Recent content by Susan Skylark

I’ve been impatiently playing the guess that color game with a batch of 20, now three weeks old, it is fun but also interesting to see how off (or on) your guesses are! I still have one bird I don’t have a clue on but everybody else has figured out their final colors (now it is just determining...

Not sure on this guy either. Am leaning homozygous silver (some sources say they can be a bit creamy in color) and he's definitely small/slower growing than the clutch mates. Otherwise heterozygous silver over Italian? Some sort of silver plus roux? I can't find much on the interactions of...

Any final verdicts on these three? They are gorgeous birds (mostly beige with heavy black barring and a little white on each feather). I'm guessing the two top birds are male (chestnut neck ring/possible face mask while the breast is clearing of baby spots, only 2.5 weeks old though) while the...

Gray partridge and ring necked pheasant are now resident breeders in many parts of the US, but I think coturnix only lives feral in Hawaii(?), I wonder why they haven’t established themselves somewhere? Maybe we’ve bred broodiness out of them and they never successfully hatch or raise chicks...

The hardest part about bird anesthesia (and rabbits) is their metabolism: they need much higher doses on injectable meds and they work for a much shorter period of time. The hard part is keeping them asleep! This should be a fairly quick procedure, much easier than a mammal amputation (no soft...

I am well aware of zoonotic potential and that I have not had this submitted to a laboratory for confirmation, another factor to consider is that mycoplasma is very resistant to many antibiotics or is so small traditional antibiotics don’t work against it. It is notoriously difficult to treat...

No that’s irony!

Bilateral conjunctivitis, both eyes are red/inflamed, teary, didn’t want to open them. Was depressed and off by herself. 24 hours on tetracycline conjunctivitis is improving, opens both eyes, interested in food and company this morning (which is a problem as she has only 4 now very amorphous...

Fly eggs and yolk, ugh!

Seizure? Acute head or spinal trauma? Neurological infection? Toxin? Keep her in a dark, confined quiet spot. Watch other birds for any issues (suggestive of contagious or toxic cause). If it is just her more likely injury or seizure. A short, passing seizure is scary but not necessarily...

Keep it splinted, minimize movement and hopefully in a couple weeks she’s good as new (calves are three weeks to heal, I would assume chicks are as quick or quicker!)

Yay!

The nearest one with layer feed was 150 miles away, they wanted 11.99 to ship to store or to my house, I’d still have to drive 90 miles to get to the nearest store so obviously if I had needed the shipped feed I’d just get it shipped there. I also talked to the feed guy at another local chain...

The chances of a raccoon spreading a disease to your eggs or ducklings via surface contact are minimal, hope they hatch!

I was having the same issue and looking at shipping purina layer feed from tractor supply but then found a high protein chicken layer feed (21 percent protein) at the same local chain that sells the purina game starter but not the layer. I can buy it locally and it as half the price of shipped...