So truly I want to pick up where I left off with my last article.
When I wrote my last article I was riding a heady wave of combined luck and positive progress. Our birds were doing great, with no major incidents. We learned the daily needs, requirements and supplies for chicken and turkey care.
Shortly after this point, life decided we could progress out of the tutorial and into the real game!
A series of things occured rapidly in procession.
First, we were given a few birds from up the road. Many of our neighbors have small flocks of their own and one couple decided to re-landscape, move their coop and start from fresh stock.
We added a total of 2 two year old Americanas, 1 seven month old Americana hen, 1 two year old RIR, 1 two year old buff orphington and 2 four wk old babies (a brwn leghorn & black sexlink). Bringing our total flock up to 38.
We were pretty crowded already, soooo I was a little worried about stressing the flock out and the new flock members were isolated for 2 weeks in an adjacent field were they could see, and somewhat interact with, the main flock, but the two groups couldn't really "get" to each other. Neither group got ill, or showed signs of stress, and everything seemed great. So we merged, and luckily everything seemed copostetic.
Afterwards, about 3 weeks later, (during mosquito season, in a muggy Texas summer) we lost our first bird. A pretty Easter Egger named Xena. I believe she went broody and had a heat stroke during an especially bad heat wave. This was just June. We realized that we were out of time to build a bigger coop, and the work began. Due to the shipping issues from the Covid pandemic, the materials took 3 months to all arrive! (I'll post pictures and updates on new coop later. We are calling it the Chicken Mansion!) RIP Xena.
In the mean time, while waiting on supplies, we had to think fast and find cheap & simple, "on-hand" solutions to help the babies get through their first summer.
We started by adding apple cider vinegar to their water. (1 tbs per gallon/ H2O.) They LOVE this mix. Additionally, we regularly gave the flock half a seedless-watermellon cut as giant treat bowls. Usually 4 halves for the whole flock. This, they just went nuts for. We did have a teensy panic the first time I looked out and saw my Polish hen after doing this. Her whole head was spiky and tinted red! I thought for sure another bird had pecked half her puff out! (For any other readers who experience this shock. It's ok. Breath. It's not blood. Dawn dish soap will get it out. It's good for their skin. And her hair-do will look fabulous once its washed out and dries.)
Next we added tarp shades and lean-to sun blocking panels at key "cook" points. They dug up and knocked down 2 before we figured out a dust-bath-proof frame. (An old metal rod bedframe; legs buried up to bottom rail... wrap cloth over top.)
We tried sprinklers, but that made mud and the birds avoided them altogether. A friend suggested a little old children's plastic (not blow up type) pool. Her birds dont spend a whole lotta time in the one she put out, but she noticed their feet stayed cleaner, and they would occassionally walk through it, dip in up to just the tips of their belly feathers and then go sprinting around the yard to shake off the droplets. They seemed to enjoy this game, so I plan on placing a pool in a good, grassy, shaded spot next summer.
(I'll let y'all know how it works &try to post a vid next heat wave.) I started looking for the pool to late this year. Apparently that's a seasonal item.
We didn't lose any more birds to the heat. Apparently the shade and electrolytes were the biggest thing they needed.
We took a big breath of relief! It seemed like we would make it thru the summer pretty much in-tact. But, as I'm about to explain... it was just hopeful thinking.
Set scene:
Check on birds as per morning routine.
Water- check
Food- check
Gates, doors, perimeter- all check
Feet- decent.
Wings & feathers- no change
Combs, waddles, face...
"WTH are all these black spots?!"
8 hours later... obsevations, research, phone calls to TWO far-away poultry veterinarians...
Fowl Pox! Google outlook looks... gloomy.
Probably introduced by mosquitoes (I later found out about no less than 10 flocks within 20 miles of my house that all got it within a week of each other). We live in Joshua, TX for anybody who needs to know at this point. FP can be vaccinated against, but only up to 2 weeks before hens start laying eggs. Sooooo, we got to ride it out! Luckily it was the dry kind and therefore less prone to developing secondary infections; which is the real danger with fowl pox.
ALL 42 birds on the property (including BOTH 6 mo bronze turkeys) looked hoooorrible for about 3 weeks. We ended up discovering a thing called Hen Healer by MannaPro. It's blue, it smells like wintergreen bubble gum, and it's like a thick lotion. The birds don't mind it and it works great to help heal up sores!
In the midst of this the girls decided that Thanksgiving dinner was "on-the-range" this year and cannibalized a baseball sized hole from the rump of my bronze turkey, Sarge (like a football pileup at the 10 yrd line)... it was brutal. I'll spare you the graphic details. We seperated the poor slow, apparent willing edible sacrifice, (and his lady turkey) from the tiny veloceraptors, packed it with the blue gunk and prayed he would heal.
We realized that this was not a permanent fix, but as they did not display this behavior towards each other (only the unfeathered parts of a partially bare male turkey booty), I figured it bought me time to investigate and figure out what works.
It took Sarge 4 weeks to fully heal. Hen Healer is amazing stuff.
Our first attempt to stop pecking:
Pick-No-More. - Total waste of money.
The turkey doesn't mind it, but then it's supposed to work like that Nail Bitter, stop nail biting stuff, aaaand the chickens don't like the smell or taste.
Great concept! Doesn't work. Bare flesh, taunting long feathers, lots of rustly movement... it was all too much, and about 7 of the girls simply couldn't get past it, so everytime I tried to let chickens into expanded yard (aka turkey field) they would make a bee-line to peck at Sarges scarred butt!
Additionally it's runny and stains whatever it touches. 6 wks later and no amount of scrubbing seems to remove the purply tint off his stubby poor tailbone.
THEN! THEN! OH SWEET JESUS, THANK YOU! Cause THEN... I discovered Pinless Peepers!
I was terrified while I clumsily and ever so gingerly spread and raised the first pair up to my first guilty vixen. A brown leghorn named Suzy. Her huge comb fit perfect, and despite my inexperience I managed to get the prongs into the nostrils, and remove pliers without hurting the bird or screwing anything up.
Elated I moved onto blood thirsty cannibal number two. That's when I learned their are TWO sizes of pinless peepers. The large works great on birds with big combs.
4 days later the Medium size batch arrived. The pliers that came with the large DO fit the medium ones as well. And we fixed up the remaining turkey peckers with an appropriately sized pair of red spectacles each!
And yes. To answer your next 2 questions, this solution worked. The flock gets regular runs with the turkey, and his feathers are finally all coming back in. And second, they were cheeeeap! $15 for 200 lrg + pliers on Amazon and only $12 for 100 med without pliers.
Just as we thought we were pulling out of the worst of it and were regaining control of the situation.... some of the birds developed pustules on their comb and sure enough one by one, around 6 birds came down with a gurgly voice and gunky eyes with little bubbles.
Above: Leelee comforting HER sick chicken Opal.
"What now!?"
I was truly terrified. Two birds looked baaaad. Real weak, like they were giving up. I figured out pretty quick this was the scary Wet version of the Fowl Pox. We immediately isolated sick birds and hit google again. Here's what saved our babies.
First Step: Blue Hen Healer on all pustules.
I LOVE this stuff!
Step Two: Hen Helper Vitamin supplements to mix in water. Add to ALL waterers, including asymptomatic bird waterers. Just follow the directions. The easy measure and dispence bottle is awesome. This boosts their immune system.
Step Three: VetRx Poultry Aid. I put 3 drops every 8 hrs directly down the gullet of affected birds with respiratory symptoms. Additionally a few drops under each wing and front of chest. This stuff is like Vicks Vapor rub in oil form for birds. The box has other suggested techniques for mixing into water, but think poultry essential oils. I called them to see if it was safe for my dog. She told me she used it on her human kids. No, I'm not joking! That's what she said.
Step Four: We had 3 birds that developed syptoms of the eye that I was able to get confirmed as pink eye. It's not contagious for humans, but its hard on the birds. They lost energy and got very lethargic. Reduced appetite. LO-OOOOTS of thick eye drainage. Bubbles in eyes. Red puffy, miserable looking eyes. Clear drainage from noses. We gave these birds a 2x a day dose of an otc poultry grade antibiotic opthalmic ointment named Terramycin. Again, like with peepers, kinda scary the first time, but easy once you get the hang of it, and highly effective stuff!
It's been 2 weeks since we started this (hopefully) final tribulation, but now we are down to 2 mildly sick birds (and not the two who got the worst, I should add). Only 1 ever got to where I thought we might loose her. The others were just crabby patients. Especially my 16 wk old gray Easter Egger, Rosie, who took to growling at her sibling if they try to steal her favorite digging spot!
*sigh... siblings
When I wrote my last article I was riding a heady wave of combined luck and positive progress. Our birds were doing great, with no major incidents. We learned the daily needs, requirements and supplies for chicken and turkey care.
Shortly after this point, life decided we could progress out of the tutorial and into the real game!
A series of things occured rapidly in procession.
First, we were given a few birds from up the road. Many of our neighbors have small flocks of their own and one couple decided to re-landscape, move their coop and start from fresh stock.
We added a total of 2 two year old Americanas, 1 seven month old Americana hen, 1 two year old RIR, 1 two year old buff orphington and 2 four wk old babies (a brwn leghorn & black sexlink). Bringing our total flock up to 38.
We were pretty crowded already, soooo I was a little worried about stressing the flock out and the new flock members were isolated for 2 weeks in an adjacent field were they could see, and somewhat interact with, the main flock, but the two groups couldn't really "get" to each other. Neither group got ill, or showed signs of stress, and everything seemed great. So we merged, and luckily everything seemed copostetic.
Afterwards, about 3 weeks later, (during mosquito season, in a muggy Texas summer) we lost our first bird. A pretty Easter Egger named Xena. I believe she went broody and had a heat stroke during an especially bad heat wave. This was just June. We realized that we were out of time to build a bigger coop, and the work began. Due to the shipping issues from the Covid pandemic, the materials took 3 months to all arrive! (I'll post pictures and updates on new coop later. We are calling it the Chicken Mansion!) RIP Xena.
In the mean time, while waiting on supplies, we had to think fast and find cheap & simple, "on-hand" solutions to help the babies get through their first summer.
We started by adding apple cider vinegar to their water. (1 tbs per gallon/ H2O.) They LOVE this mix. Additionally, we regularly gave the flock half a seedless-watermellon cut as giant treat bowls. Usually 4 halves for the whole flock. This, they just went nuts for. We did have a teensy panic the first time I looked out and saw my Polish hen after doing this. Her whole head was spiky and tinted red! I thought for sure another bird had pecked half her puff out! (For any other readers who experience this shock. It's ok. Breath. It's not blood. Dawn dish soap will get it out. It's good for their skin. And her hair-do will look fabulous once its washed out and dries.)
Next we added tarp shades and lean-to sun blocking panels at key "cook" points. They dug up and knocked down 2 before we figured out a dust-bath-proof frame. (An old metal rod bedframe; legs buried up to bottom rail... wrap cloth over top.)
We tried sprinklers, but that made mud and the birds avoided them altogether. A friend suggested a little old children's plastic (not blow up type) pool. Her birds dont spend a whole lotta time in the one she put out, but she noticed their feet stayed cleaner, and they would occassionally walk through it, dip in up to just the tips of their belly feathers and then go sprinting around the yard to shake off the droplets. They seemed to enjoy this game, so I plan on placing a pool in a good, grassy, shaded spot next summer.
(I'll let y'all know how it works &try to post a vid next heat wave.) I started looking for the pool to late this year. Apparently that's a seasonal item.
We didn't lose any more birds to the heat. Apparently the shade and electrolytes were the biggest thing they needed.
We took a big breath of relief! It seemed like we would make it thru the summer pretty much in-tact. But, as I'm about to explain... it was just hopeful thinking.
Set scene:
Check on birds as per morning routine.
Water- check
Food- check
Gates, doors, perimeter- all check
Feet- decent.
Wings & feathers- no change
Combs, waddles, face...
"WTH are all these black spots?!"
8 hours later... obsevations, research, phone calls to TWO far-away poultry veterinarians...
Fowl Pox! Google outlook looks... gloomy.
Probably introduced by mosquitoes (I later found out about no less than 10 flocks within 20 miles of my house that all got it within a week of each other). We live in Joshua, TX for anybody who needs to know at this point. FP can be vaccinated against, but only up to 2 weeks before hens start laying eggs. Sooooo, we got to ride it out! Luckily it was the dry kind and therefore less prone to developing secondary infections; which is the real danger with fowl pox.
ALL 42 birds on the property (including BOTH 6 mo bronze turkeys) looked hoooorrible for about 3 weeks. We ended up discovering a thing called Hen Healer by MannaPro. It's blue, it smells like wintergreen bubble gum, and it's like a thick lotion. The birds don't mind it and it works great to help heal up sores!
In the midst of this the girls decided that Thanksgiving dinner was "on-the-range" this year and cannibalized a baseball sized hole from the rump of my bronze turkey, Sarge (like a football pileup at the 10 yrd line)... it was brutal. I'll spare you the graphic details. We seperated the poor slow, apparent willing edible sacrifice, (and his lady turkey) from the tiny veloceraptors, packed it with the blue gunk and prayed he would heal.
We realized that this was not a permanent fix, but as they did not display this behavior towards each other (only the unfeathered parts of a partially bare male turkey booty), I figured it bought me time to investigate and figure out what works.
It took Sarge 4 weeks to fully heal. Hen Healer is amazing stuff.
Our first attempt to stop pecking:
Pick-No-More. - Total waste of money.
The turkey doesn't mind it, but then it's supposed to work like that Nail Bitter, stop nail biting stuff, aaaand the chickens don't like the smell or taste.
Great concept! Doesn't work. Bare flesh, taunting long feathers, lots of rustly movement... it was all too much, and about 7 of the girls simply couldn't get past it, so everytime I tried to let chickens into expanded yard (aka turkey field) they would make a bee-line to peck at Sarges scarred butt!
Additionally it's runny and stains whatever it touches. 6 wks later and no amount of scrubbing seems to remove the purply tint off his stubby poor tailbone.
THEN! THEN! OH SWEET JESUS, THANK YOU! Cause THEN... I discovered Pinless Peepers!
I was terrified while I clumsily and ever so gingerly spread and raised the first pair up to my first guilty vixen. A brown leghorn named Suzy. Her huge comb fit perfect, and despite my inexperience I managed to get the prongs into the nostrils, and remove pliers without hurting the bird or screwing anything up.
Elated I moved onto blood thirsty cannibal number two. That's when I learned their are TWO sizes of pinless peepers. The large works great on birds with big combs.
4 days later the Medium size batch arrived. The pliers that came with the large DO fit the medium ones as well. And we fixed up the remaining turkey peckers with an appropriately sized pair of red spectacles each!
And yes. To answer your next 2 questions, this solution worked. The flock gets regular runs with the turkey, and his feathers are finally all coming back in. And second, they were cheeeeap! $15 for 200 lrg + pliers on Amazon and only $12 for 100 med without pliers.
Just as we thought we were pulling out of the worst of it and were regaining control of the situation.... some of the birds developed pustules on their comb and sure enough one by one, around 6 birds came down with a gurgly voice and gunky eyes with little bubbles.
Above: Leelee comforting HER sick chicken Opal.
"What now!?"
I was truly terrified. Two birds looked baaaad. Real weak, like they were giving up. I figured out pretty quick this was the scary Wet version of the Fowl Pox. We immediately isolated sick birds and hit google again. Here's what saved our babies.
First Step: Blue Hen Healer on all pustules.
I LOVE this stuff!
Step Two: Hen Helper Vitamin supplements to mix in water. Add to ALL waterers, including asymptomatic bird waterers. Just follow the directions. The easy measure and dispence bottle is awesome. This boosts their immune system.
Step Three: VetRx Poultry Aid. I put 3 drops every 8 hrs directly down the gullet of affected birds with respiratory symptoms. Additionally a few drops under each wing and front of chest. This stuff is like Vicks Vapor rub in oil form for birds. The box has other suggested techniques for mixing into water, but think poultry essential oils. I called them to see if it was safe for my dog. She told me she used it on her human kids. No, I'm not joking! That's what she said.
Step Four: We had 3 birds that developed syptoms of the eye that I was able to get confirmed as pink eye. It's not contagious for humans, but its hard on the birds. They lost energy and got very lethargic. Reduced appetite. LO-OOOOTS of thick eye drainage. Bubbles in eyes. Red puffy, miserable looking eyes. Clear drainage from noses. We gave these birds a 2x a day dose of an otc poultry grade antibiotic opthalmic ointment named Terramycin. Again, like with peepers, kinda scary the first time, but easy once you get the hang of it, and highly effective stuff!
It's been 2 weeks since we started this (hopefully) final tribulation, but now we are down to 2 mildly sick birds (and not the two who got the worst, I should add). Only 1 ever got to where I thought we might loose her. The others were just crabby patients. Especially my 16 wk old gray Easter Egger, Rosie, who took to growling at her sibling if they try to steal her favorite digging spot!
*sigh... siblings
