Motherhood

Ah, motherhood.

One of my original game hens, who by the way is about 18 months old now, has decided she is ready to hatch some eggs. I caught her laying in the nest box late Friday evening - much too late to be laying an egg. Sure enough, she huffed up like a puffer fish and made this weird noise, then peck the heck out of my hand! Little hussy!

Of course, there were no eggs in her nest, since I had collected them all earlier in the evening. So, I quickly grabbed a couple of game eggs, and quickly popped them under her before she had time to strike me a second time. She took her wings, and tucked the eggs underneath her, and then settled back down.

In the year that I've been a chicken-keeper, I've learned so much about life, and faith, by watching these amazing birds. They are fearfully & wonderfully made, just as we are. The Lord took such care and planning when he created animals, and plants, just as He did with us. Animals don't have to be told what is correct and what they should do - they just do it. It's natural to them.

I cannot wait to watch this game hen hatch out these eggs and raise her babies. It's going to be a wonderful experience!

Loss, Learning, and Love

Sunday I discovered one of my Silver Laced Wyandotte chicks was sick. She was rasping for air and could not breathe. I quarantined her and used a dropper to administer ACV water. More than 24 hours later, she did not improve, and grew worse. After spending hours researching the issue, I found she had some sort of respiratory disease. The only treatment is antibiotics.  

Let me start by saying one of the reasons I wanted to raise chickens was so that I could have meat not “infected” with pesticides or antibiotics. I know what commercial poultry farms do to their birds, and I have stopped buying commercial meat altogether, including beef. I stopped eating pork a long time ago. The only fish I buy at the store is wild-caught salmon. The rest of our fish is supplied by our fishing excursions to streams & spring-fed lakes. Our diet mainly consists of venison, salmon, crappie, trout, bluegill, and bass. We also do not eat catfish. But I digress.

I decided, when I first got chickens, that I would not treat them with anything that wasn’t 100% natural. So antibiotics were out of the question. This poor girl was so bad, and I wasn’t going to watch her suffer. Monday, when I got home from work, and I saw there was no improvement, I humanely put the chick down. I hated to do it. Killing something you are going to eat is different. I don’t like to see animals die for no reason. It was such a difficult thing for me to do. But it had to be done, and there you have it.

Wednesday I found another sick chick in the same pen. This time it was one of my Light Brahmas. Her eyes were very puffy and she had fluid coming out of her eyes and nose. She did not show any labored breathing or wheezing like the first chick. She is now in quarantine, along with another Silver Laced Wyandotte showing similar symptoms. After doing even more research, here is what I have found. It seems to be an outbreak of Infectious Coryza. It’s very common, and has no cure. Once a chicken catches it, they are a carrier for life, if they survive the illness. From what I have read, it shows its ugly face when new chickens are introduced to a flock, and one of the new chickens is a carrier. It also seems that combining chicks of different breeds and different ages can trigger it. I recently combined my SLWs and Brahmas in the outdoor pen.

Again the issue comes up: should I use antibiotics??

After much prayer, lots of research, and a long discussion with dad, here's what I came up with:

     A) Antibiotics only stay in a chicken's bloodstream for about 5 days, depending on the drug used
     B) I can save my flock by spending a little money, instead of letting them die and waste all the time and money I put into them
     C) I have to ensure these chicks do not infect the rest of my healthy flock

I chose the safest antibiotic I could find: sulfadimethoxine. Not only does it treat infectious Coryza, but it also treats Cocci, and E. coli - both of which may also be existent in my little birds. I only have to treat them for up to 5 days, so I will take it one day at a time, and let the Lord show me what to do.

The great news is that the chick showing the worst symptoms has healed a bit already. Only one side of her face is swollen now, and there is no discharge in her eyes. Praise God!

I will write another post in a few days once I see the results of the treatment. Prayers are welcome! :)

First Hatch

I just realized I never posted any pictures of my first ever hatch!!

Of course, the hatch was done by my neighbor, but the eggs were mine. J 16 out of 18 hatched, which is a fantastic rate! She gave me 2 of her chicks, so I ended up with 18 after all!!

Of those 18, only one didn’t make it. It was very small, and ended up being squished by the others. Poor baby! :(

Here are pictures of the hatch: March 23rd, 2014.

New Arrivals

(Originally Written Friday, March 14th)

So Monday Dad & I decided to build my chicken tractor. It was a lovely day outside, warm with lots of sunshine. Long story short, we spent ALL DAY working on this thing & it's still not done.

That night, dad, exhausted from the day's work (as I was myself) says to me, these chickens are beginning to be too much. We just have too many chickens, and we can't expand anymore, etc.etc. Well I completely agreed, I was tired to building things for these chickens.

Today I was talking with a coworker, and telling her how dad would kill me if I brought home any more chicks. After I got home this afternoon, dad calls me from Tractor Supply, and asks the following question:

"Would you like some Silver Laced Wyandottes? They have some chicks here."

((You could hear my jaw dropping to the floor))

I told him that OF COURSE I wanted them, but I really shouldn't. And that was the end of the conversation.

Later that afternoon, when Dad came home - Lo! And behold: He brought me 6 Silver Laced Wyandotte chicks!! Oh, I was fairly dancing with excitement! I've been wanting that breed, and now I have them! They will do very nicely with my Light Brahmas, I'm sure.

I just love being a chicken mom! :)

New Life

My, my! So much has happened since the last time I posted. Let's see if I can get caught up on all the new life around here...

There are now three, yes THREE chicken pens housing a grand total of 31 chickens. I have 28 laying hens & 3 roosters split up into 3 flocks. 

On top of that, I have six 10-day-old Light Brahma chicks. 

<<See and admire>>

AND (I promise, the madness does have an end) I have 18 eggs in my neighbor's incubator. *Sigh* I think I have an addiction...

Oh well. Anyway, my breeds currently include:

Easter Egger

Black Copper Marans

Golden Comet

Game

Ameraucana

Rhode Island Red

Light Brahma

Backyard Mutts featuring all of the above :)

I'd like to eventually have one pen with Easter Eggers & Ameraucana, one pen with mutts, and the third a heritage breed. We'll see how the brahma chicks do. If that doesn't pan out, my next breed of choice would be wyandotte, silver or gold laced.

The next project on my "Daddy-Do" list is a couple of chicken tractors. I spent hours online looking at different designs. I'm looking for cheap & easy, yet sturdy and predator-proof. I've decided on the hoop-style, since I already have some cattle fencing panels someone gave me. I have 2 panels, so I should be able to make 2 tractors. I can cover up the ends with chicken wire. The panels are mainly for a frame, and for structure support. Now to find the time to get it done. 

Live & Learn

I recently lost one of my hens, Nellie. She was a large, beautiful Black Copper Marans, with feathered feet, though she had no copper on her neck. She had a condition called Sour Crop, where food gets stuck inside the crop instead of being digested. The mass gets larger & larger, and feels like a sandbag. After doing much research on the subject, I decided to use a dropper to force a mixture of water & Apple Cider Vinegar down her throat. Then I tried helping her to regurgitate, to get the gunk out of her crop. Unfortunately, as she had so much food stuck in her crop she choked when I regurgitated her, and she died in my arms.

Female that I am, I cried like a baby. I’ve experienced death before, but never like this. Watching the life get sucked out of Nellie's little body was so hard to see. I felt so responsible. I should have noticed there was something wrong with her.

Dad was sad about it too. I think we were more upset that it could’ve been prevented. I’m still not sure exactly how it happened, but it appears she ate some long blades of grass. According to what I read, the grass gets tangled up in the crop, and keeps other food from being digested, thus creating the huge mass in the crop. This mass then breeds bacteria, and the hen will emit a foul smell, which is where Sour Crop gets its name.

I have mourned, and rallied. Now I'm a little wiser for the experience. I will certainly watch my girls a little more closely, so I can be aware of any health concerns.

Live & Learn

Nellie:

Hey Folks!

As I was reading blogs by other chicken keepers, I decided it was high time to join them with my own blog. My little flock gives me plenty to share and talk about. Although I am new to all of this and am learning daily, I’ve grown rather close to my feathered friends already.

To introduce myself, I’m a 26-yr-old female living in a small town. I’ve never owned chickens before. I spent my adolescent years in the “city,” so moving out into the country in my early 20’s was a bit of an adjustment, but one I took to a lot quicker than anyone expected. I lived with family until the summer of 2012, when I purchased my first home even farther in the country. My dad lives with me, and you’ll notice me mention him often in my posts.

In the last few months I’ve learned so much more about chickens than I realized there was to learn. The main purpose of this blog is to simply share my experiences, the sweet, the funny, the sad, and the outrageous, with whomever wishes to read about them.

I’ll start with the best place: the beginning.

Though I wanted chickens ever since I moved into my house, it was not feasible at the time. Once winter was almost over, I started planning earnestly to get my chicken coop built. I picked the spot I felt was best, nestled under some young Oak trees at the very back of the yard near the wood line. Dad & I started with the chicken wire we already had, and we stapled the wire to the trees, using stakes to hold up the wire along the middle. A few weeks later, we got more chicken wire, which we used along the sides above the first round of wire to make the pen taller. Then we used the remaining wire to cover the pen.

A friend gave me a metal frame containing 10 next boxes. Immediately, I nailed it to 2 of the trees inside the pen, quite high off the ground, and thought that was all I needed to do. Please don’t scold – again I admit I knew NOTHING about building a chicken coop when I first started this process.



Dad & I didn’t feel right about the coop, and felt something was missing, so we decided to hop on Google and see what we could find. Behold, the best website I ever encountered for information on all things “chicken:” backyardchickens.com.


Immediately, thanks to my friends at backyardchickens, I realized I hadn’t built a coop at all. I simply had a run, and the nest boxes were in the last place they should be. Dad quickly went to work thinking and designing the coop. We decided to build 2 separate “houses” inside the run, versus building an all-in-one coop. One was dedicated for the roost, and the other for the next boxes. We also built a shelter for the water & feed.

Two stressful weeks later, the coop was completed. Let me just say, building a coop is in no way easy, unless you are naturally inclined in carpentry.

Finally, I acquired my flock on Saturday April 27^th 2013: 10 tens and a rooster at roughly 3 months old. After just 2 days, it became obvious that one of my hens was a “he,” with the possibility of a second gender mix-up.

So the following Tuesday I returned the 2 offenders & got 2 more hens. However, my flock did not take kindly to one of them, and proceeded to peck at her & ostracize her so that she couldn’t eat or be anywhere near the others. Off she went the next day & I brought back a little black game mix.

At first I was afraid the same thing had happened, as I watched her get bullied by some of the other girls. However, this one had spunk, and soon she was standing her ground. I now had an established flock.