Keeping hens and ducks chat.

edwink

Hi everyone

It's quiet on here at the moment.  Maybe our new soon to be hen keepers are still busy getting everything set up in preparation for their new arrivals.  Please do let us know how you are getting on when you finally get your hens when you get time?.

All is good here. thankfully. Hoppy is still getting out of bed mid morning now which isn't a problem. She is eating well and looking after herself keeping her feathers in nice condition, which is good. The only change in her during her old age besides getting out of bed later is she doesn't swim in the pond for as long as she used to but I am not concerned about that because she is still keeping herself clean which is the important thing for her to do. The hens are really quiet in this heat and spend quite a lot of time just sitting in a shady area somewhere. All their feathers look good too and they are eating well but I have noticed a little less during this heat. But, they never say no to mealworms any time of day, that's for sure.

I hope all is well with everyone.

Edwink x

orangecrush

Hello hen friends,

It’s been ages since I posted. I’ve just had my hands full with a new house (that is STILL being renovated) and new baby (who is 10 months already 😱) and new job.

Our feathery pests are still pestering away. My eldest child has taken against them as one of them stole his tuna sandwich a few weeks ago. The other pecked his new crocs. They’re also not laying anymore. Freeloaders.

Attached a pic of the sandwich thief! 

MysteryMe

Ha, the look of what's all the fuss about!

Glad Hoppy is taking things easy Edwink

edwink

Orangecrush...... lovely to see you on here again.  Congratulations on your new baby. Gosh, you have been so so busy, crikey that's a lot you have had to deal with, no wonder you've been rushed off your feet.  Always nice to see you on our hen thread when you get time.

I did have a chuckle when you wrote about your sandwich thief and what a gorgeous picture of the culprit, bless her. I wear croc's outside all summer and I've had mine pecked too so I know what hens are capable of when they want to get up to mischief. 


MysteryMe...... Hoppy is definitely taking things easy, that's for sure.  She is definitely a pampered duck. She is clearly aging now, so we are just making her as comfortable as possible. We have noticed now that she doesn't spend more than a few minutes in the pond every day so to help her with her washing/preening we have dug out an area of her run so she has a mini pond in there now.  We dug this out yesterday and today and filled it with water this afternoon. She has taken to it already but didn't stay in there very long either but it is early days with it. The thought behind making it for her was to give her the freedom to go in and out of it when she is in her run. We have to be careful here now since our fox attack so we do get Hoppy and the hens into their runs earlier than we used to every evening. And, as they are not locked up for the night until nearly dark it will give her time to have a swim before bedtime if she wants to, bless her.


Hope everyone and their hens are ok in this hot weather.  Hen's are pretty good as a rule at controlling their body temperature, which is good but I am not too pleased it is going to be so hot tomorrow and Tuesday.  We are in Hertfordshire and will get temperatures of around 35C+ according to the forecast so will put some ice blocks in their water to help cool them a bit. We will bring Hoppy down near the house in a shaded area where she will stay cooler.  We've attached a thick tablecloth to some outdoor chairs and put her under it in a corner with 2 full washing up bowls of water. She has been managing ok in her little homemade tent with the hot weather so far but I hope it is not too hot for her in the next 2 days. I'll just have to keep an eye on her throughout the day.

Take care in this heat everyone.

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Morning all,

Glad Hoppy is ok edwink, and your little tent sounds adorable! Orangecrush, I did laugh at your naughty chicken stealing a sandwich. I think they know children are easy targets! 😂 Oh dear! Hope she has redeemed herself. 

All ok here. We have been putting a frozen bottle of water in the hen house at night to stop it getting too wildly hot - I think it's helping, although we have to put it in after they've gone to bed or else they won't go in! Funny girls. I've put the greenhouse thermometer in there, and it didn't get lower than 18 degrees last night. We left the hen house door open so they could get out as soon as they wanted to for a drink this morning (the run is secure so they're fine).

Plenty of shade here, and like yours edwink, they're mostly just sitting in it. Their main dust baths are under a row of conifers so that's cool, although does get the sun for part of the day. They've created a secondary dust bath near our front steps which they spend a lot of time in - they're near the house so can see immediately when a treat is in the offing... 😂

I'm going to ring the vets about Bonny today I think. She's always had trouble with soft shelled eggs, and often has a bit of a mucky bum because of it. In the last 2 weeks though, three times I've seen her do a dropping which has had a bit of a lash egg with it, all rubbery and disgusting. I think that usually means they're fighting an infection. She seems fine in herself, and she's seen the vet a while ago for the same thing, but I'm wondering if an implant is wise as a precautionary measure at this point given how long it's been going on for.

Anyway, certainly won't be taking her in the car until the heat has passed, but might try to schedule for later in the week. 

Hope all your ladies fair well in the heat x

Cheery_Daff

This is where our chickens have spent most of the day - in our kitchen, helping me with the DIY 😂😂

Nice and cool in here, it's like a cave. Just going to let them stop in here as long as they want today and tomorrow.

edwink

Hi everyone

I hope everyone and their feathered friends are ok. We have several in the family with Covid right now but thankfully they are slowly recovering. One of them is a little 3 year old boy and the poor little man doesn't know what to do with himself  😦😦😦 We had an 86 year old relative with Covid not long ago but thankfully he is fully recovered now, bless him.  

I must say my girls are not liking this heat one bit and are just sitting around relaxing and snoozing. Two of them even turned their noses up to some strawberries 😮😮😮  Maybe I should have got them some grapes instead, might do that in our next shop. They have been dust bathing besides snoozing so they have moved their fluffy bottoms a little bit today.

Hoppy is no longer lounging under her tent because it is nowhere near as hot as it was last week. We are south facing so were sweltering over those two really hot days and although still hot here it is better than it was last week.

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Aw, bless your family edwink. I've got covid myself at the minute, and I can well imagine a 3 year old not understanding 🙄

Sorry to hear you're still having hot weather. We've had several days of rain now! I let our ladies out this morning, but by about 2pm they were all just standing huddled in our tiny porch, and had been for at least half an hour 🙄 I tempted them back upto their own run - it's dry in there too, and there's food, water, perches, and FAR more room than in our porch, but somehow our porch is preferable (probably just waiting for a treat...)

edwink

Cheery_Daff said:

Aw, bless your family edwink. I've got covid myself at the minute, and I can well imagine a 3 year old not understanding 🙄

Sorry to hear you're still having hot weather. We've had several days of rain now! I let our ladies out this morning, but by about 2pm they were all just standing huddled in our tiny porch, and had been for at least half an hour 🙄 I tempted them back upto their own run - it's dry in there too, and there's food, water, perches, and FAR more room than in our porch, but somehow our porch is preferable (probably just waiting for a treat...)

Hi Cheery, I've been following your Simple Living thread and saw on there that you had Covid, bless you. You need to take it a bit easier eh? I know you will probably get bored like I do if I am forced to rest but I always believe that rest is a good healer. Glad to read you have been catching up on some knitting during your downtime resting. Be lovely to see you over on the sewing thread once you get yourself up and running in your sewing room. That thread is addictive and really is the motivation most of us need on there to use our stashes of material and wool etc. Stops the spending on buying crafting materials too as we set ourselves a target spending amount for the year.  It's all good fun.


One of my girls came out yesterday morning looking like nothing on this earth, she looked absolutely dreadful.  I did my normal let's have a cuddle and a feel about to see if I could spot what was wrong and noticed straight away that she had a very squishy watery crop and I smelt her breath which was awful. I knew straight away it was Sour Crop so myself and Mr Edwink gently massaged her crop until she looked like she was going to be sick and then tipped her upside down and that made her bring all the smelly liquid up and a few undigested food bits too, YUK!.  We did this several times until her crop was as empty as we could make it. Then we syringed watered down Apple Cider Vinegar into her throat and brought her down near the house to rest away from the others. Definitely paid off because when we took her up to bed with the others last night she did appear a bit brighter. Mr Edwink placed her on the nighttime perches earlier than when the others went to bed to give her a chance to bed down and be sleeping before they went in themselves. We were chuffed this morning to see her even brighter still and definitely looking more like herself. 

She is out with the others today with us close by and they are not bothering her at all which is excellent. We have been monitoring her closely all day and will continue to do so over the next coming days.  I don't want to speak too soon but it does look like we have caught this problem early and managed to empty her crop enough to allow the Apple Cider Vinegar to work its magic.  Bless her, I do hate it when they are ill  😥😥😥

I'll update to let you all know how she is.

Edwink x

Cheery_Daff

Aw bless her edwink xxx Hope she makes a full recovery. I don't think we've ever had one with sour crop, thank goodness. I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to tip them to empty the crop, I'd be so scared of doing it wrong and choking them. It is indeed awful when they're ill!

Bonny did another dropping yesterday with some rubbery yellow stuff in, so I'm glad she's going to the vets on Thursday as clearly whatever's going on in there isn't clearing up. She's still acting fine, but I'd rather get it seen to.

I didn't realise there was a sewing thread edwink! Clearly need to get myself over there. I've been using up some of my stash making cushions from an old duvet, and cushion covers from fabric I've had lying round for years, this week. Will investigate 😊