Keeping hens and ducks chat.

Cheery_Daff

KC, that article is brilliant, thank you for sharing! 😍 Love the thought of a chicken just wandering past the security checkpoint 😁😁

Welcome Rebekah! How are you finding chicken keeping? Can you ever imagine yourself without chickens now?! Welcome to the hen thread! 

I saw a friend earlier - she is moving far away at some point next year, and is on the lookout for a home for her chickens... I think she's hoping we'll take them... but that would more than double our flock size 😮 I've said I can't commit to that now - we have 5 and that's quite enough for us. I do feel slightly bad though - but next year is a long way off, who knows what will have happened by then?!

All quiet on our chicken front. Still no sign of poor Bunty 😕 and also no sign of the guy who was going to deliver me a load of wood chip just after the new year but got snowed off. Must text him tomorrow, things are getting rather muddy in the chicken run, and with all the holes the ladies have dug I almost went sliding on my backside in my dressing gown the other morning - what a sight that would have been! 😮

RebekahR

Cheery_Daff said:

KC, that article is brilliant, thank you for sharing! 😍 Love the thought of a chicken just wandering past the security checkpoint 😁😁

Welcome Rebekah! How are you finding chicken keeping? Can you ever imagine yourself without chickens now?! Welcome to the hen thread! 

I saw a friend earlier - she is moving far away at some point next year, and is on the lookout for a home for her chickens... I think she's hoping we'll take them... but that would more than double our flock size 😮 I've said I can't commit to that now - we have 5 and that's quite enough for us. I do feel slightly bad though - but next year is a long way off, who knows what will have happened by then?!

All quiet on our chicken front. Still no sign of poor Bunty 😕 and also no sign of the guy who was going to deliver me a load of wood chip just after the new year but got snowed off. Must text him tomorrow, things are getting rather muddy in the chicken run, and with all the holes the ladies have dug I almost went sliding on my backside in my dressing gown the other morning - what a sight that would have been! 😮

I'm loving it! It took me a couple of weeks to warm to them enough to pick them up! After that it was plain sailing ... mostly!

My girls love them. They are 9 and 6. It's funny my 6 year old can pick them up dead easy but my 9year old is too scared of hurting them. I think it's partly sensory too as she doesn't like the feel of them that much. I would love my garden back as they have taken over 1/4 of it! LOL and that's just their enclosure alone! But nooooo they are family and here to stay!

Tomorrow is clean out day ...

edwink

Late to the party again.  Sorry guys we have 2 dogs staying with us and I can now see why we have been putting off getting a dog for 10 years now.  No, seriously these dogs are lovely and we are happy to have them here with us but they certainly keep us on our toes, lovely little things they are though.  Both are sleeping now so we can catch up with some things. 


KC.... I couldn't stop giggling at Hentagon and Henny Penny and the other names in the article.  Definitely gave us a laugh here KC which is very welcome at the moment because it has been a bit doom and gloom with this blooming Avian Flu.  Thank you so much for posting it on here. 


RebekahR.... Hi and welcome to our feathered friends thread, it's always nice to have newcomers that join in. I'm glad you have found your Omlet set up easy to clean and it has been worth the money.  I have read about them before and they say they are easy but it is always nice to hear about that side of them through first-hand experience. You obviously made the right choice for you and your family.

I like that you have called one of your girls Peckers, now why didn't we think of that as a name for one of ours.  We had 2 Bluebells here at one stage and I called one of mine, yes you've guessed it, Bluebell. I suppose I could have been a bit more creative with naming her and thought of something else now I think about it. 

How are you enjoying your freshly laid eggs?  If they are laying that is. how old are your girls?.


Cheery.... it looks like you might be adding to your flock then? 🤣🤣🤣 No, seriously you only should keep the number of hens you feel comfortable with especially as you have lots of other commitments to deal with. You may remember we ended up with 21 hens here once and that wasn't on purpose.  Mr Edwink went to collect what we were told was 8 rescue hens from a friend who kept them on a local farm but when he arrived to pick them up there were 15 and not 8 of them. We already had 9 ducks here and 6 hens so our total was 30 for quite some time.  You definitely notice the difference cleaning wise and poop picking wise for sure.  All good fun though, I guess.

Sorry, there is still no sign of little Bunty, bless her. That must be ever so tough to deal with.  Sending virtual (((hugs))) to you both.


Edwink x

RebekahR

edwink said:

RebekahR.... Hi and welcome to our feathered friends thread, it's always nice to have newcomers that join in. I'm glad you have found your Omlet set up easy to clean and it has been worth the money.  I have read about them before and they say they are easy but it is always nice to hear about that side of them through first-hand experience. You obviously made the right choice for you and your family.

I like that you have called one of your girls Peckers, now why didn't we think of that as a name for one of ours.  We had 2 Bluebells here at one stage and I called one of mine, yes you've guessed it, Bluebell. I suppose I could have been a bit more creative with naming her and thought of something else now I think about it. 

How are you enjoying your freshly laid eggs?  If they are laying that is. how old are your girls?.

Aaah thanks. LOL My 6 year old named her peckers because she pecks everything lol. Speckledy was us being lazy lol. And she is indeed a speckledy. The eggs are good. Although we aren't big egg users so tend to sell a lot but its nice not to have to buy any! I made a nice victoria sponge last week with them! We are getting 2 a day out of the 3 at the moment but I guess that'll pick up soon. They were April babies so will soon be a year old. So we are yet to experience "the moult"!

edwink

RebekahR said: Aaah thanks. LOL My 6 year old named her peckers because she pecks everything lol. Speckledy was us being lazy lol. And she is indeed a speckledy. The eggs are good. Although we aren't big egg users so tend to sell a lot but its nice not to have to buy any! I made a nice victoria sponge last week with them! We are getting 2 a day out of the 3 at the moment but I guess that'll pick up soon. They were April babies so will soon be a year old. So we are yet to experience "the moult"!

That's a clever little 6 year old you have there naming one of yours Peckers. I do love Speckledy hens because their colouring is truly fantastic with so many different shades on their feathers. 

That's very good getting 2 eggs a day especially as we are going through the colder months at the moment. We are lucky if we get one or two a day at the moment, mind you mine are old rescue girls now. They will be 4 years old in March, bless them.  I always miss my egg and chip supper when the colder months are here 🤣🤣🤣  Like you we sell our surplus eggs and we put the money in a tin and put it towards buying their next lot of bedding and feed. I tell my girls that they must pay their way but for some reason they just ignore me 🤣🤣🤣

Them moulting is not a problem, you will just notice there are lots of loose feathers to pick up and your girls will look bedraggled for a bit. Further, in the year, you will probably notice a slight drop in eggs whilst they are growing their feathers back for the Winter colder months. I always look at mine when they have moulted and think what a scruffy bunch of hens I have, bless them. When they are fully feathered again for Winter they all look beautiful. 

Edwink x

RebekahR

Bummer! We have worms! I posted a picture on a facebook group and they all went mad telling me that there are tape worm eggs in the poo. Hubby reluctant to do a vets visit due to price and wants to try standard wormer first. This is all new to us. Can only get 20kg with delivery this week which is a pain as I only have 3 birds!

edwink

RebekahR said:

Bummer! We have worms! I posted a picture on a facebook group and they all went mad telling me that there are tape worm eggs in the poo. Hubby reluctant to do a vets visit due to price and wants to try standard wormer first. This is all new to us. Can only get 20kg with delivery this week which is a pain as I only have 3 birds!

Hi RebekahR

Unfortunately, standard wormers are a preventative measure and won't get rid of worms if your girls already have them. Are you sure your girls have Tapeworms and not other worms like Gape or Roundworms? Have a look at the following link which will help to distinguish which worms they have. I'm not saying the guys on Facebook are wrong but best to check for yourself in the following link. If they do have Tapeworms you will need to see a vet as they will be able to prescribe medication for your girls to get rid of them. 
https://www.bhwt.org.uk/hen-health/health-problems/worms/

Maybe you could show your local vet the picture you put on Facebook of the worm eggs and see if they will prescribe medication for your girls?  

As a preventative, you can get a product like Verm-x to use. There are various ones available that you can purchase in most good pet shops or widely available online.

You can also buy poultry pellet feed that has Fluebervent in it. Is that the product you mention that you can only get 20kg of? If so that is a preventative and not a treatment. 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heygates-Layer-Pellets-with-flubenvet/dp/B00YNG8HA2/ref=asc_df_B00YNG8HA2/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=255478647081&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1929168375219235595&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006786&hvtargid=pla-705888066950&psc=1

The link below has a fair bit of information on different poultry worms and details of the wormers you can buy. Worth a look at if you haven't seen it already.
https://www.flytesofancy.co.uk/Information-Centre/post/poultry-worms-treat-and-prevent.

Also found this 
https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/internal-parasite-control-pellets-for-chickens-250gm?

Something like this would be very useful especially as they are confined to their run at the moment. This is a product that is sprinkled in their house and on the ground and claims it will kill worms of all stages.
https://www.flytesofancy.co.uk/net-tex-ground-sanitising-powder.html


Edwink 

Cheery_Daff

You could try sending away one of the testing kits to check before you treat - they're pretty quick. You order a test through the post, then collect poo in a test tube and send it back, and they email you the results. I'll post a link when it's not 5.30am 😂

I confess I thought flubenvet was a treatment (as opposed to stuff like vemm x) but happy to be corrected. I usually use flubenvet but this last time tested first so I wasn't giving it if not necessary - tests confirmed they didn't have worms.

Good luck!

edwink

Cheery_Daff said:

You could try sending away one of the testing kits to check before you treat - they're pretty quick. You order a test through the post, then collect poo in a test tube and send it back, and they email you the results. I'll post a link when it's not 5.30am 😂

I confess I thought flubenvet was a treatment (as opposed to stuff like vemm x) but happy to be corrected. I usually use flubenvet but this last time tested first so I wasn't giving it if not necessary - tests confirmed they didn't have worms.

Good luck!

Hi Cheery

You are correct in that Flubervent is a treatment but in a much higher dose that would normally be prescribed by a vet. The flubervent which is mixed with pellet feed is a much smaller dose, so more like a maintenance dose, I guess, that is given in place or their normal pellets. I am not sure about the feeding guidelines of the pellets which contain Flubervent off the top of my head especially at silly-o-clock in the morning.

Verm-x is a herbal wormer that is meant to stop chickens from getting them. 

You were up at silly-o-clock this morning too. Are you ok?

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Thanks edwink, I wasn't up, just awake - going through a very unusual phase of sleeping pretty badly 🙄 Not normal for me at all! 

Ah, didn't realise that about flubenvet doses. When we've used it, I've bought the powder and mixed it with food which was a pain in the bum! One of the reasons I checked with the testing kit this time.

This is the one I used (although I remember it being a bit cheaper so maybe I bought it from someone else!) It was definitely a chicken vet one though


Darn it, the link won't paste!! It's the British Hen Welfare Trust worm testing kit anyway, £14 but as I say, I think I remember paying £10 ish (I bought three so I'd have them for next time)