again!
Cacciatore is looking rather miserable and pathetic with her moulting, so it will probably be a month of two before she starts up again. She laid into winter the longest.
In other news, I was at it again on Gumtree and saw some more free chickens. This time they were a pair of Barnevelders, a rooster and pullet, that someone had gotten from their daycare and raised. The reason they were free was that this lady's dog had killed some of them and she wanted to try to make sure the other two survived.
I went to check them out and they were beautiful chickens!
We named them Princess Layer and Luke Skysquawker.
It's not that obvious here but Layer has lovely lace feathers and Luke has a lovely green sheen to his feathers. I was pleased to see they looked like full size chickens and not bantams.
Barnevelders may start laying as late as 28 weeks, and these two were 17 weeks old so it might be a while before I see any eggs. I wonder if they will be brown eggs?
Having the two of them means that Layer won't get bullied much, as she hangs with the rooster and he doesn't take much flack. He had a bit of a power struggle with Bubbles, but since then they seem to have settled down. Layer is very flighty and flies out of the enclosure a lot but no different to Cacciatore really, as she wanders around the garden eating grass and digging in the dirt.
I was most upset on their first night in the coop because Mary had a bleeding comb and was making a dreadful wheezing sound. She had seemed fine earlier in the day but in the afternoon began making a weird sound. I checked her for discharge from her nostrils in case she had a cold but she seemed clear, just a weird sound. And in the night when I found blood in the coop I was most upset so I took her out of the coop to have a rest in isolation so she could heal up a bit. I made her some bread soaked in olive oil the next day, but she seemed to return to normal. I have no idea what happened to her - did she aspirate something? - but I'm glad to see she was fine afterwards.
I'm wondering how long I can keep the rooster for before he becomes a nuisance. I'm hoping it's a while.
Oh, and the other day I had a big sinking heart, as I went outside in the dark to check on the chickens. I saw a RAT running around the fence. MAYBE two. I have no food lying around so I'm hoping that they're not going to hang around in my backyard, but I will have to put out traps, because 2 rats quickly become TONS of rats, and I don't want people to make me get rid of my chickens because they think they're attracting vermin.
The other thing that could be attracting them is the compost bin. Now that everyone is throwing their kitchen scraps in there the bin stinks. I've been trying to put more carbons in but it can't keep up with the nitrogen from the kitchen. It was fine when it was just my stuff... and I'm hoping that the smell will attract soldier flies so they can start laying eggs and eating up all the food... but not if it's attracting rats! I've ordered some humane traps, but I am sad that I will have to kill the rats a bit inhumanely. What would be the kindest way? Drowning? Cold water? I can't put baits out coz of the chickens! So I'm giving this trap a whirl and I'll tell you how it goes.
When I came to clean the coop in the mornings, sometimes Snowy's eye on the right side was not open and she'd be scratching it. I noticed then that her nostril was blocked with gunk. I didn't get a photo but it looked like this chicken:
Was it cancerous? Was it gunk? It was quite hard the first time I poked at it, and when I googled it, I found that it can actually be dislodged if I do it carefully with a pointed object, like the pointy bit of a chicken feather (tons of those lying around on the ground at the moment). It turned out I didn't need to do, that I started doing it with my fingernail and it did start to move and I could move it out. It came out like solid cheesy gunk, much like squeezing a zit or a boil, I suppose!
Here is a picture of what someone else managed to get out.
Her nostril afterwards was dilated, and I was worried that she would get more crap into it. She probably will and I'll be picking at her nose again. But at least this time, I know how to do it!
So my suggestion is to get a good grip on your chicken. One site said to tie up her legs so that she can't kick and flap around - I didn't do that. I had her wedged between my legs, so she couldn't back out (I was squatting) and my left hand firmly around her neck, with my right hand picking at her nostril. She would often flick her head away from me but it took time and patience. If your chicken is particularly cantankerous, I think that a bandage wrap around the chicken would work well (like a crepe bandage) or at least a towel to keep her firmly wrapped so she can't escape.
Why does this happen? Apparently feed can get caught in the nostrils, and Snowy with her twisted toes might be more at risk of stuff getting caught in there since she can't scratch it out well. It wasn't anything cancerous, thank goodness, nor was it a canker sore that I have seen in other pictures (yuk!).
Poor Lana. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to fix her. And I tried everything.
I treated her with oral antifungals - though Nilstat is good for sour crop yeast, I wasn't sure if it would work if administered from the top end. I did that for a week, but her bottom continued to weep and discharge.
I did regular baths, but it was clear there was something on the inside that was the problem. Bathing just cleaned up her feathers but her bottom continued to weep.
I then decided to try some antibiotics. Perhaps she had a salpingitis/reproductive tract infection. Chlamydia can infect chickens and tetracyclines can work on them. So a week of oral tetracycline derivatives, and I thought she seemed more perky but her bottom was no better. I did worry, however, that giving broad spectrum antibiotics would make her yeast infection flare up more.
I even did a per rectum (or is it per cloaca?) examination to see if I could feel a mass or a foreign body that was causing it. I couldn't feel anything inside.
Over the last few days, she was looking more and more withdrawn. Her head was tucked in her wing and her eyes were closed. She would eat but not as voraciously as she had at first. I told the kids (who were on holidays with their grandparents) that Lana was going to die soon.
Today, she was dead. Poor Lana.
She was a tame chicken, though a bit aggressive to the others. She would bully Mary but cower from Snowy. The kids liked her a lot and she was happy to have cuddles.
In other chicken news, Cacciatore has stopped laying because she is now moulting. She looks very bedraggled indeed! None of the other chickens have laid since March, so I am hoping that come spring we will have eggs again.
I don't know why I keep looking at Gumtree for chickens when I have 5 chickens already. But, last week, there was an ad for a free chicken - "don't know what is wrong with her." The description sounded like her vent was clogged and I thought, hmm I can go see what's wrong with her and maybe fix her up.
So I told the kids that after school we were going to look at a chicken. Would they like a new chicken?
There was resounding "YES!" screamed throughout the car, and they were all excited thinking we were getting a new chicken.
So I went to the place to inspect the chicken to see if she was salvageable. She could be dying, or ridden with parasites. When I got there, it was a delightful young couple whose home was full of DIY stuff - there were rose petals drying in the kitchen and the lady was juicing mandarins in the backyard, and offered me some.
I looked with dismay at my uggs as I glanced around their backyard, which is what the chickens appeared to free range in. Which is great, but there was chicken poo everywhere. Fortunately with careful stepping I managed to avoid excessive soiling of my sheepskin boots!
The chicken in question was standing quietly by the lady, and was quite placid. I picked her up and looked at her bottom which was covered in a dried whitish discharge, dribbling down her backside. Possibly vent gleet (or chicken thrush) which is treatable with some canesten and butt care. I looked at her eyes which seemed alert enough, comb was red and full and not blue or shrivelled and she seemed to be quite a young chicken. The other chickens were all 20 weeks old so she was at point of lay - she probably wasn't laying because she wasn't well.
A few days of isolation and butt baths with some heater and hair dryer butt-drying and application of canesten seemed to perk her up a bit. She was eating happily, drinking heaps and wandering around trying to find her spot in the pecking order with the other chickens. But in between she would stand still during the day and close her eyes. Surely that's not normal.
I had been feeling her crop wondering why she was sick in the first place. Did she have sour crop (which is yeast infection in her crop)? That can come from eating contaminated water or food. Her crop at the end of the day felt full and doughy, a bit different to the firm ball that the other chooks had at the end of the day. Just in case I bought some Nilstat (nystatin) to dose her orally.
This morning I went out to look at her and her crop felt very full. Ugh, I had read about trying to empty these crops by making the chickens vomit but I had tried multiple times with no success. So I'm going to just separate her again, more apple cider vinegar in her water, and give her mashed soft food and twice daily nystatin. I'd read that you give 1mL per 400g, but I think I'll just stick to 1mL per 500g and give her 3mL twice a day and see how that goes. Dosing her isn't too bad, prying a beak open for liquid isn't as hard as it looks. It's just the bum washing in the dead of winter which I baulk at. It's so COLD!
My son named her Lana (though at first he wanted to name her Tony which I said I didn't like since that was a boy's name) and so Lana has now become part of the family. If I succeed in fixing her we'll have another happy egg layer. If not... well, it was a free chicken.
Egg production has fallen right off and going down with it are feathers!
I can easily recognise Spotty's brown feathers all over the place, but there are also white feathers around too. Mary's egg laying has decreased too, probably 2-3 per week, but Cacciatore continues to lay profusely with 4-5 eggs a week still. Bubbles is also laying, with 2 eggs per week. Her eggs are getting a bit bigger too.
Chickens moult in Autumn, and because of the amount of energy and protein it takes to make new feathers, they can't make eggs. That's fine though. I have bought some mealworms to supplement their protein requirements and I'm wondering if I should start up my own mealworm farm.
I've seen pictures of chickens in a full moult (called a hard moult), where they look very threadbare. This is not my chicken but you get the idea.
My chickens don't look like that though. They seem to have lost their tails and their neck feathers a bit - which is called a soft moult. You would probably not know they were moulting if you hadn't seen the feathers that are scattered all over the place which make it look like some fox got into the hen house.
Regardless, it appears that it will take them 2 months to get their egg laying back. I may have to cut down on egg giveaways because we are only just keeping up with our demand.
This summer has been dreadful. Fortunately Spotty survived her heat stroke and I took a few measures to try to keep the chickens cool. There were even hotter days over January and February with the temperatures soaring up to 46 degrees Celsius, and it was fortunate that those days someone was at home with the chooks to keep their water changed and cool.
I came across something on Raising Happy Chickens about Heat stroke and it listed 10 signs of heat stress. Poor Spotty had 9 of them!
1. Panting.
Chicken's can't sweat so they pant. I see this when the temperature is above 33 degrees or so.
2. Rapid breathing.
If they are also not eating much because of stress this can be a bit of a vicious cycle, increased work and energy used but not much reserve.
3. Loss of electrolytes.
Apparently this causes depletion of calcium - and I had a lot of shell-less eggs which is probably due to the electroylte imbalances. 4. Wings are outstretched and feathers more erect.
I see the chickens with their wings outstretched a lot in the hot weather, especially the smaller hens. I don't notice it as much in my heavier chooks which is probably why they are more prone to overheating.
5. The bird stops eating, and drinks large amounts of water.
By the way, chooks don't like warm water! So they will drink cool water preferentially and I noticed they run straight for the new water I put out. On one of those 46 degree days the water was so hot it was probably on the hot side of a hot bath!
6. Diarrhea.
Raising Happy chickens said this was directly related to drinking more, but I think that stress will play part of this as well. Bubbles was still having diarrhoea 3 days after those 46 degree days. This will contribute a lot to that electrolyte loss!
7. The chicken become listless, droopy and disinterested.
Well, that will happen when sick. This is where Spotty was at. I am surprised it is at number 7 - I would have thought it would be at number 9.
8. Egg production and quality is likely to be reduced
My chooks don't lay on hot days and I don't expect them to with all their energy spent on keeping cool. I have had a LOT of shell-less eggs this past month - probably around 8 or so? - which I directly attribute to the heat.
9. Staggering, disorientation and seizures.
Spotty could not walk. I think if I hadn't intervened, she would be dead. I think I was very lucky she survived reaching this severe heat stress!
10. Collapse of system and death.
Well, that speaks for itself.
So here are my backyard tips for keeping my chickens cool.
- Plenty of shallow buckets of water
I have recycled disposable scrub bowls from work and stockpiled them at home and they are perfect for placing water out all over the chook's ranging area. I change the water when it gets hot, and try to put some in each of the spots that gets shade during the day.
- Allowing the chooks the full range of the garden
I have their inner enclosure and then the whole garden. On usual days I just let them free range in the enclosed area which is around 25 square metres. On hot days they can move to the shade near the house, or hide in the dirt in the corner of the garden.
- Misters/sprinklers
I have a watering system which sprays a mist and I pull it out of the watering area to mist a patch of grass nearby. Unfortunately the chooks don't like being sprayed with water! But if they do, it's something to keep them cool. The grass at least gets a bit wet so technically by evaporation it should be cool as well.
- Frozen water bottles in water
They are actually a bit nervous about the bottles floating in their shallow scrub bowls but it does keep the water cool if I'm not at home to change it!
There are many other ideas that people have had, including frozen treats to give to the chickens, or watermelon, but so far, in those 45 degree temp days, the chooks manage to make it through without dying or getting as bad heat stroke as Spotty did.
The chickens managed to survive Christmas with me away, and also a brief New Year with me away, but the hot weather is what has brought my poor babies low.
Today was a scorcher of 39 - and I had put plenty of water out - but I rushed home to find my chickens sitting in the shade, panting. All of them got up to great me, bar Spotty. Spotty was sitting on the grass panting, and looking like she was having difficulty breathing.
When I picked her up, her bare butt was even more obvious than it usually was, and it was a soft swelling and bulging. I put her into a bucket of water, and she must be sick because she let me pick her up and sat there in the water for a while. Usually Spotty is the most skittish of all the chickens.
She looked very unsteady on her feet and was even closing her eyes, so after leaving her to sit on the grass a bit more and finding ants crawling all over her, I decided to dropper feed her some water as she wasn't drinking water.
I only managed to get 100mL in I think, and she swallowed it all. However, I have put her in the isolation cage that I bought for Snowy's broodiness.
Spotty had been well, as she was eating from my hand yesterday and running around as usual and also laid an egg. I am sure she is suffering from heat exhaustion.
Tomorrow will be a bit cooler but it's another scorcher, even hotter, on Friday. I don't know if I will have a dead chicken by then, but at least I will be home the next few days to help look after them. I might have to leave out more buckets of water for them the cool themselves down with this summer. I have also made some iced bottles to put in the water to keep them cool.
Fingers crossed, and praying for the recovery of my dear Spotty.
In my last post we wondered whose egg that was. We found out that it was Cacciatore's egg! However, on Friday, Snowy started laying eggs as well and she has large cream eggs.
These 3 eggs on the left were Friday's pickings. The blue one is of course Bubbles, then Snowy's egg, then Mary's. You can see in the egg tray on the right there is a white egg, which is Cacciatore's egg. Snowy's egg is a lot bigger!
I weighed today's egg and it was a whopping 54g!
So it looks like we'll get 2-3 eggs a day. I am so happy, now we are fully self sustaining when it comes to eggs! No more buying eggs for us!
I have wondered - how will I tell the difference between Mary's eggs and Spotty's eggs when she starts laying?
When we went outside this afternoon, there was an egg in the nesting box, and it wasn't pinkish, it wasn't blue, it was white!
It was a slightly elongated shape compared to our other eggs. We suspect it's Snowy who laid it, but we aren't sure!
It's a small egg, though it looks large in my daughter's hand below. Wyandottes can lay a cream to light brown egg, and I am hoping that it's Snowy who laid it. Only 2 more chickens left who aren't laying! Cacciatore sure isn't earning her keep.
I shall keep an eye out tomorrow and see who the egg laying culprits are and give them some extra treats!
We also weighed them today, though it was the end of the day, so they're probably a bit heavier than they should be. Here are this week's weigh-ins:
Mary - 2273g
Spotty - 2171g
Snowy - 1855g
Bubbles - 1780g
Cacciatore - 1371g
It looks like my two "mutt" chickens have put on some weight!
My mum is visiting and she really enjoys the chickens. She feeds them, and watches them, and on Thursday she was excitedly telling me that there were 3 chickens hanging around the nesting box. Later in the day she told me there were TWO eggs!
And, this other egg was laid by Bubbles and it was BLUE!
It looks a little green, but it actuallly is blue! I was so excited! It weighed a little over 40g, so heavier than Mary's first egg.
I have been spoiling the girls lately - I bought mealworms on Monday and they devoured them, and mum has also been feeding them leftover bread to try to encourage Cacciatore to stay inside the pen instead of flying out all the time.
Mary has been laying very well, laying 5-6 eggs per week. She eats the crushed shells I've put out for her (and interestingly Bubbles had been eating them as well!)
There have been no more lice on the chickens whenever I inspect them, which is good. Spotty is quite large now, but her comb and wattles are still pale, so no eggs for her for a while. Mum told me that Snowy has been inspecting the nesting box too, so hopefully in the next week or so we shall have more eggs again!
I haven't writtten in a while, but on the 27 May we disposed of Spot. Poor Spotty had many of her feathers pulled out of the back of her neck from when Spot had managed to corner her for mating (and she is still only a baby so she's not fertile nor ready for fertilization). He tore her comb and now it has an ugly scab on it.
The kids were informed that Spot would no longer be there on the Friday when they got home from school, and so they said goodbye in the morning. Later that morning I had to hold my pet down whilst my mum did the deed and she did all the plucking and cleaning for me. Now I know how to do it if I had to do it again.
We ate him that night and his meat was tough! I was told later that you need to leave the meat for 3 days before you eat it, or it will be tough.
Spotty has grown a lot, and is now the second heaviest chicken! Last Monday I weighed them.
Bubbles is the number 2 chicken of the flock, and I think she's stopped growing. She was 1287g last week and this week is 1282g. The previous week she was 1280g.
I think Cacciatore has stopped growing. She has been this weight for a few weeks now, give or take 10g. She is the smallest of the chickens yet she is the alpha hen!
Mary finally cracked the 2kg mark! Last week she was 1902g, and the week before she was 1855g. With Spot gone, Mary has become the number 3 hen of the flock.
I'm not sure if this is accurate. Last week Snowy weighed 1530g. I will have to do weekly weighs to make sure she's ok. Snowy is at the bottom of the pecking order.
Look at all the feathers missing off poor Spotty's neck! They are growing back, but she still looks like the most juvenile hen here, despite being a good weight. Last week she was 1675g, and the week before she was 1450g. She may also be going through a teenage moult, but she is eating well.
Today I went outside to clean the coop and I found an egg!
I was very excited and made everyone else come out and look. You can see the nesting boxes in the background there (amongst all the poop) and I had blocked them off because the youngest pullets were in there sleeping and pooping. Now I've taken the boxes and soup pot out and put a dummy egg in one in the hope they will lay inside the nesting boxes.
It's a tiny egg!
We made pancakes out of the tiny egg, and the yolk was very pale. The shell wasn't too thin, it seemed ok. I'm wondering who laid the egg - I suspect it was Cacciatore, but it could have been Bubbles! Both of them seem to have matured and reached maximum weight (so they must be bantams!). Now I have to go find some shell grit to give them so my eggs will have nice strong shells and nobody gets osteoporosis!
I blame myself. I didn't check the chickens properly when I brought them home and I introduced them to the others on Friday and all day Saturday!
We had some practice social experiments, where we put the Wyandotte with the others and she was immediately bullied by Cacciatore, but when we put Cacciatore in the small cage, Cacciatore was bullied by Spotty, our Speckled Sussex!
So on Saturday I added them all together and watched them like hawks, separating Cacciatore when she was too vicious to Snowy (which is what my daughter named the Wyandotte). As the day went on I was happy to see them eating well, drinking well and walking around the enclosure. Bubbles was quite placid with them and Mary avoided them, hiding up in the coop.
I had dismantled the puppy pen to make an extension of the enclosure, and whilst I was inside I heard chicken squawks of distress. I run outside to see poor Snowy with Spot mounting her back, his beak holding onto her neck (like roosters do when mating) and she was entangled in the fence. I ran outside to disentangle her and as I parted her feathers I noticed tiny creatures on her skin scurrying away as I parted her feathers. I nearly dropped her in horror. Were these mites or lice?
After I separated Snowy, I grabbed Spotty and examined her - she had lice too! I put her with Snowy and examined Spot, who had no lice, and Cacciatore who also had no lice. I needed to find something to treat them straight away! Off I went to Petbarn to get some Pestene which I applied to the two chickens, though I don't know if I did it correctly.
I had never done it before so I went to youtube to see if I could find somewhere to show me how to do it, and this video was quite helpful.
We went out for dinner and I returned home and did the rest of the chickens, and it was quite easy to catch them as they were all in the coop already. They didn't like it but it needed to be done (and in fact I did it in the sandpit)
Now, I need to go and clean out the rest of the cage, and pick up all the loose feathers I had left lying around on the ground. I will redust the chickens in a few days but hopefully that will treat them. I don't think the infestation was bad - I didn't see clumps of nits on any of the feathers, but I will have another look at them tomorrow.
Edit: I take that back, there were nits - I felt them last night but didn't realise they were nits!
I wondered if you could use those flea things on them, like they do on cats and dogs with the drop on the back of the neck. I saw that someone had asked the same question on Backyard Poultry Forum, and they had used them. I went to the pet shop and got some Advantage, where the active ingredient is Imidacloprid (a very effective pesticide).
I got the formulation for kittens, which is a 0.4mL dose of a 100g/L imidacloprid solution. I figured that there are about 8 drops in 0.4mL, which means each drop contains 5mg.
Imidacloprimide is moderately toxic if ingested and low in toxicity via dermal exposure. Toxicity can be seen in 50mg/kg doses ingested (in rats) and this is way below that so it shouldn't be an issue in the chicken meat. However, the thought is rather sobering.
It lasts for a long time in the ground (and apparently is used in tree pesticides and is taken up by trees rendering them toxic to a number of insect pests, such as locusts). However it is also very toxic to bees, and in some places it is not allowed to be used due to the affect on the local bee population.
So from what I can find on the internet, it seems to persist for a while, lasting up to 4 weeks (which is good in that when the nits hatch they will die) but that's a long time for it to hang around!
Well, none of my chickens are laying, so that's not so bad. HOWEVER, we were planning on eating Spot this week, so perhaps I shouldn't have dosed him!
I had my first aggressive interaction from Spot on Monday.
I had cleaned the coop in the morning, but I had come out again to do some general gardening and play with the chickens, and I was also talking on the phone to my mother. Mary was hiding up in the coop again, so I went to go check on her and I noticed a huge chicken poop so I went to go get something to clean it up.
Something bumped into my leg. It was Spot. I thought he was walking backwards again. But no! He had his hackles raised, and he leapt at my leg, with his claws outstretched, kicking me and squawking! He did it not once, but four times! And it was uncomfortable, not painful but rather uncomfortable that I admonished him for it. He stopped and then went back to his normal self, but that was surprising.
I was upset that he was so aggressive which only strengthened my resolve to dispose of him, but when I read up on the internet, I started to feel a bit guilty.
Roosters can be teenagers too, with raging hormones. They can have periods of aggression intermittently as they try to get used to their hormone urges, and as they mature, these urges settle and they may or may not become more docile. Also, with these raging hormones, they are trying to mate with all the females as well - some of whom are not quite mature enough yet to be impregnated so they go running. Sounds a lot like what Mary's doing doesn't it! Sussex chickens are slow to mature, and Mary is younger than Spot, so has been clearly trying to avoid Spot's amorous attentions. I have seen him strutting around the other two and demonstrating himself, so he's definitely playing up to the ladies.
And now I'm slaughtering him for it?
I don't know if I want fertilised eggs. Eating fertilised eggs seems wrong! And when he attacked me, surely he would do that to other attackers too, like cats and birds of prey? But, he is noisy, and it's only a matter of time before the neighbours kick up a fuss.
Bubbles only put on 27g this week (compared with 66g last week). At 1213g, maybe she is slowing down in terms of weight gain, meaning she might be a bantam!
Cacciatore put on 26g this week (compared with 28g last week) and is now 1039g. Still putting on a little bit of weight! Definitely a bantam!
Look at Mary, now weighing 1635g. She put on 76g this week (compared to 114g last week)
Spot is hard to keep still. Here he is running away! But the stable weight was 1805g, which means he put on 78g this week, which is about half of what he put on last week (141g last week)
So on Tuesday I went to Misty Gums Poultry to go get another chook, as a replacement for my rooster who will soon be soup. Paul said he had some Speckled Sussexes that might be the right age, as well as some White Wyandottes.
I was pretty keen for a Speckled Sussex, so Paul gave me one of his girls, who still looked quite young, but a decent size. As I turned to take my treasured pullet away, he asked me if I couldn't be tempted to take a second one? I shook my head with a smile, and he sweetened it with the offer of a discount, a large discount. I hesitated. What was wrong with her that he was selling her so cheap? He took me to show me - it turned out this little White Wyandotte had deformed feet, but was otherwise perfectly healthy. Reluctantly, I shook my head, but when he knocked the price down to $15... I decided I'd take her. So I ended up with TWO chickens!
I have them separated so they won't be killed as they establish a pecking order. I read that you should keep them separated but be able to see each other and then gradually introduce them. Also, I should keep them separated in case of parasites or diseases. I hope to integrate them on the weekend!
We have come to the conclusion this week that Spot needs to go. He has been terrorising Mary, who won't come out of the coop unless he's not around, and we ended up having to give her free range time OUTSIDE the fence so that she could forage in peace without being hounded back into the coop by Spot. Spot with his collar loosened has put on weight again, so I will not tighten the collar again as we are now in the process of fattening him up for slaughter.
Spot weighing in at 1727g this week (1586 last week) - at least he put on 141g this week compared to not putting on any weight in the previous week! If you ask me though, he looks a bit thinner, but that could be just how his feathers are sitting. I still think he's a handsome chook. I am thinking that 2kg is the ideal weight for eating...
Bubbles is looking very sleek lately! I used to think her feathers were a bit all over the place (like messy hair) but now she looks smooth and tidy. She weighs 1185g this week (1119 last week) has put on a nice 66g since last week.
Finally Cacciatore is over 1kg weighing 1013g (985g last week) ! She put on 28g this week. I am wondering if she is a bantam she seems to put on very little weight compared to the others.
My big girl Mary has cracked 1.5kg (1549g) when last week she was 1435g. She has put on 114g this week. Which is good since she only put on 28g the previous week.
We are onto our 2nd big bag of chook feed - we're still eating pullet grower. They are still loving their oat grains and I am still a big failure when it comes to getting them used to the treadle feeder - I am starting to think that was a waste of money.
There are a ton of earthworms underneath the coop! I don't know how they survive there without the chickens eating them! I was moving the bricks around (they are stepping stools for the chooks to get to the feeder) and when I lifted up the brick a whole bunch of earthworms wriggled back into the ground. The rest of the coop is still littered with feathers and some droppings as well as a fair dose of hemp (I have been sweeping old hemp litter into the coop to put on top of the dirt). I was wondering if it was bad if I didn't clean out the inside of the coop because of all the worms eating things in there but I realised that not many people put their chicken coops straight onto dirt because of the risk of burrowing predators and rodents. So far we have been very lucky
I was happy that the chickens were happy and well after we were away on holidays for 2 weeks! Everyone who looked after the chickens mentioned to us that Spot was crowing, despite his collar and we even had a recording of it.
We ended up gettting a No-Crow collar, which has mesh and looks like he will have more flexibility in his neck.
It took two tightenings to get him to be quieter but still able to eat, but he keeps running backwards with his head down to the ground, as if he's trying to get out of the collar. I could still slip the tip of my little finger under the collar so I thought it was ok.
They grew a lot in the 3 weeks since I last weighed them. So this was their weights at 16 weeks:
Spot - 1596
Mary - 1407
Bubbles - 1076
Cacciatore - 974
I think Spot looks quite handsome. But Mary is a whopper. She has grown a lot, but I worry she's a bit of an isolated chook. She hides up in the coop until all the others chooks are out, then she comes out. And she is the first one back into the coop for bedtime. She doesn't really roam around with the other 3 chickens, and just today, when it was raining, I noticed her out in the rain foraging, whilst the others were all sitting inside the coop. It smacked of sad high school behaviour! However, at least she is still eating well and not starving or stressed, she has all her feathers.
Cacciatore has been an escape artist since we came home. I found her eating my vegies again! I clipped her wings because she was flying onto the coop roof then hopping out, but I don't think it really stops her. I'm sure she didn't eat any of my vegies when I was away.
This week I weighed them and I was concerned because Spot had LOST weight, which is a concern because of the collar.
Spot - 1586
Mary - 1435
Bubbles - 1119
Cacciatore - 985
I have seen Spot eating and fed him myself. The collar he has on is lighter than the other one, which would mean he hadn't put on any weight this week.
If he loses weight again for another week I will loosen his collar, but then his crow will be louder, which means the council will come for him. Sigh, it might just be better if we had to eat him. I know many would say why don't I give him to someone who will take roosters - but I think that I had already considered the possibility he could be eaten and so I should show my determination and do what I had thought may need to be done.
