I can't believe I only got 20 points! I remember when the AC technician came home and he said that my chickens were living "in a five-star hotel" :lol:
You're grieving. That's how it is.
But trust me, after you process your grief, you end up having conversations like: "Remember when [chicken's name] did this and that?". And you laugh, and while it's sad that they're gone, you feel happy that you ever had them in your life. You stop asking...
Today I saw no red mites in the coop, finally! I know they will likely be back, but I won this round at least.
Here's what I did:
- Took the chicken out. Placed her in a new, improvised coop and run. She didn't like that very much, but I figured that red mites wouldn't survive without "food"...
Isn't really any way to keep their drinking water clean? With chickens, I've used hanging waterers, isn't there something similar for ducks?
However, if I want to build a pond for them - wouldn't they just drink the water in the pond? My bf wants to put a pump in it to keep water flowing and...
Hi! I've always been a chicken keeper, but I've had a very bad experience with my last flock in terms of health, and I'm just not sure if I want to keep having chickens in the near future.
By the end of the year, I will be moving with my boyfriend, and he wants to have ducks in our new home. I...
Today, I found a red mite infestation in the coop.
I've been battling these awful bugs since ages, but this time I got a bit distracted because of my father's death, and they've reproduced the hell out of themselves.
And now that I only have one chicken left, it's worrying to think that she...
When Callia's last flock mate died, Callia became really close to my dad.
My dad had cancer, he couldn't work or do much in general, so he was lonely and depressed.
But Callia was there for him. She visited him every day at the same time, and he would leave the door open for her to come in...
Last weekend I wanted to spend some time with Callia, but she spends 1-2 hours per day in her favorite bush, where she has a nest.
So I let her be, figuring that she must've been trying to lay an egg. I went back later and this is how I found her. All proud in the sunlight. What a queen.
As...
So, only one individual is alive by this point, Callia.
After one year of not laying any egg, she finally laid a healthy-looking egg today.
I'm so confused. It doesn't look like we were wrong about IBV, but her reproductive system seems to have recovered from it or something?
Is this a...
So, I only have one hen left, who cannot be rehomed because she's a carrier of Marek's and IBV.
IBV left her infertile. Or that's what the vet said.
Today, one year later, she laid a f***ing egg. I don't know if these are good news or not.
I mean, one of the other hens died of a reproductive...
I manually took her out of the coop every day and encouraged her to eat and just do chicken stuff. Plenty of treats and... Damn, I even "dust bathed" in front of her to encourage her to do it herself (and it worked!).
She's still not as active as she used to be because she's really afraid of...
Today, I'm spending some quality time with Callia. She seems to be used to be alone now - except for the fact that she's terrified of predators and she doesn't want to be out in the open.
I managed to expose her to sunlight a little bit by placing this table in the yard. Otherwise she doesn't...
No, she is a carrier of IBV and possibly MDV. So it's not about me not being able to get new chickens. I can't even safely rehome her. She's a threat to other birds. 😭
I really hope we can make it work. Callia is the skittish one. She's a rescued hen who is always anxious / super aware of her surroundings and doesn't fully trust humans - for very good reasons.
Over time, she's let me pet her and hold her but is not a fan of it. However I think that she kind...
Today I don't have to work, so I can spend more time with Callia, who recently lost her flock and she's very, very sad.
She spends a lot of time in the coop and doesn't want to eat. What I do is manually removing her from the coop so that at least she sees the sunlight. But she still finds...
Will do.
I have another question, though.
How long should I expect her to be like this? She lost her last two mates within one week, last one on Sunday.
Do chickens grieve and recover from losses as time passes? Could she get used to be alone? Is it too soon for me to expect her to act normal?
Recently I've lost 2 hens of the 3 I had left, and there's only one left.
I can't get new friends for her or rehome her because she's a carrier of IBV and possibly Marek's. The vets advised me against mixing her with other birds.
And I think she's depressed. She doesn't look ill, and she's...
I see what you mean.
My chickens apparently had IBV, which affected their reproductive system. The problem with Ruby is that she got the atrophy in her oviduct from the IBV, but it didn't affect her ovary so she never stopped producing eggs.
The rest of my hens had their ovaries affected and...