April 21st, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, Flubenvet, free range, parasites, poo, sick, treats
This morning when I got up Daisy was still not quite herself. When I opened the pop-hole this morning the other two girls jumped straight out but Daisy waited inside for a while. Whilst the other two were running around the coop Daisy was very slowly edging down the ramp and standing about all hunched up. I had a look in the nest box where the girls sleep today and there were some poos with blood on them in the nest box which made me even more worried,
Daisy is all hunched up
I posted about Daisy’s health on the forum and JuicyLucy said that it is normal to have bloody poos when you are worming them – she said the blood would be pink and stringy which is exactly how it looked. I was still worried about her so I popped home at lunch time and she seemed to be fine by then. I’m glad I went home because it meant I could relax this afternoon instead of being worried the whole time.
Flubenvet
When I got in from work I had the usual task of weighing out some more medicine for the birds. I must admit I will be glad when the treatment is finished – only a few more days to go now.
I let the girls out just after 6:00 and they all decided to attack the forget-me-nots that my parents brought up for me last week. I moved the pot up on top of the bench but they still finished off the bits that were hanging down low enough to be pecked. I think there are still enough of them left to just about survive!
Forget-Me-Nots
After dinner, the birds kept trying to jump in through the closed patio doors so I thought I’d go out and play with them for a bit. I gave them a few treats and two of them even sat on my lap at one point!
The red one is definitely getting a lot more tame. Daisy has always been the most tame and she will let me touch her, but recently I have been able to touch the red one without her minding too much. Today I was running around in the garden and the girls were following me and the red one was always the first to catch up with me. I would run across the garden and put some treats on the floor – both of the others would go straight for the treats but the red on would stand right close to me and look up at me. When I ran back to the other side of the garden the other girls would carry on eating the treats but she would run after me straight away.
When the girls started to go in for the night I suddenly realised I hadn’t cleaned the poos out of the house yet, so I quickly took the roof off and tried to clean it out before the girls went in. Before I could finish though they all ended up on top of the coop and getting in my way. One thing I’ve learnt about chickens is that they love to get in your way!
April 20th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, free range, sick, sleepy
The girls were out in the garden free-ranging today, and I went outside to find Daisy sitting down on the floor with her eyes closed. When I moved up to her she waddled off and I went back inside.
A little while later I went back outside to see what the girls were doing and I could only see the other two. I checked all of the usual places such as the side passage and the bushes down the back of the garden but she was nowhere to be seen. The only place I hadn’t checked was inside the coop so I lifted up the lid and there she was inside.
Is Daisy just tired or is she sick?
I am a bit worried about it because I have never seen the girls disappear inside the coop before bed time. One thing I did notice is that when she was laying down she seemed to have her butt in the air a bit so maybe she is trying to lay an egg. Also whenever I grab her she squats down on the floor but she has done that since I first got her. This could be another sign that she is coming into lay.
One other thing that I noticed today when Daisy was sitting down outside is that chickens close their eyes differently to people. Where people close their top eye-lids down over their eyes, it seems that chickens raise their bottom eyelids up! I’m still learning things about chickens every day…
April 17th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, free range, insane
I let the chickens out to free-range today and they were up to their usual tricks. First I went inside for a few minutes and they all disappeared. When I went out to investigate I found them all in the side passage pulling the paint off of the wooden gate post! I moved them back onto the patio and went back inside.
After a little while I heard a tapping on the French doors – the girls had come over to the window and were trying to eat a little speck of dirt on the window. They carried on pecking the window for ages so I grabbed the camera and managed to film this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ot6J7Ms0Ms .
The chickens were pecking at the window trying to eat a tiny speck of dirt
April 16th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, Flubenvet, free range, parasites, worms
Today my order of Flubenvet arrived in the post so I started the process of worming the girls. The instructions on the bottle say that half of the container is enough to medicate 100kg of chicken feed and that I should feed it to them every day for 7 days. Unfortunately this isn’t practical with such a small amount of birds so I had to look up the correct dosage on the net. I managed to find the information here.
Apparently I am supposed to give the girls approximately 0.12 grams of Flubenvet each day of the treatment, so I used my digital scales to measure out 0.35 grams and mixed it with a little cooking oil. I then added a large handful of mixed corn and stirred it in the mixture. The oil meant that the medicine coated he corn and didn’t simply fall to the bottom of the container (Flubenvet is a fine powder). I put it in the run and the girls ate the lot.
It was raining all day today and the floor of the run was turning into a bit of a swamp, so I thought it was probably a good time to let the girls out and give it a bit of a clean. I came inside to cook dinner and pretty much left them to it. At one point I looked out the window and the grey one had managed to find another scrap of silicon sealant in the garden somewhere so I ran outside and chased her around the garden. Unfortunately she managed to eat it! I had a look where she had been scratching around and found some more sticking out of the ground. I can’t see any more but I do worry about the kind of rubbish that they eat when they are out in the garden.
Whilst I was in the house the girls kept coming up to the French doors and peering in with their beaks right up to the window. Then, after I had eaten my dinner I was sitting watching tv when the grey one came up to the door and tried to jump in! She looked pretty startled when she hit the window!
April 15th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, feed, free range, parasites, poo, treats
Since the first time that I let my girls out I have let them out every night for about an hour before bed time – they seem to enjoy it so much that it’s hard for me to keep them locked up all night! The first time I let them out was pretty nervous for me and for them, but since then it has been a lot less stressful. Today I think the girls seemed a bit too relaxed – every time I turned my back for 2 seconds they were up to something!
Daisy Exploring the Patio
Before today, whenever I have let them out of the pen they have spent most of the time in the flower beds and on the lawn and pretty much stayed away from the patio. Today they decided to spend most of the time exploring the patio and the alley way down the side of the house which I found pretty stressful! When I let them out today I intended to sit in the house for half an hour and let them get on with it, but I changed my mind when I saw them trying to eat a scrap of silicon sealant that must have ended up out there when I got my patio doors replaced. I immediately went outside and got it off of them when I noticed they had found some more. I then spent the next 45 minutes chasing the chickens round the garden in a mad race to pick up all of the rubbish before they did! Before today I though my garden was pretty clean but the chickens are really good at finding rubbish. Most of it was left over from builders but a few bits had obviously blown over the fence.
When I finally got them to stop trying to eat bits of silicon and plastic they decided it was time to rampage through the patio knocking over flower pots! I ended putting all of the seedlings up on the bench so that the girls couldn’t get to them.
Towards the end of the free-ranging session a helicopter started hovering over the school field out the back – I think it might be related to all of the noise I have been hearing from there. Maybe someone actually broke in or something this time. Either way the helicopter seemed to really confuse the girls – while it was out they spent a lot of time standing still and looking around, trying to figure out where the strange noise was coming from. Once the helicopter disappeared it was starting to get dark and I was slightly relieved to see the girls go back into their run.
Rumaging Around in the Forget-Me-Nots
At lunch time today I came home from work because I was having some stuff delivered for the girls – I got a big bag of mixed corn and some dried meal-worms. These went down a treat – the birds seem to like the meal-worms more than they like the mixed bird seed that I have been giving them. The mixed corn was also highly successful as it seems to contain all of the bits that they like most out of the bird seed (and with no black sunflower seeds that they always leave behind).
One more thing before I go: I was reading the chicken forum at Down the Lane and someone made a post saying that one of their chickens has been producing sloppy, caramel-coloured poos. At least one of mine (the grey one) has also been doing this. On the forum they seem to think it could mean that the girl has got worms so I ordered some Flubenvet which is due to arrive tomorrow. I am going to worm them all as the sloppy horrible poo is difficult to clean up and smells disgusting!
I Think my Girls Might have Worms!