Keeping hens and ducks chat.

suki1964

She is taking water if I get her out. She sometimes pecks at corn and meal worms, sometimes not

It's her not pooping that has me concerned. The nest and eggs are spotless

I lift her out and she's just in a trance. I splash the water about to make her drink but if I try to "wake her" she gets clucky and heads straight back to the nest clucking away

She is so gentle with the eggs. She is one of my smallest girls and yet manages to puff herself up to twice the size to get them all under her safely

oldandhappy

isn't having hens and ducks wonderful......we went from 4 ducks to 8 so easily thanks to hens not ducks.....miss them but know they are happy and safe at Mantel Farm with our mate.....Bob and Sue our last ducks certainly went through it together....Sue lost the sight in one eye suddenly..not sure what happened but we had to fence off the duck pen into two...lucky we had two ponds. Bob looked after Sue and helped her adjust it was magical to watch them. He never left her side and guided her around wherever she wanted to go...we use to let them out the pen daily for a wreck around the garden as we called it. We would have to keep a close eye on them all because the location was next to farmland etc...Mr Fox and his crew was never far away...daytime just as worrying there...Sue was a funny duck a bit off the norm..she would make real funny quacks and do silly(funny)dances...bless her. They where a real happy pair but a few months after the first eye lost her second one looked odd so we rushed her to the Vets where he said her eye was still intact but only just...ointment twice a day and protection from the others including the hens we had then....still no idea what the reason was...maybe born with this weakness...her eye improved and her vision intact still....Bob though the devoted partner as always was just there for her.....BW Dianne

edwink

Hi Suki

Can you try and see if she has anything in her crop. In the mornings it will always be empty and the evenings should be full as you probably already know. Sometimes when they don't eat enough the crop slows down somewhat. Happygreen is right when she will do a poo it will be huge because she will do the lot in one go. Also remember she is not active so really does not need the amount of food she would need if she were running about and acting like a looney like the rest of your girls.

Can you put some food in with her so she can nibble at it. Anything as long as she eats. If any of mine are not eating I mix their food with water so when they do eat a little they get some water with it too. Maybe give her some sweetcorn as they never normally refuse that.

Hope that is some help. Please let us know how she is getting on. We do worry about our ickle hens on here.

Edwink x

edwink

oldandhappy wrote: »

isn't having hens and ducks wonderful......we went from 4 ducks to 8 so easily

Hi oldandhappy

I totally agree about how wonderful it is having them.

We went from 4 rescue ducks then later 12 rescue hens. then had to rehome 2 of the ducks because sadly we had 3 drakes :eek: A friend of our took them both and they are both living happily with her. Then a few more rescue ducks, 2 females, 6 more rescue hens and the list goes on. Now have 32 in total including 7 ducks.

When we hit 28 we said that was it but sadly we had a few losses over a time then got another 15 rescue hens.

Loads of space for them all to freerange here with lots of safety netting around the boundaries. So they are free to go wherever they want to so they all have space to be free and relax.

We have just modified the hens nesting box to make it bigger since we took in another 15 rescue hens and put 3 more roosting bars in their hotel.

They do give me so much joy that I never expected.

Keep your stories coming. How nice you have such lovely memories of when you had yours. Hopefully when I am older I will have lovely fond memories as you do now.
Thank you so much for posting

Edwink x

oldandhappy

some events have been very sad of course but the joy overruns all that luckily....
Now Puddles our female duck( one our first of the four ducks we had)Her partner was Splash and a complete nightmare when in season....
One day we noticed a horrid site hanging from Puddles rear end...we had no idea but it looked like her inners where hanging out. Asked our friends at Mantel Farm for ideas...and they knew that is was a vent prolapse. A serious condition. we also read about it on the internet, that was really helpful also. Chickens can suffer this condition also. We had to bathe her rear end with warm water pushing her innners in as often as we felt and dabbed her in something like Preparation H anything that helps to get the inflammation down,keep her in a quiet area with just light food and reading ahead if it does not go back the alternative was really not good....It seem to help some days and others where rather awful looking so much so that we did seriously think of having her put to sleep.... I seem to spend too much time looking at her backside just hoping today its a little better. It actually went on like this for several months because she seemed generally happy we could not see putting her to sleep was right...It certainly was not right seeing her as she was....But do you know one day it just went in and to this day now over 3 years ago...marvelous. We feared infection but that never happened thankfully.BW Dianne

oldandhappy

Puddles on the right Splash on the left

Happygreen

oh no, a couple of days ago 2 of my ducks disappeared....I have heard nothing at night or in the early mornings Since OH decided to cut my "hedge" I have some inaccessible parts of the garden, so my hope is that they might be sitting somewhere and will show up in a few weeks with their babies....although we can't really have any more.

edwink

All going ok here with the hens and ducks. Getting plenty of eggs still.

Sorry I have not been posting. My SIL who is under 50 years old is currently in intensive care on life Support. A worrying time for all our family.

Not been posting but have been reading your posts. Hope to be back on here ASAP.

Please keep posting as I love reading all your stories when I finally get home in the evening..

Take care all

Edwink x

oldandhappy

Sorry to her of that news...I have been in tha tsituation of an intentive care ward on life support and made it obviously....just depends on so much...hope all goes well for her.


We found this evening on our walk around the garden...its an acre so a good walk...6 hen eggs in the bushes...we had 4 in the nesting box and JUST one in one of the barns...we have four chickens not more as far as I am aware!!!BW Dianne

Better_Days

Very sorry to hear about your SIL edwink
Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Any news on your ducks Happygreen?

Hens here are laying well, a regular 6/7 a day. The crossbreed Araucana is a little off colour, not awful but not 100% either. DH has put some poultry tonic in the water which wont do any of them any harm. She was off colour a couple of days last week too when my neighbour was looking after them. She sent her husband round the next morning as she was afraid the hen might have 'fallen off her perch'. It's always worse when it is someone else's animals. Sounds like they were thoroughly spoilt while we were away