Théo and the chickens des Sauches

MaryJanet · Jan 6, 2023

ManueB said:
Roosting time was chaos thanks to Nougat who attacked Chipie a countless number of times. Both Nougat and Cannelle managed to fall off their roost .

Among the hens at my house, there's nothing quite so humbling as falling off the roost while picking on someone else. It makes the aggressive one settle down for a few days. I hope the same principle holds at your house and that Nougat decides to take a break from attacking Chipie for a while.

Solanacae · Jan 6, 2023

Poor Blanche.

MaryJanet said:
Among the hens at my house, there's nothing quite so humbling as falling off the roost while picking on someone else. It makes the aggressive one settle down for a few days. I hope the same principle holds at your house and that Nougat decides to take a break from attacking Chipie for a while.

I can imagine it is quite a blow to one’s ego! That’s a funny observation.

MaryJanet · Jan 6, 2023

Solanacae said:
Poor Blanche.

I can imagine it is quite a blow to one’s ego! That’s a funny observation.

When it happened to Janet she was never the same again! Before the tumble, she thought she was invincible. After the tumble... not so much.

ManueB · Jan 7, 2023

Perris said:
I didn't realize till now quite how small Merle is in comparison to the large fowl in the flock.

I also find it hard to get a sense of chicken's sizes on pictures if they are not right next to each other. Merle is a bantam, she is slightly bigger than Chipie and she has the same slim figure. Piou-piou the runt is more or less the same size but very chubby! Of the three younger hens only Léa is bigger, she is the same size as my smallest ex-batt Blanche.

MaryJanet said:
When it happened to Janet she was never the same again! Before the tumble, she thought she was invincible. After the tumble... not so much.

I love that story! Janet should really have a little talk with Nougat, because she fell again tonight before attacking Chipie and that didn't stop her from her nightly dose of bullying

!
******
This morning Merle and Piou-piou ran again out of the coop to lay but it didn't work out like yesterday. Merle got in first and got thrown out by Piou-piou. She was very vocal about it and got both roosters to join her protest.

They were the only hens who laid today, everyone else getting a well deserved day off.
Blanche looked terrible this morning, so I decided to give her metacam in half an egg. She's my only hen easy to medicate because she is such a glutton! I don't know it was due to that, but she really perked up in the afternoon. She even got up a bit to scratch around.
I think I will give her metacam for a week or ten days, which should allow for an evolution one way or the other. I had some information on Instagram from someone whose hen had Meloxicam prescribed for long term use for arthritis, and the vet told her the risk it poses eventually is for the liver. Her hen is going to have analysis every six months. I think with that information I would feel confortable to use it for three weeks or a month as palliative care.

Blanche
That's the side where she had no wounds, but she still has that ear cyst I noticed a day or two before the attack.

And that's the wounded side. I've been looking at her face and eye many, I can't see anything.

Not well in the morning

We had a mostly grey day with some sunny spells now and then. It's supposed to rain a lot all day tomorrow.

RoyalChick · Jan 7, 2023

ManueB said:
I also find it hard to get a sense of chicken's sizes on pictures if they are not right next to each other. Merle is a bantam, she is slightly bigger than Chipie and she has the same slim figure. Piou-piou the runt is more or less the same size but very chubby! Of the three younger hens only Léa is bigger, she is the same size as my smallest ex-batt Blanche.

I love that story! Janet should really have a little talk with Nougat, because she fell again tonight before attacking Chipie and that didn't stop her from her nightly dose of bullying !
******
This morning Merle and Piou-piou ran again out of the coop to lay but it didn't work out like yesterday. Merle got in first and got thrown out by Piou-piou. She was very vocal about it and got both roosters to join her protest.

They were the only hens who laid today, everyone else getting a well deserved day off.
Blanche looked terrible this morning, so I decided to give her metacam in half an egg. She's my only hen easy to medicate because she is such a glutton! I don't know it was due to that, but she really perked up in the afternoon. She even got up a bit to scratch around.
I think I will give her metacam for a week or ten days, which should allow for an evolution one way or the other. I had some information on Instagram from someone whose hen had Meloxicam prescribed for long term use for arthritis, and the vet told her the risk it poses eventually is for the liver. Her hen is going to have analysis every six months. I think with that information I would feel confortable to use it for three weeks or a month as palliative care.

Blanche
That's the side where she had no wounds, but she still has that ear cyst I noticed a day or two before the attack.
View attachment 3369248
And that's the wounded side. I've been looking at her face and eye many, I can't see anything.
View attachment 3369254
Not well in the morning
View attachment 3369250
We had a mostly grey day with some sunny spells now and then. It's supposed to rain a lot all day tomorrow.
View attachment 3369243 View attachment 3369244 View attachment 3369245 View attachment 3369246 View attachment 3369247 View attachment 3369253 View attachment 3369255 View attachment 3369257 View attachment 3369258 View attachment 3369259 View attachment 3369260 View attachment 3369262

Is Blanche molting? I wonder if that is contributing to her feeling unwell.

ManueB · Jan 7, 2023

RoyalChick said:
Is Blanche molting? I wonder if that is contributing to her feeling unwell.

Yes, but she has begun molting since the attack, so I think it's stress induced.
She doesn't molt normally and never has. She loses feathers but also breaks many. Only a few grow again and the rest take months to grow. This is one of the issue she has had which I thought would kill her.
I'm also hoping the molting is one of the cause of her being so unwell. But it doesn't explain her strange movements backwards and her eye closed.

ManueB · Jan 8, 2023

Pouring rain all day, and temperature didn't go above 2/ 35. The three ex-batts had already laid when I opened the coop. Gaston really didn't want to go out in the rain but he was chased outside by Théo! The ex-batts stayed inside all day and Gaston's team took shelter wherever they could and enjoyed all the juicy worms coming out with the rain. The three younger pullets all also laid. They were soaked and glad to come in the coop at half past three (I took Théo's team out in the run).
Blanche didn't do too bad today. I ended up rinsing her eye with saline, not knowing whether it's helpful. I didn't give her metacam today because she didn't seem in pain.

Not a lot of pictures, it was raining too much to take the phone out.

MaryJanet · Jan 8, 2023

ManueB said:
Janet should really have a little talk with Nougat, because she fell again tonight before attacking Chipie and that didn't stop her from her nightly dose of bullying !

Oh no! Nougat must not have received Janet's beakbook message. Our internet has been a little flakey lately.

MaryJanet · Jan 8, 2023

ManueB said:
I had some information on Instagram from someone whose hen had Meloxicam prescribed for long term use for arthritis, and the vet told her the risk it poses eventually is for the liver. Her hen is going to have analysis every six months. I think with that information I would feel confortable to use it for three weeks or a month as palliative care.

That's good to know. Thank you for mentioning it.

ManueB · Jan 9, 2023

MaryJanet said:
That's good to know. Thank you for mentioning it.

I've bought it marketed for cats and the notice has a number of contraindications that worried me. But apparently it's quite safe for poultry.
It's not the first product I've encountered where that is the case !

*********
Woke up to clear blue skies and the forecasted wind turned, like often here, into a storm at noon. The chickens did have time to enjoy the morning, yesterday's rain had brought lots of bugs and worms out for them.
My partner was late for work so he asked me to give the bit of banana he keeps for Chipie every morning. I made a mistake and let her run away with a big piece in her beak. This caused her to be attacked and pecked by Brune. It bled a lot, but Chipie always heals very well from these small wounds and it was the case again.

The four ex-batts tried to lay this morning, but only Blanche and Nougat succeeded. Blanche was more active today, it was one of her good days. Merle and Léa laid later in the morning.

In the afternoon the wind became very strong. We have turning winds, and branches began flying around everywhere. I noticed that both groups of chickens understood after a while that taking shelter under a tree wasn't a good idea. The problem was that they both wanted to go inside the coop, but Théo didn't let Gaston even enter the chicken netting. So several times when it was really too dangerous I locked Théo's group in the coop, so that Gastounet's team could shelter in the run. After a while however there was so much wind that it didn't feel safe even in the run. I'm not sure how solid the polycarbonate would be if a roof tile fell on it. So I got Gaston's team in the coop early at four, and as soon as they were roosted Theo's group in. They didn't complain too much and were all roosted at 4.15 : I think they understood that it was the only safe place, and the only way they can stay together in the coop is when they are roosted.

It's bad news for us for two reasons. The first is that we won't be able to cut the fir tree if the wind continues all week. Second is that we can't use the stove with that much wind, so this means we can't heat the house. It's bearable for one night, but the temperature falls down pretty quickly.

Chipie got pecked above her nose.