Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[Sequel]

Today was a beautiful day, until half past three when the wind started blowing and turned into something crazy. We have been relatively spared this summer, but we usually have a lot of really bad wind in the afternoon.

But the first part of the day was wonderful and sunny. The most adventurous chickens dustbathed outside though it is still wet, and almost all of them enjoyed the sun. Cannelle is unwell since yesterday, so she stayed with Blanche most of the time under the laurel tree, but they did come out a bit in the morning to forage. I’m not sure if it's molting or something else ; last year she was really doing poorly throughout her molt and I kept thinking she was going to die, but she ended up fine with beautiful new feathers. Also I noticed she is getting poopy butt again. It's going to be very difficult to clean her ; last time I managed, but she wasn't molting, and I had to hold her in a towel. I cleaned Lilly and Kara today but I didn't feel up to doing Cannelle. Maybe Sunday my partner can help me.

Since yesterday also, Gaston is beginning to be more stern with Pied-Beau, who is been totally boorish trying to tread every hen around right under Gaston's eye. Well, he has to learn some manners, and it will do him good to get chased off a bit. The younger hens aren't really afraid of him, just annoyed, but apart from the ex-batts, Chipie and of course Piou-piou and Merle really fear him. And for the ex-batts, life has become hell whenever he is around ; they are utterly terrified, even when he does nothing. Cannelle who didn't really care up to now is also acting scared, probably because she doesn't feel well enough to run away from him.

The wind was so bad that I was afraid for the chickens and brought the more fragile in the run. I was hoping they would go to roost early, but it was a bit hectic as all three roosters were around at the same time. Usually it works out and I help them a bit if Théo goes to roost much earlier while Gaston isn't watching, then Pied Beau, and Gaston last. But they were all scared of the wind, and wanting to shelter so it was more complicated. Then the younger pullets had zoomies for a while longer and Annette decided to roost on her own. And Merle tried to go back to the old barn to sit on her nest, but I had locked it because of the wind, so she came back to the coop .

View attachment 3669375

View attachment 3669379View attachment 3669382
Cannelle and Blanche came out a bit in the morning
View attachment 3669388
Annette
View attachment 3669391View attachment 3669392
View attachment 3669394
Since we finished the fencing it's possible now to go all the way around behind the old houses. Annette was the first to try it out.
View attachment 3669397View attachment 3669398View attachment 3669399
Kara laid normally this morning ! Well, not back to the eggs she laid before her problem but not egg bound or softshell.
View attachment 3669400View attachment 3669410
Pied-Beau and Gaston bathed close to each other !
View attachment 3669413View attachment 3669416View attachment 3669417
Léa. She is acting very tired from the molt.
View attachment 3669426
Blanche pretending to dust bathe between Nieva and Alba.
View attachment 3669427View attachment 3669428View attachment 3669443
Pied-Beau making broody Merle nervous.
View attachment 3669444
Mélisse spent some time with Théo's team even though they all drive her away whenever she comes too close.
View attachment 3669445View attachment 3669446View attachment 3669448View attachment 3669451View attachment 3669452
Blanche
View attachment 3669453View attachment 3669454

Stunning pictures as usual Manue!!! I was surprised that I could name all the chickens on the cinderblock roost pole thing.

 

[ManueB]

Stunning pictures as usual Manue!!! I was surprised that I could name all the chickens on the cinderblock roost pole thing.

That is a wonderful thing to say, it warmed my heart !
Yep, the cinder block roost pole thing takes the charm off photos but it works so well...
*******

This morning watching the chickens coming out of the coop was bittersweet. For one thing, poops were horrible tonight - on the side were the younger pullets roost and Kara, Lilly and Nieva it looked like coccidiosis was back and on the ex-batts side there was that totally watery diarrhea with neon green pieces that says sick hens. And then, some of the chickens were full of health and jumping around everywhere, and others looked either really sick, or tired from molting. It was a stark contrast. After some time, the hens that didn't look well, Blanche, Cannelle, and Lilly began to move some more. Lilly even ate a mouse again .

The day was pretty good, less wind than yesterday and still a nice sun, though not as warm. It was confirmed that Annette is the second pullet to lay. Piou-piou took three hours to lay this morning and Annette was waiting in front of her not daring to move her. In the end she did lay quickly with Piou-piou still in the nest ! And Piou-piou ended up laying a normal egg and was fine even though it took a long time.
Merle is acting more broody and she was in complete trance. I took her out of the nest to have something to eat at three and it took her about ten minutes to come out of it.

In the evening something both creepy and funny happened. Léa pulled a foot feather out and it was bleeding, like it happens often, but more than usual. Cannelle and Kara saw and tasted the blood on the ground and they went nuts. They started hunting Léa and trying to eat her leg all around the place. She went in the coop on the roost and they followed her. It was so bad I decided to catch Léa (she is one of the most skittish chicken we have) and I put a gauze and vet wrap loosely around her leg to hide the blood. Even that way, Kara was still trying to get to her! So I carried Léa and put her on the roost behind Pied Beau where no one would get to her, and she stayed out of sight. Seeing this, I get why cannibalism is a real problem in commercial operations. It is the first time I spot any of my hens react like this, they have seen blood many times before and it was never an issue, but I suppose now it will be everytime a chicken gets hurt.

Laure took the chair pose.

Mélisse

I managed to roughly clean Cannelle’s butt today. Her belly is swollen, never a good sign.

Piou-piou and Théo wandered far away...

Laure and Lulu are always together now !

Pied-Beau and Lilly had an adventure .

Alba

Hannibal Kara

Blanche, barely hanging there.

 

[BDutch]

This morning watching the chickens coming out of the coop was bittersweet.

I hope everything will be fine again soon. Coccidiosis is with blood in the feces isn’t it? Are you getting/giving medicines for it? Watery poop can be from something they ate too. But I’ve been reading the coccidioses medicines are not harmful to give just in case.
Wishing you lots of love and healing for all the sick chickens, and I hope the velociraptors will be normal chickens again tomorrow.

 

[Sequel]

That is a wonderful thing to say, it warmed my heart !
Yep, the cinder block roost pole thing takes the charm off photos but it works so well...
*******

Oh the roost pole is lovely and rustic! Your pictures are so good that I think I spend more time looking at your chickens than I do looking at mine!

 

[RoyalChick]

Oh the roost pole is lovely and rustic! Your pictures are so good that I think I spend more time looking at your chickens than I do looking at mine!

I feel the same way!

 

[ManueB]

Oh the roost pole is lovely and rustic! Your pictures are so good that I think I spend more time looking at your chickens than I do looking at mine!

I feel the same way!

Aw thanks! It's partly because I post way too many pictures and partly because we have good light with a beautiful sun most of the year. Today was rainy and I felt terrible, so I have just a few crappy pictures for a change. Sequel i’m not sure I have seen your chickens but RC you have beautiful chickens and a much better camera than mine. Ok and maybe you are a better photographer as well, maybe .

I hope everything will be fine again soon. Coccidiosis is with blood in the feces isn’t it? Are you getting/giving medicines for it? Watery poop can be from something they ate too. But I’ve been reading the coccidioses medicines are not harmful to give just in case.
Wishing you lots of love and healing for all the sick chickens, and I hope the velociraptors will be normal chickens again tomorrow.

I haven't formally identified coccidiosis ; remember the test came back negative, but the vet said it wasn't significant necessarily because I waited a long time to do it. Some poops have red, which could be either blood or intestinal shedding, but the most noticeable problem is that about half the poops of the affected chickens are smelly yellow mustard foamy liquid (sorry for the yucky details).
The medication that was prescribed by the vet is far from harmless ; it's a combination of sulfadimethoxin, a sulfamide antibiotic and trimethoprim, a diaminopyrimidin antibiotic. Sulfadimethoxin is also used for Coryza and Mycoplasma gallisepticum in poultry and neither antibiotics are approved for layers. It's why I didn't use it before without being 100% sure of the problem. I hope like the first time they had that issue, they will overcome it by themselves. I am giving them again the herbal supplement I bought then, but I don't have much trust that it does anything apart from making the food smell good.

Today wasn't great. I have been checking regularly the chicken's feet, about twice a week. I had doubts last week about Lilly but since she has very padded feet with dark soles it's hard to feel and see, but today there was no doubt that she has bumblefoot on one side. We opened the foot and took out some solid white stuff. I was rather confident as we found it out quickly that it would not be as long to heal as the others. But she was in real pain after we did that, which hasn't happened with any of the other four, to the point I gave her some painkiller. She was limping and looking very bad, it seemed to help because she was better in the afternoon. However, it's not only limping ; she looked like a sick chicken. Either she has an infection, or it's something else.
The things I tried for worms haven't worked at all, so there is also that. I am sure now after six weeks that neither the Flubendazole with the prescribed dosage for tapeworms, the essential oils or the diatemoceous earth have had any effect. I have identified five chickens with tapeworms including Lilly, and I know there are at least one or two more that I haven't identified. So I ordered some Praziquantel from abroad and if Lily turns really unwell I will give it to her. Coccidiosis is an hypothesis but tapeworms are a fact.

As for Cannelle and Blanche, I know their time will soon come, and I’m glad they made it through summer. Still I feel sad seeing them looking to be in pain and struggling to move and follow the others, or being terrified of Pied-Beau when he simply shows up. I am pretty sure my partner won't be there when Blanche goes, he is leaving tuesday morning on holiday for almost two weeks, though he might be back a few nights. I’ll tell him to say good bye. Blanche certainly has had nine lives and more, i’ve buried her figuratively so many times before, that it will feel hard to believe when it actually happens.

Chicken romance again.

Blanche

I left the bandage on Léa today to stop her and the other chickens from pecking at her leg. I took it out tonight and there was a lot of dry blood under so she had to come in the house to get cleaned under the tap. She was very unhappy about it.

Lulu’s comb is finally growing a bit.

 

[BDutch]

Oooh. So sorry to hear again about all these chicken problems.

I have no experience with coccidiosis. I didn’t know the vets give antibiotics for that. I cant judge what they need or whats best.
But if you just want to give a boost to the chickens intestines system you can give some probiotica or yoghurt with vitamins.

Chicken romance again.

 

[ManueB]

Rain today all day on and off. All the chickens still came out, but at some point there was a huge thunderstorm so they all sheltered in the run. The three ex-batt's hide under the small coop at the end of the run as they are still afraid of Pied-Beau. He was actually a bit less excited today and Gaston and him stayed together in the narrow run mostly peacefully.
The gutter seems to work quite well but we still need to drain the water coming out of the run, and off course it doesn't stop the rain from coming in when there is a lot of wind. Eventually we could add shower curtains to the top of the run (at the bottom there is about 50 cm of wind break material which sort of keeps water out, it's the green stuff on the pictures).
Merle found a new place to sit because we left the barn shut as it rained too much. She was hidden under a pile of old corrugated iron sheets, but not very well sheltered from the rain. I took her out a few times and she came back to the coop on her own under pouring rain just before the worse of the storm broke out. I had to carry Piou-piou and Théo back in because there was goo much wind and a torrent pouring down in front of the house.

Lilly had pulled off both vet wraps from her feet during the night, and the dressings. We put just dressings on her this morning, and bathed her again and redid the bandages tonight. Because she has heavy feathered feet we hadn't cross wrapped them trying to avoid the feathers, and its probably why she managed to pull them out. Unlike the other chickens, she is very easy to tend to- she is completely passive and just makes plaintive noises. Her foot is very swollen, hot, and she was still limping today, though maybe not as badly. I’m wondering if I should confine her for a day or two though i’ve never heard of anyone doing that for bumblefoot. It's very muddy with all the rain and she keeps digging in the mud and the wet manure .

Gaston jumped over the netting to join the younger pullets in the garden.

Théo looks a bit tired. He is full of pin feathers, must be unconfortable.

My partner calls Chipie the queen. She looks rather scary on this picture. It's a bit rough for her as she is neither with Gaston or with Théo, even though Gaston is nice with her, and she has to run from Pied-Beau who tries to mate with her which would probably really hurt given the size difference.

Nougat.

Kara

 

[ManueB]

It was 5c/40 this morning and there was so much wind this a very small young ash tree fell right in front of the chicken yard. My partner's week of paragliding is cancelled because of the weather .
The chickens were more interested by the tree then frightened of the wind. But we had to lock them a bit in the run until we had cleared the branches and the wind calmed down some.

Then the day was windy but beautiful.
The chickens seemed happy to see the sun back and they spent most of the day out and about. Even Blanche and Cannelle came out a bit more.
Lilly looked terrible early morning but she seemed a bit better throughout the day and didn't limp as much.

I saw Gaston tread on Laure for the first time ! And he wasn't delicate about it, he was perching on the small roost and jumped on her from above. She didn't seem to mind. So I think she will be the next to lay. Annette and Mélisse have been laying every other day and Mélisse eggs have improved.
My partner is worried because Annette keeps wandering far away on her own. Apart from Mélisse who favours Gaston the pullets haven't really chosen a rooster yet and anyway I don't think they would stay inside the chicken yard to be with Gaston. They haven't really seen a scary attack yet. But this morning, we found a fox's droppings right where the hare’s legs had been buried. That is a new threat ; we know there are lots of foxes around but since we put the fence, we stopped seeing foxes droppings inside. The fence isn't fox proof by any mean but I guess they just took the easy choice and went to eat other people's chickens. However the boar has made so many breaches that now it's very easy to pass for wild life.

Pretty Annette.

Théo used to trust my partner more than me, but since he has scared them out of the garden a few times Théo has become really weary of him again.

He thinks it's funny to have a broody for lunch .

Lilly was a bit more active than yesterday.

Mélisse

Théo tries to wing shuffle broody Merle and she replies by shrieking.

Nougat and Kara.

Laure

Léa shows signs that a tail will grow back.

Blanche came out a bit.

Alba and Nieva. I still can't tell them apart if I don't look at their crest or at Nieva’s foot bandages.

 

[Perris]

shame about your partner's lost holiday; extreme winds are forecast here too, we're under wind and rain warnings for Weds and Thurs. Are we facing the same cyclone or 2 different ones? Shame too about the young Ash - of all trees, that's the one that's supposed to bend with the wind rather than be broken by it. Maybe the soil's not too deep or the slope too steep there though.
The chickens look gorgeous, as always!