Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

cyclura

we've got mites :mad: out came the Ivomec this morning, each chicken chased and treated. Guess I will be scrubbing and cleaning the hen house this afternoon. Oh well I will make sure I have a :beer: in the fridge ready for afterwards

SurreyLass1

Hello all, wonder if I can join you?

I have 2 beautiful girls - HENrietta and Milly (named by my sons, ages 3 and 7!). The girls moved in 3 months ago now, and I LOVE THEM! Their antics make me giggle so much, and they are such funny little things. 2 perfect brown eggs every day, and hours of amusement chatting with them! Their favourite treat is brocolli - they go mad for it!!!

Hope to chat more chicken nonesense!

SL

ALIBOBSY

RebekahR wrote: »

What are the types of chickens that don't fly? Or can't get over a fence.

Non they are birds I am afriad lol.

We have netting over their area to keep them it, when we let them FR around the whole garden its with us there, but to be honest they have never tried to get over the 6 ft fence so perhaps thats their limit.

We have one chicken, a white star that is smaller and fiitter somehow that the other chunkier birds and she is a real escapologist. Its like the great escape here. We have caught her digging under the wire flying over, squeezing through the tiniest of gaps etc etc. Her current trick is fly up and perch them do a slow clever wiggle up through the netting till she can get her wings up then fly lol.

ali x

LAM2011

We have 3 hybrids (2 x black rock variety and a grey one ) They are coming up to 2nd birthdays. We had 4 on the farm but Mr Fox got Penny Hen . The chickens moved really well (about 2 months ago) back to town with us (much to the amusement of our neighbours) but one of them seems constantly hungry! She is slightly smaller than the other two and even comes into the kitchen now when she knows I am around looking for scraps. She challenged the jack russel the other day for his dog biscuits! :eek: My dogs used to be terrible with chickens but suddenly seem to have accepted them as friends although this particular chicken (Tinks) often takes on the JRT in the garden like in a game.

Anyhoo - my question is - we are about to worm them as I am not sure if this is why she is always hungry. Are there some wormers better than others and can you still eat their eggs immediately after worming. Going to get them from Agri supplier where we get our horse feed from. Any other comments re her always being so hungry? They are all well fed - other two seem fine and always take a back seat to Tinks grabbing anything new first!

Thanks for any help / suggestions

rachbc

the lady I got chickens off said verm-x didn't need an egg withdrawal period after. We are currently on a 14 day egg withdrawn period as had to give mine anti-biotic - its heart breaking having to chuck the eggs!

ionahenor2

LAM2011 wrote: »

We have 3 hybrids (2 x black rock variety and a grey one ) They are coming up to 2nd birthdays. We had 4 on the farm but Mr Fox got Penny Hen . The chickens moved really well (about 2 months ago) back to town with us (much to the amusement of our neighbours) but one of them seems constantly hungry! She is slightly smaller than the other two and even comes into the kitchen now when she knows I am around looking for scraps. She challenged the jack russel the other day for his dog biscuits! :eek: My dogs used to be terrible with chickens but suddenly seem to have accepted them as friends although this particular chicken (Tinks) often takes on the JRT in the garden like in a game.

Anyhoo - my question is - we are about to worm them as I am not sure if this is why she is always hungry. Are there some wormers better than others and can you still eat their eggs immediately after worming. Going to get them from Agri supplier where we get our horse feed from. Any other comments re her always being so hungry? They are all well fed - other two seem fine and always take a back seat to Tinks grabbing anything new first!

Thanks for any help / suggestions

Quite alot of chicken forums say the best wormer is Flubenvet. I use this and it is very good, ( not so good when you see the dead worms in the poo though!). There is no egg withdrawal unless treating for gape worm when you double the dose. I sprinkle it on cut grapes so I know they each get a dose, and give it for 7 days.

Steel_2

RebekahR - I've never kept bantams before so I'm not sure. I've stopped short of getting them so far though because they are so small they might become interesting to one of my cats. He's a part feral hunter and I would have to have the bantam pen entirely enclosed, but I'd still worry he's get in. He's brought home juvenile pheasant before that are about the same size.

cyclura - disgusting things aren't they? My husband told me yesterday his work buddy lost one of his chickens to red mite the day before. I've tried everything; poultry shield, diatomaceous earth, cresosote, creosote substitute, flaming, siliconing all the gaps...nothing worked. In the end I bought a plastic green frog coop and planned to burn the old wooden one BUT I found an interesting product at the pet store at the weekend - Red Mite Kill Concentrate. It has a proper insecticide in it, unlike poultry shield which is a detergent solution that supposedly penetrates the wax on the mites' bodies and dries them out? I shall be giving trying it out this weekend on the old coop and see how it goes.

SurreyLass1 - hello! :hello:

LAM2011 - hello! :hello:You might find that the other chickens are stopping her from getting near the food if she's the lowest in the pecking order or (as I do) you have a greedy cheeky chicken! When mine free-ranged I used to have Oxo permanently camped at the back door. She learnt how to 'knock' on the back door or conservatory window with her beak to get my attention. You might have to watch for Tink starting to jump up and grab things from you as Oxo does - Oxo can get over waist high when she tries. She managed to steal a crumpet off a plate that my tiny mother-in-law was carrying, but almost knocked her down in the process.

I tend to use Flubenvent for worming my chickens. It takes seven days to complete a course, but there is no egg withdrawal afterwards. Like Iona I tend to dose half grapes with it, as the chickens go nuts for grapes and I can give each dose individually to each chicken. I used Verm-X for a while but they didn't like it and it didn't work for mine. After using Flubenvent I found a loads of red stringy worms in the nest box.

LAM2011

Steel wrote: »

LAM2011 - hello! :hello:You might find that the other chickens are stopping her from getting near the food if she's the lowest in the pecking order or (as I do) you have a greedy cheeky chicken! When mine free-ranged I used to have Oxo permanently camped at the back door. She learnt how to 'knock' on the back door or conservatory window with her beak to get my attention. You might have to watch for Tink starting to jump up and grab things from you as Oxo does - Oxo can get over waist high when she tries. She managed to steal a crumpet off a plate that my tiny mother-in-law was carrying, but almost knocked her down in the process.

I tend to use Flubenvent for worming my chickens. It takes seven days to complete a course, but there is no egg withdrawal afterwards. Like Iona I tend to dose half grapes with it, as the chickens go nuts for grapes and I can give each dose individually to each chicken. I used Verm-X for a while but they didn't like it and it didn't work for mine. After using Flubenvent I found a loads of red stringy worms in the nest box.

Thanks Oxo sounds like he would really get on with my Tinkerbell - they could take over the world ! :rotfl: She is definitely not last in pecking order - she chases off other 2 chickens, my wappy crossbreed and the JRT - I am thinking of setting an extra place for her at the table

Thanks everyone for advice on worming - I did wonder how you made sure each chicken had some so going today to get the Fleubenvet and I have some grapes here at work.

Thanks again - I always come here for finance support - its great to see I can get chicken support too

Gigervamp

RebekahR wrote: »

Experience! LOL. I'm wondering about going down the bantam route. Do they need any special care that standard chickens don't?

We've got 3 bantams and feed them the same as the others. Our silkie x bantam lives with the big girls and can hold her own. It's funny seeing her give one of the girls lower in the pecking order *the look*! That's all it takes for them to slink away, chastised! :rotfl:

RebekahR

That was my next question! If Batams can live with big normal chickens. I read somewhere they can't but guess they can!