bokbokosaurus

RIP Steg

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:38:39 GMT

I lost my first chicken today. Steg, my beautifully-feathered mad digger. That's her in the user icon, taken about two weeks after rescue. She was middling in the pecking order when I got her, with a very damaged beak and a huge comb. She blossomed into a lovely hen, with full bum-feathers and cream markings.

She's not the first of my hens to get sick - that was Dippy, last May, mysteriously collapsing in the run and then just as mysteriously recovering. She's the first one where the vet's been pretty sure there was nothing to do for her. She had peritonitis, which is very common in old laying hens - the worn-out oviduct doesn't collect the egg properly, and it falls into the abdomen, gets infected and forms a mass. Get enough, and it puts pressure on the hen's organs, and eventually she can't eat or breathe properly, as well as carting around this dead weight of infected tissue with her. There's some pretty gross pictures on http://www.backyardchickens.com from a user who does her own necroscopies, and has found egg masses in almost all of her commercial laying hybrids.

If it was still at the fluid stage, the vet might have been able to drain it off her, give her antibiotics for the infection, and give her a suprelorin implant to prevent any more eggs from maturing in her ovaries. Unfortunately, Steg was long past that stage. The vet said she might last another week on painkillers. Realistically, there's not much point keeping her alive to sit in a crate in my bathroom with no hope of recovery, so I had her euthanised.

Egg peritonitis and the other common reproductive ailments - stuck eggs, prolapse - are inevitable when hens are bred and worked the way the little brown Rhode Island Red x Light Sussex hybrids used in commecial egg farms are. These girls are bred to lay an egg every single day for their first year and put everything they've got into laying. They tend to come to rescues skinny with broken and deformed bones where all the nutrients available have gone into their eggs rather than their bodies. They never get a break. They're kept in artificial light for most of each day to put off the moult for as long as possible. They're not bred for longevity. A hen from a sensible, traditional mixed-use breed can live for ten years. A laying hybrid can expect to be slaughtered at eighteen months, so the fact they'll be laying bacteria-feasts into their own abdominal cavities at two or three years is neither here nor there.

Steg would have been about three. I got her when she was commercially spent, the day most of the other hens in that farm would have gone for slaughter to make way for younger birds. She had eighteen months with me, which is a long time. The average lifespan for an ex-battery hen is a year after rescue. So she had longer than average, and longer than she would have had if I hadn't taken her in. And I think she got to enjoy her life, and dust-bathe and run around and eat slugs.

I discussed the possibility of implanting all the others with the vet, but he said that while he has good results, he prefers to only do it if the hen is having problems, rather than routinely. Still, it's good to know that the option is there. It's also a very new option, and I'm not sure it's actually licensed for chickens. (It's mostly used in ferrets and dogs.) Hopefully in a few years more people will have more experience with it, the price will come down, and it can become a more routine thing.

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6 Awful Things No One Tells You About Keeping Chickens, part two

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:15:54 GMT

Part one.
( Read more... )

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Dangerously thrill-seeking brain-damaged chickens

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 11:09:18 GMT

Everything you read about chickens, especially ex-battery chickens, tells you they crave familiarity. You can't give them too much space or toys to begin with, or they freak out. You have to give them layers' mash, because it's what they're used to, or they might starve themselves to death. You have to watch their drinking very carefully, because they're not used to any kind of bowl or top-hat waterer, and they might dehydrate. (That last one is probably why waterers are usually red, to encourage them to peck at them.)

It's true, up to a point.( Read more... )

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6 Awful Things No-One Tells You About Keeping Chickens, Part One

Sun, 06 May 2012 11:21:45 GMT

I was gonna try and sell this to Cracked.com, but they only accept subjective/personal-experience articles from their regular columnists. So here you go. ( Read more... )

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Doesn't think; licks finger

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:36:52 GMT

Aw, man. Bitrex is NAAAAAAAAAAASTY. Whoever tries to pull out Trex's feathers is in for a HORRIBLE shock.

Kinda tastes like Prozac.

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Sorry, darlin'. It's one of those for-your-own-good deals.

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:24:12 GMT

Trex didn't seem to mind getting hauled out of the nestbox for Moultone-spiked mash balls. I didn't mean to wake her up; I thought it wasn't dark enough for bedtime yet. They like to switch things up, keep me on my toes. But they'll forgive a great deal if there's food involved.

Wiping her bald spots with a sponge loaded with Bitrex... now that woke her up. And pissed her off. To be fair, if someone hauled me out of bed and wiped a cold soggy sponge across my bare ass, I'd be cranky. But hopefully whoever's pulling her feathers out - dunno whether it's self-harm or bullying, but she is the bottom hen, and Steg and Arky are both ambitious and insecure about their places in the pecking order - will get a beakful of that awful stuff and stop it.

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And yet none of them were walking funny

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:54:35 GMT

MASSIVE egg in the nest-box today. Between half-again and twice the usual size. No idea who laid it!

Also, chucking them carrot and dandelion leaves is like opening a sandwich around bears.

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Then she'll be a true love of mine

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:35:22 GMT

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
Without any seam or needlework
Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well
Where water ne'er sprung nor drop of rain fell
Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born

And when she's managed all of that, do you think she could get my chickens to stop trying to eat their own poop?

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In happier news, chickens have a great sense of comedy timing.

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:50:38 GMT

Trex and Dippy still look a bit rough, but Arky's looking better, and Steg is just beautiful. She looks like a Proper Chicken, one of those lovely fat little hens with fluffy knickers. Her face has gone from white to pink, and her comb has shrunk a bit and stood up properly (you can see her original pale-faced floppy-combed state in the user icon). Her feathers are this great light ginger colour with cream markings.

And just as I was considering what a gorgeous girl she'd blossomed into, she dropped a steaming poo the size of Glasgow.

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Eek

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:42:38 GMT

Crossed paths with a fox on the allotment today. I bared my teeth and snarled, and it looked unimpressed. So I chased it away.

I did feel sorry for it, because it looked like it ate rubbish and lived in an unfriendly environment. Poor thing. But that doesn't mean it gets to eat my girls.

I knew they were around because I'd seen tracks and droppings, and I guessed realistically they were probably around before that. Like rats, they're gonna be somewhere even if you don't see them. But it's still different to actually meet one.

My stupid birds just stood there looking at it. I guess when you've spent your whole life in a tiny metal cage, you don't know about predators.

(I do worry. But I've done everything I can to make the coop and run secure.)

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Right then

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 19:47:15 GMT

Posting has been scarce due to me suddenly fostering a young adult female red-eared terrapin over the past few weeks. But she's off to her new forever home and I can focus on the chickens once more.

My Christmas present from my family this year is building material for their new run. I would have been further along with the building by now, but rain + kitty-cat emergency (he got better) got in the way. But the idea is to have an all-enclosed fox- and rat-proof 12' x 6' x 6' run that their coop can then go inside. The remaining non-coop space (about 8' x 6' x 6') will then be divided into four sections that they can freely move between. Miss Muscle's Gym will be all perches and little stools that they can jump on and off to get exercise. Pretty Chicken Spa will be all compost, sand and diatomaceous earth for dust-bathing. The Foragery will have their food bowls and have the floor covered in straw and wood chippings for them to dig through for treats, and also have things like cabbages on strings hung from the roof. Get Off My Lawn will be turf for them to eat and tear up. That's the plan, anyway.

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How do they know?

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:42:11 GMT

Giving my girls mealworms and watercress for the first time, they seemed to know beforehand that they liked it. They sprinted over to get it! They've never had them before, and I was expecting a reaction more like when I gave them cabbage on a string. So how do they know?

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Bad blogger; good chookas

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:13:25 GMT

A month and a week, wooo, my girls have been out of their tiny cages and living the alright life for a month and a week. Arky's limp is almost gone; I didn't realise the confident walking bird was her until I clocked the leg ring and the feather patterns. Steg and Trex are getting proper pink faces instead of pasty indoor white ones. And I'm gathering the materials for a walk-in run.

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Green stuff and three weeks of the good life

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:08:16 GMT

Replaced all the straw in the run with turf, in the hope of creating an environment that was a) more natural for them and b) easier to clean. They've eaten all the grass. Ah well. Nobody's crop or poo seems to have suffered from the sudden influx of green stuff. It is easier to clean, though, and I can throw some of their food onto the ground so they can scratch for it. The end of one of the runs is just compost, for dust-bathing. Actually, I need to refill that and top it up with diatomaceous earth. They still have straw in the nest boxes, so they have decent nesting material for laying their eggs in (and sleeping in, for that matter). I'm going back and forth on the wood shavings in the main coop. Definitely easier to poo-pick than the straw was, but also more prone to getting into the water bowl and jamming up the sliding door.

Bethan has pointed out that, since the first time I came into their lives and changed stuff everything got about a million times better, I may have given them a set of seriously unreasonable expectations. Now every time I clean out the coop they probably think the dawn of utopia is nigh. Possibly. If the dawn of utopia involves fresh wood shavings and lavender-scented disinfectant. That's a very specific, very unambitious utopia right there.

The other day they learnt about cabbages on strings. I hung one from the ceiling of the run so they'd have something to investigate and peck at. First they stared at it in horror - okay, so they'd never have seen one in their lives before. It was gonna take a while before they realised it was an edible toy. Then they seemed to decide that, since it wasn't actively coming to get them, they'd ignore it and maybe it would go away. Eventually Arky had a tentative nibble. But when I came by to put them to bed later, they'd torn off half the leaves and eaten about half the ones they'd torn off. And by the end of the next day, there were just the stalks left. So I think we can call that a success.

Limpy-legs Arky is getting more confident by the day. She's overtaken Trex in the pecking order - obviously the one I name after the badass carnivorous dinosaur ends up bottom hen, because that's how my life rolls - and is often the last to go to bed at night. Not because the others are keeping her out; just because pottering around pecking stuff is serious business and she hasn't finished yet, thank you very much. And today when I was cleaning out the nest boxes, she became the first to realise "hey, we can escape this way!" and jumped up onto the rim while I had the lid propped open. I didn't think her wobbly little legs were up to that, but apparently they were. Time to start working on that bigger run, if she's getting restless.

I've also identified another egg-layer - the smaller, shiny brown ones are Dippy's.

Oh, and I bought a styptic pencil for dealing with injuries. They're the lip-balm-looking things you use to stop shaving cuts bleeding. I figured better to have one when I don't (yet) need it than the other way around. That reminds me, I need to order some gentian violet spray.

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"Bags of bones, eyeballs and teeth looking for new ways to die."

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:32:34 GMT

Well. Minus the teeth.

That's a Terry Pratchett character's description of sheep, but it works quite well for chickens. Also, looking for new ways to scare the shit out of me.

Chicken: "I'm dying! I'm dying! Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! I'm dy-"
Me: "OMG SHIT WHAT DO I DO WILL THE HAGLEY ROAD VETS BE ABLE TO FIT ME IN HELP?!?!?!?!?!?!"
Chicken: "LOL! Not really. Also, you just put your hand in poo."
Me: "...goddammit."

I don't really recommend looking at galleries of normal and abnormal chicken poops when you're having your breakfast, but apparently the orangey gooey ones are normal. They just come from the caecum (dead end next to the appendix) rather than the rest of the intestines. Well, hooray.

Also there was blood on last night's food bowls, in a position that suggested a hen with a bleeding foot had been perching on the edge and scratching at stuff. This is worrying because chickens instinctively peck red things, so if one of them's bleeding, the others are guaranteed to make it worse. But I examined them all this morning and nobody seemed to have any fresh injuries, and there was no blood in the coop. So I guess someone just had a little scratch or peck.

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Firework season

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:37:37 GMT

Diwali tonight, Bonfire Night soon. Hope my girls aren't too scared.

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Those bastard vampires!

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:55:02 GMT

They've been breeding chickens for easier access! Look at the Transylvanian Naked Neck if you don't believe me...

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Screw the pecking order, we want snuggles!

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:34:15 GMT

Last check at bedtime today found top hen Dippy and bottom hen Arky snuggled up together in the same nestbox. Bless.

(I did see Steg evict Trex from one, though. That girl is ambitious. Dippy has to keep putting her in her place.)

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One Week

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:20:42 GMT

My girls have now had an uninterrupted week out of their cages and in their new home (since a lot of last Saturday was spent travelling, it doesn't really count as a happy restful day). When I did my last check on them this evening, three were lined up in the nestboxes and one was snuggled up to them on the floor nearby, and all of them were making sleepy contented purring/trilling noises. (Perches are available - very low ones, since they're pretty wobbly on their feet and probably have osteoporosis - but most of them don't seem interested.) Cutest thing.

It's not the best arrangement in the world; the run is only about 20 square feet. (The website claimed one run - half of what I've got now - could hold six to ten hens. To hell with that.) I'd like to have the floor of the run covered in turf rather than straw. Hell, I'd like to give them a walk-in run that was big enough for me to walk around in, which would probably be more space than they knew what to do with. One day. But what they've got now is better than what they've ever had, and they've all got space to exercise and do normal chicken behaviour (which they're learning incredibly fast). Their lives will be enriched once their little tummies can cope with mealworms and vegetables-on-strings, but in the meantime, I'm looking up what non-food toys I can make for them.

Health-wise, they all still seem bright and active. The poo looks healthy (ah, the things you learn). Trex is eating more, though I'm still not too happy, and will probably need to supervise her for a few more days. Dippy's crop was empty this morning, which was great, as I was gonna give her yoghurt and grit today if it wasn't. Arky still limps, but was able to grip with the toes on her bad leg when I was examining and massaging it today, so I'm hopeful. Trex and Arky, while still bottom hens, are a bit more confident and less likely to flee if Steg or Dippy approaches.

The pestle and mortar turned out to be a great investment. So far I've used it for grinding pellets down into mash, and for grinding egg shells, oyster shells and Condition Pek down into supplements they'll actually eat. Anything bigger than coarse powder tends to go uneaten, but if I can pulverise it and add it to their mash, it'll go.

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Look at it! It's hilarious!

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:20:01 GMT

If I had unlimited space and resources, and could justify getting a purebred chicken purely for the lulz, I would get me an Appenzeller Spitzhauben. JUST LOOK AT THAT THING. Its facial expression says "DON'T LAUGH AT ME!" and I say, "I'm sorry, puddin', but I can't help it." Utility: eggs? I don't think so. People get those to go in the Comedy Pets Corner along with their fainting goat.

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Sure as eggs is eggs

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:57:36 GMT

I'm getting a steady three eggs a day, so at least three of them are laying. Usually there's one in the nestbox when I let them out in the morning, and two more when I put them to bed at night. The British Hen Welfare Trust tells you not to expect more than an egg every two days from each hen, as they're all bred to produce an egg a day for a year and then be slaughtered, so all bets are off after that. And in theory, since it's October and they're moulting, they shouldn't be laying at all.

Steg is definitely laying, because she made me one when I was letting them out Friday morning. Hers are big with a rough white shell, though it'll probably get smoother and shinier as I get more calcium into her. Either Arky or Trex (but my money's on Arky because she was in there longer) laid an egg for me this morning. Slightly smaller, pinker and smoother than Steg's. I still don't know who's responsible for the soft-shelled one, or the smaller, shiny brown ones.

They certainly lay a lot quicker and quieter than the hens at work. When the work hens were both laying, they made such a racket I thought I should investigate in case something was killing them. But then, they're Cochins, who've been bred to strut around looking gorgeous (or silly, depending on your taste), with laying and putting weight on as afterthoughts. My girls are Warrens, hybrids (Rhode Island Red x Light Sussex) bred to be short-lived egg-laying machines. I didn't even notice when one of them laid an egg on the way home.

I'm eating a probably-Steg and a possibly-Trex-possibly-Arky egg (Tregg? Kyegg?) for breakfast. On our pizzas last night, Bethan and I had a Steg egg (Stegg!) and a mysterious brown shiny egg (bregg! I'll stop now).

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More of a mud-and-straw bath, really

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 05:26:15 GMT

So:

- Dippy's breath is fine, and I'll give them extra grit and check her crop's empty this morning. I also checked Trex's, in case that was why her crop wasn't filling up, and hers was okay too. I think. I had quite a fight to get her to open her beak; it was one of those jobs where you need at least three arms.

- Trex ate more, though not enough for a totally full crop. No more soft eggs yesterday.

- Put Vaseline on Steg's leg.

- Arky doesn't seem to have thrown up again.

They all seem reasonably okay in themselves. I mean, touch wood. But they're all quite active, and eating and drinking, and no-one's standing around with her eyes shut or her feathers fluffed up. Good signs.

I think Steg has climbed the pecking order to #2, and Trex has dropped to #3.

I went on a small chicken-products shopping spree yesterday. Got corn for winter, wood shavings for the coop floor (still experimenting with different types of bedding), ceramic food bowls, more mixed grit, and a pestle and mortar (local shops only sell pellets, not mash, but the difference is just shape). I couldn't find any calcium supplements locally, so I bought one of those Condition Pek blocks and ground it up and fed them that.

Arky discovered the dust bath. Since day one they've had a cat-litter-tray full of compost and diatomaceous earth, but mostly they've ignored and/or tried to eat it. Yesterday Arky spent a good fifteen minutes rolling around in there, flinging dust up between her feathers. Steg the mad digger came over and started kicking straw around obnoxiously close, and Dippy the top hen came and stood menacingly and pecked her a few times, but Arky wasn't getting out till she was done. She was in chicken spa heaven.

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I think they're trying to scare me

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:02:37 GMT

It's astonishing the number of things that a chicken can do, which will leave you convinced the bird is on the edge of death. Reading up on the sheer number of things that can go horribly wrong will also give you a severe case of First Year Med Student Syndrome. I'm trying to keep perspective: none of these things is necessarily a problem unless it keeps on happening, and all of them can be explained by the stress of the past few days plus pre-existing poor condition.

- Someone laid a soft-shelled egg; my money's on Trex (see below, plus, she'd been hanging around the coop looking sorry for herself). Treatment: increased calcium for everybody just in case.

- Trex doesn't seem to have been eating much; her crop isn't full in the evenings the way the others' are. She won't eat if the others are in her personal space. Treatment: extra food bowl, watched over her eating this morning.

- Dippy's crop was still full this morning. Treatment: sniff her breath to rule out sour crop (food stuck in crop for long enough develops fungal infections. Lovely). If just full, gentle massage to break it up + extra grit. If sour crop, firmer massage while holding her upside-down to make her puke, + extra grit and live yoghurt.

- Arky leaned over and threw up a whole load of water. Treatment: keep an eye on her. Make sure crop is filling and emptying when it should. Take to vet if condition deteriorates.

- Steg has a damaged scale on her leg. I suspect injury rather than scaly mite as it's just one. Treatment: watch for others pecking. Vaseline. If it is scaly mite, appropriate pesticide.

Oh and it's minor in the grand scheme of things, but Steg is freaking amazing at knocking over food bowls. I need to get something ceramic and heavy.

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Gonna have ourselves a little sleepy

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:29:14 GMT

Got to the allotment just after nightfall to put the chickens to bed, and found they'd put themselves to bed already. Clever girls! I just checked on them, made sure they hadn't pooped in their inside waterbowl this time, and shut the door. Two were squashed together in a nestbox, one was on the floor next to it (probably Arky - I did rig up ramp access to a nestbox for her, but I don't know if she's actually used it), and one was on a perch at the other end of the coop. That one was probably Dippy, since the others are mostly reacting to her power games by staying away from her.

Like with the nesting, seeking shelter at night is normal behaviour for chickens that have had good lives, but totally alien to battery hens. This is major progress. I'm so pleased by how fast they're learning to be happy chickens.

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Acclimatisation

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:57:58 GMT

My housemate said this was chicken rehab. She had a point.

The first day was spent with a lot of staring and staggering and falling over (not just from Arky - the others were utterly baffled by solid ground and straw), plus Dippy violently asserting her Top Hen status. Sunday and today seemed a little calmer. The hens have been more active, and today Dippy attempted her first dust bath. (They had found the tray of compost and diatomaceous earth put aside for this purpose, but they'd been mostly trying to eat it.) It didn't last very long, and I didn't see it, but Bethan assures me Dippy stood in the dirt and kicked some up into her wings. Just between now and the first day there's been a massive increase in normal chicken behaviour - digging and preening and pecking at stuff. Steg still comes running up to investigate when humans appear or a door is opened.

Today it was Steg's turn to get Vaseline and Anti-Pek, after Dippy bit her hard enough to make her comb bleed. Very superficial injury, and normal when they're sorting out the pecking order, but something I wanted to put a stop to fast. Steg was less than pleased about being sat on my lap and sprayed and having her comb covered in gunk. The pecking order still seems to go Dippy > Trex > Steg > Arky. Not that the others attack Steg or Arky, but just in terms of how much of Dippy's wrath they seem to catch. Trex has been keeping herself to herself, and staying in the coop a lot, but seems okay.

Arky's still hopping and limping, but it may be my imagination, but I think she's putting her foot down and flexing her toes more than she was. If I saw any injuries or signs of pain, I'd take her to the vet, but we think it might just be because she's never really walked anywhere in her life. The forum people said dodgy legs are pretty common in ex-batts. It doesn't seem to hamper her getting around too much, and hopefully it'll improve as she gets more exercise.

I figured out that the pooping in the outdoor water bowl was entirely my fault: yes, it made sense to put it in the middle of the run, but not when that meant it was one chicken-length away from the food bowl. Oops. The pooping in the indoor water bowl, the one that's tucked into a corner as far away as possible from the perches and nest boxes? That's still on them.

Three more eggs today: one this morning when I let them out, and two this afternoon when Bethan and I went to say hi to them. All in the nestboxes, which is amazing. Battery hens are used to just dropping eggs where they stand and having them roll down to the conveyor belt, so it's awesome to see normal nesting behaviour kicking in so soon.

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