Poultry Keeping General Discussion #1

I didn't get to check her last night but she doesn't seem well AT ALL this morning.. DP wants me to put her out of her misery but i can't do it and he's at work :crying:
She does actually look puffy to look at, she's basically just sitting now, i kept her apart from the other girls last night and when i went in this morning she was sitting in 1 corner and didn't even attempt to move when i approached her, i picked her up, gave her a pat and then set her down and gave her a couple of strokes and she was just closing her eyes.
I went alone and don't really want to take the girls down today so i let the other girls out into the paddock and closed off the door so poor Roast can have her own time.
I have a feeling when i go and check her around lunch time she may not be alive.
When i told DP last night i thought she wasn't well he joked about Roasting ROAST... hmmm doomed from the beginning with that name i think.

Will go down after lunch with all new fresh water and clean out their hotel, we still have to dust them properly with the pestene aswell..... god what will i do with her if she does pass... the girls will be upset... poor Roast.. she's the only one showing any signs of being sick though so thats a bonus i guess and the other girls seem to be enjoying getting out and getting into the greenery and playing in the sun.

Diarrhoea or 'dirty pants' can be one of many stomach upsets.
My books says to give 1/2 tsp of slippery elm powder to ease inflamed instestines, to which you might add a similar amount of yoghurt, yoghurt powder or brewer's yeast. Make the mixture into a slurry by adding water and it pour it down the birds throat using a teaspoon. Dill and powdered charcoal can also be given.


Good luck.

ETA: I have a book by Alanna Moore called Backyard Poultry Naturally. I purchased mine, you can also borrow it from the library. It could be worth investing in a good poultry book.

Thx Hun, might borrow a book from the library, sadly I think she is on her way out and I dont have any of that stuff here and we won't be out at all today.

Will check her again soon I think.


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ZF we lost one of our girls suddenly after a year (she was in great condition and had laid the previous day). Just didn't want to come out of the coop in the morning and was gone around lunch. DD1 was devastated, we buried her and she made a sign. But she did get to see and pat her and say goodbye. I think she got a real understanding of death from losing Dottie.

:( Hope Roast pulls through unexpectedly.

Thanks hun, just checked her again, she's still not moving and is basically leaning on her side and not standing up at all :(
Think i will go and buy a book on keeping chickens, what is the best to look at buying?
Will clean out their hotel this afternoon and maybe get DP to help me dust them tonight, Market is on next week but i'm not sure if we should replace Roast or just wait and see how we go with the other 4 ladies.
I really wish i knew when they would lay, the girls are getting anxious to find some eggs, we've had them nearly a month now.

DD knows about the death of a pet after her cat got run over, she buried him and gave him a pat goodbye but i don't think we will make a habit of burying chickens.. JIC. :(

Just check that she is not fly blown in her vent. If so, do the right thing and despatch her right away. I find the older girls do just slow down and eventually they just find a corner to site down in for their last hours/days.

I do suspect that your chooks are quite old. Even the half bald ex battery chooks we got pretty much laid straight away (think they are about 18mo when they sell them).

:hug:

Hmmm i'm wondering if this guy has tried to pull a fast one on us, he said they had laid but they will lay again they just needed to fluff out a bit and get used to their new home.
I see people buying from him all the time and one lady came back and bought another 4 from him and said she only lost her others due to old age.

I wonder if we are doing something wrong?

We give them fresh water every day, they now have a hanging water tub plus a water pot in 1 room and an old baby bath in the other, they have their hanging food (the pellets etc) plus basically all our fresh fruit & veg scraps (no citrus, no onion etc), we have been letting them out in the morning on days we are home and then getting them in around 7:30pm which they do happily.
The girls do tend to chase & try and pat them but the chickens don't seem to mind too much.
I've cleaned their hotel once a week of poop and remove any yuck hay and replace it with fresh.
I've dusted their beds and need to dust them.

I guess i should go and buy a book and read up on a few things, i wish i knew more about them but i guess it all comes from owning them and watching them.

The girls love checking on them twice a day and DD1 can't wait until the "blow eggs" (according to her).

I feel horrible wondering why she is sick... poor girl.

Ohhhh and the stuff we got from the guy is: Pro-Vit-Min Free Range Complete Poultry (contains omega oils & garlic) - air cleaned preium quality grain

Aww zf im hoping roast is ok. I lost one last year who keeled over and died. But I dont know her age.
Or any others cept my two babies running around
Is it possable they're off the lay? Mine are atm and then when it cools down they start but mine are bantom X's and two red ones plus our rooster. :o

The main chook bible is Backyard Chicken Naturally (Alanna Moore??? Could be wrong). Earth Gardens is a nice read, but really a reference book.

In the ABC Organic Gardener Mag there is a decent chook section, but I do find the writer very obsessed with mash.

Astrid: It's Backyard Poultry Naturally by Alanna Moore. I have mentioned it in one of my above posts :) I got mine from Diggers Club. On looking around, this book was great for us backyard keepers.

ZF, this is just my opinion and I mean no disrepect...I personally would not buy chickens from a market. Simply due to the fact I don't know how they have been kept. If they are ex battery, they are not going to be in the best condition, could already be unwell and ethically speaking, I would not purchase ex battery hens.

I would source a local breeder, go and look and pick your ladies, you may pay a little more, the hens will be in great conditions. We got ours from a gentlemen where we could look at how they were kept, he breeds all sorts of hens and is really knowledgeable on keeping them. They are pure breeds and got them at point of lay. They were laying within a month of us having them and lay nearly every day.

I hope your little roast makes a miraculous recovery.

That's a great book, I read it cover to cover when I first got my girls. ZF I think you may have gotten duped, but don't feel bad, there are alot of unscruplious people out there.
I 2nd the finding a local breeder. I can pm you details to a great chook forum that has links to breeders all over Australia if you want.

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Astrid: It's Backyard Poultry Naturally by Alanna Moore.

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:LOL: Almost had it, was too lazy to get of my butt and check our bookshelf.

Thanks ladies, might check the good old interwebs and see how much it is and also check local bookstores.

Haven't checked her this arvo as we took the boat out this morning and now it's ****ing down, after dinner i will go down again but she was still just hiding in her corner this morning, responding to touch though.

I might go and check out the alternative farming expo later this month in Seymour (HotI if your reading and up for a day out let me know) and see if i can find some interesting chicken related stuff.

R.I.P ROAST!
Went down and she's definitely gone, got to go down and get rid of her (how horrible does that sound) have checked all the other girls vents and they are all clean!
Going to clean out the chicken hotel tomorrow & dust the girls and their beds again.
Washout all food& water containers and look at getting a wormer to start the girls fresh, might even try the garlic in their water!

:crying: I shed a tear when I told the girls but they are ok and understand she was sick.


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Sorry to hear that. Having pets is a good way to teach children about the cycle of life though.

Rip roast :(

Let me know if your going to that expo I might have a look at it too.

We lost one of our chicks to the dog but another hatched today! And another laid 10 eggs and is sitting on them! The wait starts again!

Oh poor Roast. :(

Ok so roast is gone :(
Yesterday i cleaned out the chicken hotel, put all new fresh straw in their nesting boxes (which they are STILL using to poo in), rinsed out and put all new fresh water in the hanger, their pot & old baby bath, refilled their feed hanger and gave them all fresh veggies in pots (so they don't have gunk lying around everywhere).
Put some new fresh straw on the ground to scratch around in, dusted their beds, the old straw room and them last night.

Took THIS photo this morning and i THINK but am not 100% sure that it looks like their combs are becoming a little darker and some seem to have straightened even if only slightly - what do you think?

We've been letting them out of a morning when we are home all day but have had no issues getting them back in at night or even during the day if we need to go somewhere.
Penelope seems to like being out the most, she's the first out and seems to adventure a little more than the others, but no escapees as yet.

Still no eggs :( i don't know if we just have duds, if they are not ready or if we are doing something wrong?
Hopefully a bit more sun and outside time will encourage them a bit more and once we get a bit of $$ behind us possibly after my b'day in 2 weeks i will go and buy that book :)

ZF, have you hunted around under small bushes and hides holes? My girls like to lay in a few different spots so it's like an Easter egg hunt here at least a few times a week. Look out for if one seems to have disappeared for a little while - that's usually how we find ours. Sometimes they even lay in the coop!

I haven't checked outside at all, they are in the coop over night, I just assumed they would lay in there overnight / early morning!


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They can lay any time (although they do have to be awake lol). I have a couple of early morning layers and one sometime-during-the-day layer. If we lock them in, at least one will run out when we let them out so fast you can barely follow to her favorite spot and lay immediately. She must be busting! Go looking and on't be surprised if there's a dozen.

Mine once laid under an old box that was waiting to be thrown out. I have no idea how they squeezed in!

Our used to lay in the agapanthas, the corner of the garbage shed and the oddest place of all, between two pumpkins that were growing, sheltered by the pumpkin leaves.

The agapanthus are a favourite spot here too!

Mine pick new spots as the whim takes them! I recently found a big stash of old yucky eggs in the garden hidden away. One chook used to practically dance onthe spot waiting to get out the gate to the main garden and then would sprint there to lay her egg each day.

3 of our chickens have gone clucky though 2 are in the same nesting box, will this pose a problem?
The other i noticed when i fed them this morning her eggs felt cold .. Whats happened?

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if our chooks laid eggs not in their house, we would lock them up for a week or two and then they would go back to laying in the nesting boxes.

also with pooping in nesting boxes, they are probably sleeping in there. is your perch above the height of the nesting boxes? if you put the chooks on the perch everynight, they should learn to sleep there.

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3 of our chickens have gone clucky though 2 are in the same nesting box, will this pose a problem?
The other i noticed when i fed them this morning her eggs felt cold .. Whats happened?

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One of my girls Mardi will sit then come out for food then go back in. she'd have about 10 eggs under her (both hers and another chooks i suspect) and smokey is the same, she's sitting on two eggs both come out for food and then go sit back down again. mardi will peck my hand should i try and touch her eggs and smokey runs under mardi - both nesting next to an old 44 gallon drum thats in the corner of the shed! I just let them go, most of the time they lay in the shed i've found.

I had two chooks do that. and one baby chicken hatched. both the chooks look after it! and they laied/hatched this baby under a wooden box missing a bit of wood so they had like little letter box type opening.

HotI hun you'll need to come visit my chooks & check them
Out for me :)

I'm tempted to close the girls in 1 room overnight, get up early & let them in the other room then after breakfast let them out for the day.

They poop all through & ontop of the nesting boxes!


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We lost a girl last week (poor thing) and today we've confirmed that at least 2 of the chooks we got at kinder are roosters. One of them is Pip's favourite (Velma) and the other is Ivan (who we suspected was male). I'll prolly take the chooks to get dispatched and then take Pip to Abundant Layers to get a PoL chook to replace Velma.
*sighs*

Am looking at some chickens on gum tree, do these sound reasonable?


" I have 11 chickens (9 Isa browns and 2 white chickens) for sale.
They are all currently laying. They have all been free range organic chicks since the day I bought them. They basically own my back yard.

I am really sad to list them, but they need a new home because I have decided to move closer to the city and don't have the time to take care of them.

$10 per chicken or $100 for the lot.
Pick up from Thomastown (postcode 3074)"

What would the white ones be?
Is this age group good? Maybe they would encourage my girls to lay?
It's not too far from our place and I would probably look at buying 2, maybe white for something different... Waiting for the person to reply.


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The white ones could be Leghorns, hard to say really. How old are they and how long have they been laying would be questions I would ask. If your hens are not laying, I don't think laying hens would really encourage them. You could try putting dummy eggs in your hens laying boxes to see if that encourages them at all.
Otherwise it sounds pretty good :)

Sorry it says they are 6-8mths old :) I might ask for photo's?
We wanted 2 more chooks so it's not just to encourage the girls... Hmmmm I want them.. Lol the white ones.


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What breed are your current girls? Ex layers?

I'm fairly sure Isa Browns.
The people replied, all sold today :(
Oh well we might be going to the Seymour expo so will look around.


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any one have any ideas how to check if eggs are feralised? i've tired the torch light to the egg, but im not sure what i'm looking for...and with about 18eggs under one chook...and another clucky i want to know which ones i can move under the other clucky chook.

Dansta - how long has she been sitting? You will not see anything candling until about day 5 at the earliest and more likely day 7. You definitely should see something then if they are developing. /What are you using as your candler? You need a really direct beam of light - I have a big torch, make a cardboard cut out to cover the entire surface of the torch. Then cut a hole in the centre and use a toilet roll in this hole. This makes a nice beam of light and you sit or hold the egg over the end.

This is really the only way to tell an egg is developing other than in 21 days time if they hatch.

Also when you are looking - a fertile egg should have a nice defined air pocket at one end. This will appear as a clear spot. To begin with, in early stages, you will just see a small black speck. As it develops you will see veins begin and later the heart beating and blood pulsing, it really is so amazing actually!

We have got two Isa browns and usually get 1-2 eggs per day. They are fed pellets and any fruit, veg & grain scraps - is that right? One egg per chook per day? If I give them lots of pellets there are heaps left over the next day - they go made for kitchen scraps

rhichi yep that sounds right. bloke down the road from us has two isa browns and they're one egg-a-day chooks too. and love love love kitchen scraps i fed them for 3 days and was shocked they didn't eat the pellots but they'd eat *every* last scrap!

last night i checked out the eggs and there was like really big dark patch and then the air sack. but the dark patch was not a unifrom shape on all of them...any clues as to what that means??

Dansta I've been told they'll only sit on eggs if some are fertilised.

nah, we don't have a rooster and our chooks still go clucky.