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- #11
Thinking back, last year I had some chicks get sick with cocci. would you cull those instead of treating?A lot of time, it is in your outlook. I keep a flock. And I want to keep a healthy flock. The individual birds, whom I enjoy, come into my flock and leave, but the flock goes on. I have kept a flock for years, and I have had disasters, with predators and other calamities.
I love to watch my chickens, but I don't pick them up. In the beginning, I worked with them until they would get up on my lap, but I found I really didn't like it. Again, to each his own. I watch the flock and how they all interact, and I will solve for peace in the flock.
The thing is, if I do have to handle my birds, that is very stressful for them. So I don't. I don't tube feed them, I don't give them calcium pills, I don't treat them for being egg bound, which I a pretty sure I have never had. However, my chickens have a huge run with a lot of clutter, and I think move and fly, jump quite a bit, and I think that helps with egg laying.
This is just my opinion, my own way of doing things, but when you treat sick birds, you expose the rest of your flock to that illness. This causes stress in your flock. In a natural setting, they would leave the sick, most flock and herd animals do so. It is for the protection of many over the value of one.
In my world, if you would treat the bird, I would cull. That IS the right decision for me. I would cull and replace with a chick. It keeps the flock young and strong. It is an old fashioned, but in my opinion, a realistic animal husbandry. Nothing is going to live for ever, even me.
I don't feel guilty, I feel matter of fact. I don't like doing it, but I don't like washing the floor either, it just has to be done. It is done quickly and with respect, and I enjoy the flock again. I think that might be part of treating everything until the bitter end that you might not realize, is that you don't enjoy being with your flock because something is always wrong.
Mrs K
The one with tapeworm (never figured out who it was, but I treated everybody for worms) -- should have just ignored it, I think
The bumblefoot chicken -- I know I should have culled that one.
Wet fowlpox hens... probably cull?
You are right... it is not fun... tho I also wonder if I'm doing something wrong with sanitation? or maybe my flock has a weaker immune system because I never vaccinate? It just feels like other flocks don't have hardly any of these issues to begin with.