What did you do with your flock today?

[629864]

I'm tired of the torrential rains, but I know the chickens, goats, and dogs are hating it even more. The chickens all looked relatively dry this morning despite it raining absolute sheets throughout the night. So that tells me they used the various shelters instead of just staying out in the wet all night.

But their morning food bucket looked like a water bucket. Their hanging tube feeders were just mush. I dumped all that out onto trays and they think they got Christmas dinner. Everyone is loving the mush. And while that's great and all that they're happy, I wasn't. I went to town and got more feed and while in town I stopped at a flea market to look for a table. Told them what I was hoping to accomplish with the table and ended up leaving with a sweet deal.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Got up b4 the dawn and had my coffee on the back lanai to help keep the house quiet. Bonus is I got to watch my flock wake and trickle out the open gates. Just precious. The littles moved themselves to the big coop last eve and were first out.

Cept the old bats. They stayed and hid from Spider

Pretty sure no one missed them on the fence while looking for cold lizards

 

[FrankieDoodle]

I’m quite a few pages behind, so I’m going to need to catch up.

Iris has what looks to be pinkeye. I’ve been using a tea compress to hopefully help it, but he doesn’t like me touching his face so it’s been taking a bit of time.
On a different, yet still Iris related note, while I was soaking his eye yesterday, I saw the scab on one side of his foot was actually a huge bumblefoot kernel. I soaked his feet in epsom salt for ten minutes, then I was able to pop it right on out. It was disgusting, but after dealing with bumble so much, I’m proud to say I didn’t barf. But I was close. XD
Iris took it like a champ, didn’t fuss, or squirm, or anything like that.

Spoiler: Graphic bumblefoot kernel

Here it is next to a penny. It looks a lot bigger in person. XD
The dark spot was the part sticking out of his foot. When I popped it out, it crunched.

It’s interesting, because in the past I didn’t want to dig too deep in his feet because I wasn’t sure what was bone, or cartilage, or the infection. After getting this bad boy out, it was obvious what part was what. The non-infected part of his foot was smooth and pink, like one of the raw chicken wings you get at the store, while the infected parts looked like. . .well, the picture. XD

I packed the hole up with neo, and then started him up on Baytril again. It should hopefully help his eye and his foot. I’m about to soak his feet again, and I’ll see about getting a pic of his foot.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Darn there you really got that good.. I bought a box of biopsy punchs to clean them out .. Have yet to see one here.

 

[The WinterWolf]

today i caught stilts laying an egg and um.. let's just say it's the most freshest egg i've ever had!

 

[kurby22]

I’m quite a few pages behind, so I’m going to need to catch up.

Iris has what looks to be pinkeye. I’ve been using a tea compress to hopefully help it, but he doesn’t like me touching his face so it’s been taking a bit of time.
On a different, yet still Iris related note, while I was soaking his eye yesterday, I saw the scab on one side of his foot was actually a huge bumblefoot kernel. I soaked his feet in epsom salt for ten minutes, then I was able to pop it right on out. It was disgusting, but after dealing with bumble so much, I’m proud to say I didn’t barf. But I was close. XD
Iris took it like a champ, didn’t fuss, or squirm, or anything like that.

Spoiler: Graphic bumblefoot kernel

Here it is next to a penny. It looks a lot bigger in person. XD
The dark spot was the part sticking out of his foot. When I popped it out, it crunched.
View attachment 2933132View attachment 2933133View attachment 2933135View attachment 2933136

It’s interesting, because in the past I didn’t want to dig too deep in his feet because I wasn’t sure what was bone, or cartilage, or the infection. After getting this bad boy out, it was obvious what part was what. The non-infected part of his foot was smooth and pink, like one of the raw chicken wings you get at the store, while the infected parts looked like. . .well, the picture. XD

I packed the hole up with neo, and then started him up on Baytril again. It should hopefully help his eye and his foot. I’m about to soak his feet again, and I’ll see about getting a pic of his foot.

I’m impressed you didn’t barf! I think I would have that is one huge thing of pus!

I’m now waiting on more meds to treat the chickens…I am going to give Marianne some antifungal meds and see if that helps. Eevee sounds sickly now too…so I’m debating another round of antibiotics to see if I can keep them all healthy-ish.

So to add some happiness I’m including some new pics of the kitty! We are going to get her tomorrow!

 

[629864]

I’m impressed you didn’t barf! I think I would have that is one huge thing of pus!


So to add some happiness I’m including some new pics of the kitty! We are going to get her tomorrow!

I woulda barfed for sure.

But @kurby22 look at that face!!! So CUTE!!!

 

[629864]

I went out this evening to check on everyone after dark ... 3rd night in a row with everyone locked in the enclosed run. There are 35 chickens and 3 guineas in there. I wanted to see where everyone was roosting.

I'm happy to announce that besides the 3 guineas, I was only able to see two chickens in the run. One was under the wooden pallet propped against the side of the run, the other was right beside her, but not under the shelter of the pallet. This means that 34 of 35 chickens were using shelters effectively: either inside of or under the various junk in the run or snuggled together inside the coop. I'm so proud of my ladies!

The littles are now hanging out with the ladies off and on throughout the day and sometimes even venturing to eat from the same bowl/feeder as one or more of the ladies ... at the same time! Such brave littles!

And the flock got leftover cranberry sauce today. At first they ALL looked at it as if to say "what the heck IS that weird stuff?!" But I left it out in 4 different bowls and went back inside. Two hours later when I went back outside, it was completely gone. So, clearly they decided it wasn't so weird afterall.

 

[FrankieDoodle]

I’m impressed you didn’t barf! I think I would have that is one huge thing of pus!

I’m now waiting on more meds to treat the chickens…I am going to give Marianne some antifungal meds and see if that helps. Eevee sounds sickly now too…so I’m debating another round of antibiotics to see if I can keep them all healthy-ish.

So to add some happiness I’m including some new pics of the kitty! We are going to get her tomorrow!

Omg she’s so cute!

I hope the meds help your birds.

 

[FrankieDoodle]

I soaked Iris, got a tiny bit more gunk out of his foot (I didn’t really pick around in it. It’s already swelling up, and I don’t want to make it worse right now), wrapped him up, soaked his eye, and gave him more meds. Then I cleaned out and removed one of the nesting boxes they never used, added more sand to the coop, and filled up the buckets of layer pellets. Took me a little under two hours to do it all, so not bad.

I’m happy to announce the SFs are finally warming up to me again. Santa is still really sketchy, but Nikki lets me pet her now, and will come up to me. They both got lots of hugs today, much to their displeasure. XD