ELeVan ~ Honaker Farm Journal

[elevan]

It's Saturday...of course it's Saturday *sigh* as we lost another chicken to this disease. Darling, one of 2 Polish girls was acting sick this morning and was gone this evening. So another one goes down during the weekend when we can't have a necropsy done. It's so frustrating. She showed the same signs as the others who were sick and died.

 

[77Herford]

Sorry for your lose Em. I have found with Chickens that by the time you notice anything its usually too late. Sickness just goes through Chickens fast. Might want to put the whole group on Anti-boitics, I might also thoroughly clean the coop and I mean old school scrub it with bleach.

 

[autumnprairie]

sorry Em

 

[elevan]

They are all already on antibiotics. The coop has been scrubbed 3 times since this all began.

Extenuating circumstances are that they are all "light" from end of molt and then we finally had a cold snap weather wise...add that to this illness and it's taking a toll. I hate to think it but I'm probably gonna have to resort to culling any that show the slightest sign of decline.

The vet already prepared me to expect a possible 40% minimum loss...we're no where near that and I hope we don't go there.

 

[77Herford]

Your a good keeper. How many Chickens/Poultry do you have?

 

[elevan]

Currently we're at 52 chickens, 7 guinea and 3 ducks. They all share the same coop at night.

 

[Roll farms]

I had to end up culling all of mine once / starting over the next year.
Someone sold me a chicken w/ a contagious UR thing, I can't remember the name of what they had, it didn't kill them all - but my survivors still carried it, so every time I got new birds - bam, we went through it again.
After 1.5 yrs / 3 rounds of it, I gave up, culled everyone and started over the next year in a different building. Haven't had a problem since.

Hopefully you won't have to go to that extreme. Sorry you're going through this.

 

[elevan]

I strongly suspect that the crows have brought this illness upon my flock (vet has his suspicions on this as well). It wasn't until right after they started "interacting" with my flock the first time that I had a problem.

 

[elevan]

Well all chickens are running around this morning. I have a few with droopy wings (and that's the first sign that I've noticed with this illness). I think I'm gonna take another fecal to the vet in the morning.

The ground is finally partially frozen...problem is that around the barnyard it's frozen into mucked up horse hoof prints which is awful to walk on.

It's supposed to get just above freezing later but then it'll freeze again tonight.

But it was freezing enough outside that I had to carry buckets of warm water out to my critters. Which every single one of them appreciated.

Pond has a 1/2" thick layer of clear ice on it...which the ducks did not appreciate. They flew out of the coop this morning and headed for the pond only to land on it and go skittering across the surface. The clear ice made it impossible to tell that it was frozen. Poor Quack Pack.

Jerry has decided that it's just too darn cold outside and will not leave the barn. Why should he as he's got a hay feeder that is kept full and a water bucket that is kept full of warm water? It's just a shame that he's staying inside because he keeps the crows away (the guineas do too but they won't stay in the field).

I'm concerned that I'm wasting my time with one of the breeding pens...Speedy and Goldie. Goldie is an especially bucky doe and has not been able to be bred here. I guess time will tell. This will be my last attempt with her. If she doesn't take then we'll just make her a companion goat.

Rocky is being a royal pain to Kingston and Diva, whom he is supposed to be keeping company. He won't let them near the hay feeder, so they have to sneak a bite and then run. I'm concerned that he's gonna be mean to the new kids when they and Daisy come into the general population next week (unless I keep them a little longer in the kidding stall). I might have to make other arrangements for Rocky :/

 

[Squirrelgirl88]

Maybe Redtail can adjust Rocky's attitude like she did to her goat.