#chicken injury

[miralax-gatorade]

Dipshit is outside again and immediately started escaping her coop again. I found her on the wrong side of the fence yesterday and she was there again today. She LOVES to play me for a fool and pretend she doesn’t know how to get in or out of the yard. Tho I couldn’t help but worry that she had been there all night, so I grabbed her and pulled her back over. I saw that her scab was peeling pretty badly, (pictured above) and I worry that the others hens had been pecking it, or worse yet, I peeled it when I pulled her under the fence. Dipshit is an intelligent and resilient soul, but I know that chickens (and bantams especially) can be fragile when they’re recovering from an injury. I considered bringing her back inside, but I really don’t want to separate her from the others for too long, as it could make it difficult to reintroduce her. I am out of bluecoat and am planning to get more. I’m really torn on what to do with her and would really like some advice from some other chicken keepers.

I’m tagging some people I follow and trust on the topic of chickens: @chicken-fluff-butts, @homeofhousechickens, @chickensarefriends, @allosaurusrock, @alcnfr

these are just off the top of my head, anyone knowledgeable of chickens is welcome to contribute.

[chickenliz]

Chickens. Stop.

My chickens have had a run of bad health/luck in the past few months. We had to do a second round or worming. CC had crop problems (probably due to the worms), and we’re having trouble with lice (luckily not mites). It’s been so wet and warm we have too many bugs.

I finally decided to sell Buddy to a friend, because he and Rhett were stressing out the ladies. Everyone’s much calmer and happier now, and it’s much quieter.

Two hens went missing last month. One showed up with a broken leg two weeks ago (AGH) and the other showed up over the weekend and we found her nest of 13 eggs. I have a surprise 10 chicks now.

Broken leg chicken is one of the Dominique hens I bought recently, I was planning to sell her with Buddy but she vanished. She’s been ina  sling for two weeks, and has regained motion with her leg, but the joint is loose so we’re going to keep her up the full three weeks to be safe.

It’s never boring. 

[sceee1991]

New Post has been published on 365 Days of Me

New Post has been published on http://365daysofme.com/2015/05/19/the-chicken-chronicles-32/

The Chicken Chronicles

Well, I meant to post this last week, but for some reason I forgot about it.  So, you will get last week’s post and an update to last week’s post.  

Another week, another chicken problem. It seems Red has hurt her leg somehow. Red, by the way, is any one of the Rhode Island Reds, as we cannot really tell them apart. Anyhow, we have had to separate her to keep the others from picking on her, and to keep her from trying to go up and down the stairs in the coop. We’re also giving her half a baby aspirin at least two times a day. Right now she is avoiding standing on that foot, but I cannot see anything wrong with it. That leads me to believe she might have sprained it somehow.

 In other chicken news, we built a small coop for the babies (the Welsummers) so they can start staying outside all the time. The silly girls wouldn’t go into it the first night though, acting like young kids the first time they try to camp out. 😀 We finally decided to bring them in after listening to crying for an hour. Maybe they will get used to it decide to sleep in it. It won’t be long until it is time to integrate them with the rest of the girls.

 We had a good week of laying both weeks, including one day where all of the older birds laid eggs – that hasn’t happened often at all.

This week’s update: Red is doing much better.  She is now back in the coop with her sisters, and while she is still favoring her leg, she is much, much better.

Since last week, we have put ankle bracelets on three of the Rhode Island Reds, and amazingly we can now see who rules the roost!  There is one of them, tentatively named Pink (because of the pink bracelet) who is obviously at the top of the pecking order, and it seems Blue (you guessed it, a blue bracelet) who seems to be #2).  The Easter Eggers seem to not really care either way, but they do recognize Pink’s authority.  It’s funny how we could never notice that without some identifier of who was who.

The most exciting news this week, and a far change from what I expected given the update above, is that the babies, the Welsummers, ran into the big girls’ coop one day when they were out running around, and they showed no interest in coming back out.  The older ladies are picking on them some, but they seem to be holding their own, so this is where they will stay.