A Little Chicken Worry

Breanna

It's been about 6 weeks since the fateful dog attack on our chickens. The girls both recovered under the care of the Ballina Veterinary Clinic. After the stitches were removed from Breanna's side, there was a pocket of flesh that filled with dirt that the vet cleaned out and then asked me to bathe when I got home. After bathing her (and blow drying her dry) wound we dabbed on some Betadine, doused it with an antibiotic powder and then covered up the pocket with some spray on skin. I am pleased to say that that pocket has healed with some lovely new pink flesh.

But I have noticed that Breanna seems a little sad. She is last to every chook feeding and very disinterested even when she gets there. She had a lot of feather loss and most of those are growing back successfully around her neck and under her right wing. But the loss also seems to have triggered a full on feather moult from other parts of her coat. Two large tail feathers just came out when we put her down after a cuddle.

She has an all over scruffy looking appearance and looks like she has lost weight as well. Her eyes are not so bright and her comb and wattle have faded to a dull orange. She has not laid since the attack.

So yesterday I did a bit of reading about supplementing chicken's protein intake when they are moulting. I even bought some cat food and offered it to Bree but she was NOT interested whatsoever! So salmon in seafood sauce was not to her taste. 

Then I thought that I would take her to the compost heap where she could easily scratch for fat worms. But she flew straight out and refused a juicy worm I dug up for her. As a last resort I opened my vegetable patch gate and let her in to free range by herself. At last she seemed to like something and she scratched around finding little nibbles. 

I make an effort to seek her out each time I go out. I  like to pick her up and give her a scratch and a little conversation to tell her that I love her. Today she was missing from the flock and I went looking for her fearing the worst. I found her splayed out in the dust box exactly how she looked after the dog attack. I thought she was dead. Thankfully she was just bathing in the dust. I had such a heart stopping moment. I will continue to keep my eye on her in the hope that she will re-gain her condition before Winter.

Washington

I fear our Miss Washington has developed a case of bumble foot. The new chook run is full of pine cones and I read that stepping on these can injure the soft pads of the chicken's foot. I have ordered some veterinary supplies from the US but I am dreading having to operate on her feet myself. I need to give her feet a good wash to check them out a bit better.

I spent last Wednesday removing about 20 nappy bucket loads of pine cones from the run. Not an easy feat after a 1Km hill run the night before. I could barely walk let alone squat!

Thankfully Washington is back on the lay despite having to regrow tail and body feathers. I do find it funny that Wash's new feathers are brilliant white and not the dirty volcanic red colour that the old ones are tainted with. I caught her having a solo dust bath last week. She seemed annoyed that I was disturbing her privacy.

Chicken House and Run

I suspect that the chicken house is actually a converted brick cubby house. It has a house look about it and it looks like the windows were boarded up. We inherited the chicken house and run, along with 3 chickens, when we bought the property in Decemeber 2012.

When we took our two injured chickens to the vet last Sunday, the vet asked me how clean the chook pen was. He did not want the wounds of the chickens to become infected with dirt. We safely installed Washington in our bathtub, while she recovered, and I set to work to clean and improve the chook pen. 

The Roost

 I had only cleaned it the week before but it has been raining pretty much non-stop since the beginning of the year. So the sawdust and soil was saturated.

So I cleaned out the old sawdust and hosed out the concrete floor.

 Eating and Drinking

The eating area used to be be just dirt but I did add sawdust. I had read that chickens will eat food off the muddy floor so this is not ideal. I saw this great idea on Pinterest and followed the link to find out more.

Lining the floor with rocks prevents the chickens from kicking dust, dirt and feathers into the food and water containers. We have a LOT of rocks on our property and so I used a bunch of them to line the floor of the eating area. It might take a while for the chickens to get used to but it does look better.

The Nesting Box

Remember when our chooks were off free ranging all day  (I still have NOT found the 2nd cache) and hiding the eggs? Well since adding curtains and being penned inside away from predators things have improved with egg laying.

I staple gunned the curtains to fit the nesting box better. I love staple guns.

One of our newest hens started following Washington and Obama into the nesting box last week. 

Obama in the nest.

Then yesterday we discovered that she had laid her first egg!

Bluey's chocolate brown egg on the left and Washington's on the right

I had noticed that her comb and wattle had grown larger and redder in the past few weeks. She has also been more social and following the rooster around. I think it helped when the two dominant hens were at the vets for 4 days. So well done Bluey!

Bluey looking more mature has just started to lay

The Floor

We have just had a new front fence put up and I used some of the leftover timbers to create a wooden floor and perimeter of a dust box. 

No one in the livestock stores around here seems to know about Diamtomacious Earth. But our regular soil is very red and stains their feathers. Under the sawdust was some delicious looking dark dirt so I threw that into the dust box. I also discovered that the floor of half of the chook pen was lined with floor pavers.

It is a real hit with all of the chickens now. They love to lie down and flick it all over themselves. It gets a bit of sunshine too and I think that helps.

The L-shaped run around the chicken house is still pretty much a red dirt floor and it can be quite muddy during storms. 

I read about another great idea on pinterest to help combat this problem. We have plenty of tree stumps to do the job and these are just under the last section of roof. 

I found plenty of debris had distorted the roof above and water was pooling and incubating mosquito larvae...so I got hubby to drill a hole or three to help drain these.

I would love to limestone wash the interior brick walls, paint the nesting boxes, add some more nesting boxes where the boarded up windows are and stain the whole chook pen eventually.  And I would also like to include some natural wood perches for the chickens.

But overall I think I have dramatically improved the function and aesthetics of the chicken house and run. After the dog attack I had to lock the rest of the 5 chicken inside this for about 4 days and they seemed to cope quite well.  

We have since had a chicken fence constructed but more on that later...

Can you see our rooster Silver MacGregory enjoying a dust bath?

Chicken Update

Both Breanna and Washington came back from the vets last Wednesday and have had a great weekend reunited with the flock. They have finished their antibiotic injections and Breanna will have her stitches out from her neck and side on Friday. Thankfully her wing covers most of the wound on her side and she has been happy dust bathing so it must not bother her.

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