I'm sad to know that. I was hoping that was resolvedMonday bummed out. I thought I was helping my Dakota. I have even let her stay inside the house away from the other girls. But still she lays those soft shelled eggs. She needs some quiet space to get healthy. I need to get some new birds, so she can be left alone
Sending an old flexi picture over. I still can't find Amber anywhere in my pictures or in here
Wonderful update!Hello FBA ! It's the beginning of a very rainy day here. I hope you will forgive me for taking the opportunity to post a long delayed Pony Sunday post even though it's Tuesday. I'll make sure to post a few chickens pictures in there.
First, I wanted to comment on the soft egg issue and the link to calcium and nutrition. In December we took one of the younger hens, Kara, to the vet for a number of issues (I wrongly feared ascites) amongst which laying problems and soft shell eggs. The vet's recommendation, per usual, was to switch back to layer feed only and a calcium and vitamin D3 supplement in the water. The point I wanted to share, is that he said to do this for a month : he considered this was the required length to see if the problem actually came from nutrition or not.
In her case it did nothing to help, so I went back to my usual way of feeding.
We call Kara the witch, because she is such a bully !
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Kara from a different angle.
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Pony Sunday on Tuesday anecdote : at the beginning of March we had two snow storms on consecutive weekends. This coincided with lambing for our village's young couple of shepherds. It was the first year that the lambing took place in their new hoop shelter in the mountain. Because the mobile phone network was down for two weeks, the town couldn't get to the society that usually clears the mountain road, so getting up there was quite a feat, and in fact they had two of their SUV stuck by the shelter for a few days, only the old tractor from the 1960's made it down ! But everything went fine, their power generator held up, and they had around 150 lambs born between the 25 February and the 10 march. I managed to run up during the first storm (though I really regretted it as I had a bit of a fright coming down) and they took me in to show me the babies. I was amazed at how warm it was inside the hoop under the snow, with just the animal heat (and how strong it smelled) ! Now all the snow is gone, and in another two weeks they will take the lambs out to graze.
The hoop shelter under the snow.
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Can you spy the pony in the snow ? Hint : it's a canine.
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Some of the lambs nowView attachment 3782153
This is Carlos, an Anatolian / Pyrenneese mix LGD. This dog belongs to another shepherd down the valley and no human can touch or catch him. In late summer the herds mix on the furthest mountain pasture and when they sorted the sheeps out, Carlos followed this herd instead of his. He stayed all winter in the mountain with the rams, was there when the ewes came back from the plain, and now he is part of their LGD's but still no one can catch him. I think he may be better off here, as he is getting properly fed and both humans and dogs are much less mean.
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And some chicken tax :
11 out of 16 in a picture, I rarely get more
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And a twofer from a few days ago as it's pouring now. Annette and Laure
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Have a nice day everyone!
They were up there daily for hours for the lambs ! And the horse See you and his mini donkey friend are also stabled there.
Marie, have you tried doing an advanced search using Amber as keyword, and your name in the box "posted by" ? I think you will find some pictures in the results.
