Growing my little flock

[DonyaQuick]

OMG this year continues to kick my butt in weird ways! Things were calming down. My husband is working on a new bachelor flock setup, Tengu and Squeak are starting to settle out with see-but-no-touch, Goober is periodically revenge-pooping on Squeak WHY IS HE SO WEIRD being himself, and Vanilla Bean is actually quite happy being back by himself as he gets attention from me each day. That's all still the case, but...

HOLY SMOKES Coco just went full broody and she is SO MEAN! Mean mean mean mean! Still a darling with me, but anything chicken-shaped better run. Scruffy was the opposite - she's actually become a very gentle broody despite being otherwise feisty. Unfortunately Coco doesn't want to tolerate another broody in any of the nest boxes, so Scruffy moving doesn't resolve it. Junior seems completely unsure what to do about this. I let Monster try to wade in and break it up for a bit, but Coco is relentless and Monster was starting to panic and get a bit rough since they're basically the same size (so for him it's a bit like trying to fight another rooster), so I'm going to have to broody break her for a few days and then decide whether to try her back with the main flock or see if she'd like to go back to Vanilla Bean. I had in mind that I might move her back with him anyway once there were some other pullets but maybe I'll have to switch that around.

Also got Harley and Raven making broody noises now...blergh. When it rains it pours I guess. Might have to worry about Harley following through. Surely not Raven though. I'm not sure it's even possible for Raven to do the broody thing, since she has so far completely rejected the concept of a nest (I still retrieve a little green egg from Raven's private parking spot on the floor each day...).

 

[fuzzi]

OMG this year continues to kick my butt in weird ways! Things were calming down. My husband is working on a new bachelor flock setup, Tengu and Squeak are starting to settle out with see-but-no-touch, Goober is periodically revenge-pooping on Squeak WHY IS HE SO WEIRD being himself, and Vanilla Bean is actually quite happy being back by himself as he gets attention from me each day. That's all still the case, but...

HOLY SMOKES Coco just went full broody and she is SO MEAN! Mean mean mean mean! Still a darling with me, but anything chicken-shaped better run. Scruffy was the opposite - she's actually become a very gentle broody despite being otherwise feisty. Unfortunately Coco doesn't want to tolerate another broody in any of the nest boxes, so Scruffy moving doesn't resolve it. Junior seems completely unsure what to do about this. I let Monster try to wade in and break it up for a bit, but Coco is relentless and Monster was starting to panic and get a bit rough since they're basically the same size (so for him it's a bit like trying to fight another rooster), so I'm going to have to broody break her for a few days and then decide whether to try her back with the main flock or see if she'd like to go back to Vanilla Bean. I had in mind that I might move her back with him anyway once there were some other pullets but maybe I'll have to switch that around.

Also got Harley and Raven making broody noises now...blergh. When it rains it pours I guess. Might have to worry about Harley following through. Surely not Raven though. I'm not sure it's even possible for Raven to do the broody thing, since she has so far completely rejected the concept of a nest (I still retrieve a little green egg from Raven's private parking spot on the floor each day...).

Chicken Drama, like a Soap Opera...

 

[2ndTink]

Yup, coop drama at its finest!

 

[DonyaQuick]

I feel like I should document what I did with Chungus a bit ago, in part because I just had to repeat it with Goober the past few days, and google was about zero help in both cases. So...maybe this post will turn up in someone else's googleage some time later.

Long story short: I think Chungus and then Goober my have actually had minor poisoning from meadow buttercups. While I know this plant is present much farther away on my propery, I have never seen it sprout up anywhere near the chicken enclosures. After treating Goober, I found brand new, small buttercup plants heavily mixed in with other perfectly edible plants (namely dandelions) VERY close to the bachelor flock enclosure, which is an area where both flocks forage.

This is what I was dealing with:

• Bird found dehydrated and weak some time after foraging and eating wild plants. For Goober, it was a mere 4h after foraging.
• Difficulty pooping - serious impaction for Chungus, less serious for Goober but he was still a bit impacted.
• Weakness increasing rapidly. I mean weak almost to the point of limp at the worst. I honestly though Goober was going to die he was so bad at the worst point.
• Increasing amounts of mucous in the poop as symptoms worsened.
• Very obvious wincing in response to internal gurgles (stuff moving through clearly hurts)

I concluded it's buttercups because...

• They are known to be toxic to many animals including birds.
• They are the only clearly bird-toxic plant in the foraging area.
• They cause serious digestive problems, intestinal lesions, and dehydration.
• They often aren't an issue until crushed up (which would take place in the gizzard for a chicken - mammals get mouth reactions from chewing but birds don't chew)
• Some sources say neurological issues can happen, like weakness or ataxia

Buttercups are supposed to taste very bitter, but animals can end up ingesting them anyway - I suspect my birds ate small bits accidentally during foraging frenzies on the lush amunt of dandelions in the area. Goober is Chungus's son, which makes me wonder if there could be some lesser ability to taste those plants that was inherited (of course I can't know that for sure but it's a bit much of a coincidence given the birds are in different flocks).

This is how I treated and what I saw:

• Small improvement from taking plain water by pipette - not enough to stand or start walking around again.
• HUGE improvement within 2 hours of taking water with a product called Respirtory mixed into it. This was after a whole day of decline for Chungus and about 5h of decline for Goober.
• Impactions only passed after treatment with medication. Impactions for both birds contained finely ground vegetable matter from the foraging.
• Treatment with that medication has to continue for 5-10 days. Longer treatment means increased risk of fungal infection.
• Probiotics are often recommended with it because of the fungal issue - I tried this with Chungus on day 5 in amounts smaller than what was recommended and it went VERY BADLY. It gave her serious digestive pain again and really bad gas. I didn't use any probiotics after that and won't be doing in the future.
• Chungus required the full 10 days of treatment. I did this fully indoors to minimize risk of fungal issues. Possibly because of the probiotics incident, her poop didn't go back to normal until about day 7-8 and included noticable pieces of shed intestinal lining even for a couple days after treatment ended.
• Goober I suspect will be ok after 5 days; we're on day 3 now and he's totally back to normal including healthy-looking poops. He was only indoors for 1 day because his improvement was much faster.

Needless to say, I have destroyed every sneaky buttercup sprout I could find in the areas where the chickens go. I used one of those long-prong tools to remove the long taproot so they don't come back. I have not found any other toxic plants during that search aside from greater celandine, which my chickens have actually nibbled in tiny amounts periodically for years now with no ill effect (I suspect they are acutally self-worming with a bit of that but that's another topic for a different thread).