Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

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SteveR
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Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by SteveR »

One of my chickens is in bad shape, went to check on them this am and she was on the ground outside the coop. She was barely moving, I have her inside by the pellet stove now. She is breathing, but her not awake. Praying she will make it.
I don't remember this cold since the 1970's when I young and the frost was so bad. Lucky for us is we have a layer of 2-3 feet of snow for insulation.

I just hope it warms up to at least the 20's, but I will have to bring the rest of my chickens in to the outer garage tonight(its a balmy 35 degrees). I don't want any of the other chickens to get hurt.

Steve

Grumpy just couldn't pull though. She tried but lost the fight. Al least she was warm and had a soft place at the end.
Amazing how these stupid ball of feathers can become family.

Steve
Last edited by SteveR on Sat Feb 21, 2015 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by Griff »

I'm headed home from Las Vegas where it was a sizzling 78º yesterday. Hopefully, with the tailwind, I'll bring some f that warmth w/me! Maybe it'll continue eastward!
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by Streetstar »

SteveR wrote:One of my chickens is in bad shape, went to check on them this am and she was on the ground outside the coop. She was barely moving, I have her inside by the pellet stove now. She is breathing, but her not awake. Praying she will make it.
I don't remember this cold since the 1970's when I young and the frost was so bad. Lucky for us is we have a layer of 2-3 feet of snow for insulation.

I just hope it warms up to at least the 20's, but I will have to bring the rest of my chickens in to the outer garage tonight(its a balmy 35 degrees). I don't want any of the other chickens to get hurt.

Steve
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by sore shoulder »

It's funny how chickens can be very pet like. We had one that would hop up in your lap and cuddle with the dog when my kids were little. Hope she pulls through.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by Blaine »

Hope your bird makes it :(
I should be able to squeeze in a Harley ride tomorrow. 8)
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by gamekeeper »

Well Steve if your chicken does expire at least she is in the warm, I hope she pulls through.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by AmBraCol »

Sorry to hear about your hen, Steve. Cold is something we never had to worry about when I raised chickens way back when - in the Amazon basin. Heat? Yeah, that was the danger, along with lizards and 'possums. As long as we kept shade and water available, they did OK with the heat.

My cousin had a little pullet that the others took a dislike to. They pecked her head until it was a bloody mess. When he saw it and rescued her she was blind, but he managed to pull her through. She became quite a pet and when they moved to a different area he left her with me as he didn't want to risk her getting lost in the jungle. I'd grind up exotic mashes including egg shells, beans, corn, whatever for her. Place it in a pan in front of her and she'd clean it up. She'd lay her egg every day - in a different place. Wherever she happened to be when the urge came over her, there she'd lay her egg. She was free range before I'd ever heard of the term. At evening time she'd do her best to get up on a roost somewhere, wherever she happened to be. She might end up a half inch off the ground or thirty feet up. Either way she'd come off the roost the same way, flapping her wings with legs going. As soon as she felt the ground she'd put the brakes on and start exploring to "see" where she'd ended up. We'd call her and she'd answer and start walking towards us. Then one day she didn't answer, nor the next, or the next. A couple weeks later we found out why, when dad pulled the boards off of the cesspool we'd dug but not completely finished yet. It was well covered, but she managed to find the one place where there was a small hole after a slight downward slope. Walking down the slope she must have run into the edge of the board and ducked under it. We found her remains floating there. She'd been such a pet that losing her hit real hard. Funny how we can get attached to a bundle of feathers.

Anyway, sure hope yours pulls through.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by SteveR »

Can't wait for it Griff, have a safe trip!! You too Blaine!

Thanks everybody for the posts! She has been getting the hairdryer next to the pellet stove treatment, she is sitting up now, much better than when I first found her.
I think my mouth to beak resuscitation worked. She seemed to breath a little after I tried that at first. I will nurse her alone till she wakes up and give her some sugar/salt water.
Paul you really said how they little feathered birds can really make you love them.

I read someplace that chickens were jungle birds at first, funny how they can adapt to the cold. Well back to chicken nursing.

Thanks again everybody,
Steve
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by J35 »

SteveR wrote:One of my chickens is in bad shape, went to check on them this am and she was on the ground outside the coop. She was barely moving, I have her inside by the pellet stove now. She is breathing, but her not awake. Praying she will make it.
I don't remember this cold since the 1970's when I young and the frost was so bad. Lucky for us is we have a layer of 2-3 feet of snow for insulation.

I just hope it warms up to at least the 20's, but I will have to bring the rest of my chickens in to the outer garage tonight(its a balmy 35 degrees). I don't want any of the other chickens to get hurt.

Steve
Random thoughts

A Dunk in warm water is not out of the question, and then a quick blow dry.

They are first cousins to a reptile so are pretty cold blooded.

I never raised chickens in New york but if your coop is tight so as to keep the wind off, things should be fine.

Maybe if the others are fine, this one is just weak and should be culled.

Fill them up with whole corn in the evening, there gizzard action creates heat that will get them thru the night.

Maybe your coop is to big for the number of bodies you have, smaller coop for small numbers in winter will help keep all warm.

Straw is your friend and a heat lamp as a last resort.

good luck------J
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by superchicken »

I heard it was pretty rough up there. When we lived in Syracuse, we used to enjoy the really cold times because the clouds would freeze and fall out of the sky. The first winter we were there I almost turned into a mushroom for lack of sunshine and jt snowed for 45 days straight with lake-effect. The second winter was sunnier because it stayed in the -20s for 2-3 weeks and the lake froze over. Nowadays we live in the southern plains. It was 82 here in the TX Panhandle today. Warmer than south Florida. Weather like this usually means something is coming and the forecast is calling for snow on Sunday. Someone once told me the the southern plains are a place the the mean temperature or precipitation never actually happens. It's all about the extremes here. Hope it warms up for you and I hope the hen comes around.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by rjohns94 »

Prayers up that she pulls through well
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by SteveR »

J35nut wrote:
SteveR wrote:One of my chickens is in bad shape, went to check on them this am and she was on the ground outside the coop. She was barely moving, I have her inside by the pellet stove now. She is breathing, but her not awake. Praying she will make it.
I don't remember this cold since the 1970's when I young and the frost was so bad. Lucky for us is we have a layer of 2-3 feet of snow for insulation.

I just hope it warms up to at least the 20's, but I will have to bring the rest of my chickens in to the outer garage tonight(its a balmy 35 degrees). I don't want any of the other chickens to get hurt.

Steve
Random thoughts

A Dunk in warm water is not out of the question, and then a quick blow dry.

They are first cousins to a reptile so are pretty cold blooded.

I never raised chickens in New york but if your coop is tight so as to keep the wind off, things should be fine.

Maybe if the others are fine, this one is just weak and should be culled.

Fill them up with whole corn in the evening, there gizzard action creates heat that will get them thru the night.

Maybe your coop is to big for the number of bodies you have, smaller coop for small numbers in winter will help keep all warm.

Straw is your friend and a heat lamp as a last resort.

good luck------J
Good advise, thank you. The others are doing fine, I did bring them in though last night.
I think she was sick and that is what caused her to be outside, I got her up and she seems to be sleeping, I found a lot of chicken lice on her, I bet that is causing her to be so weak. I am keeping her away form the others and hope to get her fixed up.

Steve
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

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superchicken wrote:I heard it was pretty rough up there. When we lived in Syracuse, we used to enjoy the really cold times because the clouds would freeze and fall out of the sky. The first winter we were there I almost turned into a mushroom for lack of sunshine and jt snowed for 45 days straight with lake-effect. The second winter was sunnier because it stayed in the -20s for 2-3 weeks and the lake froze over. Nowadays we live in the southern plains. It was 82 here in the TX Panhandle today. Warmer than south Florida. Weather like this usually means something is coming and the forecast is calling for snow on Sunday. Someone once told me the the southern plains are a place the the mean temperature or precipitation never actually happens. It's all about the extremes here. Hope it warms up for you and I hope the hen comes around.
Thanks for posting, I don't think I could do lake effect snow and cold you folks had out there. I was in Malone and all along the border to Plattsburgh in 1999 fixing the destruction from that icestorm.
Glad you move to better conditions!! In a few years I will be following your led and getting out of this lousy state.

Steve
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

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rjohns94 wrote:Prayers up that she pulls through well
Thanks! She seems better, now to get her well.

Steve
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by AmBraCol »

Sorry to hear she lost the fight. :(
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by Ysabel Kid »

AmBraCol wrote:Sorry to hear she lost the fight. :(
+1. Any animal we care for can become part of our families. Never easy to lose any of them...
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by sore shoulder »

Aww man. Never pleasant. I was really pulling for that chicken. :(
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon

Post by superchicken »

SteveR wrote:
superchicken wrote:I heard it was pretty rough up there. When we lived in Syracuse, we used to enjoy the really cold times because the clouds would freeze and fall out of the sky. The first winter we were there I almost turned into a mushroom for lack of sunshine and jt snowed for 45 days straight with lake-effect. The second winter was sunnier because it stayed in the -20s for 2-3 weeks and the lake froze over. Nowadays we live in the southern plains. It was 82 here in the TX Panhandle today. Warmer than south Florida. Weather like this usually means something is coming and the forecast is calling for snow on Sunday. Someone once told me the the southern plains are a place the the mean temperature or precipitation never actually happens. It's all about the extremes here. Hope it warms up for you and I hope the hen comes around.
Thanks for posting, I don't think I could do lake effect snow and cold you folks had out there. I was in Malone and all along the border to Plattsburgh in 1999 fixing the destruction from that icestorm.
Glad you move to better conditions!! In a few years I will be following your led and getting out of this lousy state.

Steve
Sorry to hear she didn't make it.

On the conditions outside of NYS verses inside. No lake effect snow here and darned few cloudy days, but we do get epic dust storms and 114 degrees with 2% RH and 35 mph winds can make your eyeballs shrivel into raisins. However, I've lived enough places that I've learned to make the best of it. Hope your run of cold weather passes soon.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by J35 »

A good remedy for bugs on chickens is to mix Sevin dust in melted Vaseline.

If you can find the 10% Sevin dust it works longer than the 5%.

Mix as much dust in as the Vaseline will take and still be spreadable when cool.

Put a small dab under each wing where the wing connects to the body and another dab at the base of the neck and then just above the vent. The vent is where lice get their moisture and lay their eggs.

My dab is about the size of a pinto bean and make sure to get in on the skin not just the feathers.

The beauty of this is it will keep the lice in check for 60 to 90 days with a single application.

-----J
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

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Thanks for the replies, they mean a lot!!

Steve
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by SteveR »

J35nut wrote:A good remedy for bugs on chickens is to mix Sevin dust in melted Vaseline.

If you can find the 10% Sevin dust it works longer than the 5%.

Mix as much dust in as the Vaseline will take and still be spreadable when cool.

Put a small dab under each wing where the wing connects to the body and another dab at the base of the neck and then just above the vent. The vent is where lice get their moisture and lay their eggs.

My dab is about the size of a pinto bean and make sure to get in on the skin not just the feathers.

The beauty of this is it will keep the lice in check for 60 to 90 days with a single application.

-----J
Thank you so much for the information about the Vaseline and Sevin. I will treat the other chickens with that tonight when they roost. We had been using the dust treatment, but it never seemed to work 100%, I think that with the Sevin actually on the birds will work so much better.

Thanks,
Steve
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by sore shoulder »

Well the cold finally made it up here. Weather map says it's 3 deg outside, but that reading is 15 miles away. I was outside cutting firewood and I'm calling the weather people liars. It's well below 0 right now.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by AJMD429 »

Other than when some dumb human (me) forgets to fully latch the gate, our chickens have done well, even in the sub-zero temperatures we often have.

Our coops are small doghouse-sized mobile ones (we sometimes attach a similarly-sized wire cage to one end and move them to a place we want to de-thatch or de-grub, with a bunch of small chickens or 3-4 big ones), and may stay warmer due to lower profile. They aren't insulated though - they are galvanized metal over grey pvc pipe mostly. We let the wood shavings used in their nest boxes slop onto the ground, and of course there is enough manure there to generate a bit of heat. The snow melts around the edge of the huts when it isn't all that cold. When it is really cold, we will throw some straw inside the units and pile it up around the ground-edge juncture to block wind. We keep a couple 40-60 watt bulbs going from fall solstice to spring solstice to encourage egg production and it helps a bit with heat.

Rarely has cold been a problem.

They run under our fruit trees in the summer and under the blackberries (more cover from owls and hawks) in the winter, and briefly in spring we let them till up the tomato patch (all are adjacent and fenced around with partitions separating them) and we have a 6 foot narrow-mesh fence around the whole area about 80 feet by 120 feet, topped by a hot wire, and the lowest 12" has metal 1" chicken-wire and we keep limestone driveway stone piled up a bit to discourage critters digging in.

No medications other than the vaccine they give the day-olds before shipping them out, and medicated feed for the first few weeks. Rotating the 'pastures' seems to help. We run 12-24 birds and they have an 80 foot long run and at least two 30-foot wide sections to roam in at any given time. They fairly well make it barren unfortunately, so we are always planting cover crops under the fruit trees.

Feed is a mix of scratch grains, layer pellets, and lots of kitchen scraps, plus any deer carcasses we are done butchering. Of course lots of bugs (we never have to spray our fruit trees) in summer.

Always we have thawed water with a 20-30 gallon trough low enough for them to reach.

We clip one wing (always we cut the LEFT wing, as a political statement :lol: ) so they can flap and scare predators but can't get the altitude to clear the fence and go out into dog-land.
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Re: Bad day today, hope it warms up soon-Grumpy RIP

Post by SteveR »

AJMD429 wrote:Other than when some dumb human (me) forgets to fully latch the gate, our chickens have done well, even in the sub-zero temperatures we often have.

Our coops are small doghouse-sized mobile ones (we sometimes attach a similarly-sized wire cage to one end and move them to a place we want to de-thatch or de-grub, with a bunch of small chickens or 3-4 big ones), and may stay warmer due to lower profile. They aren't insulated though - they are galvanized metal over grey pvc pipe mostly. We let the wood shavings used in their nest boxes slop onto the ground, and of course there is enough manure there to generate a bit of heat. The snow melts around the edge of the huts when it isn't all that cold. When it is really cold, we will throw some straw inside the units and pile it up around the ground-edge juncture to block wind. We keep a couple 40-60 watt bulbs going from fall solstice to spring solstice to encourage egg production and it helps a bit with heat.

Rarely has cold been a problem.

They run under our fruit trees in the summer and under the blackberries (more cover from owls and hawks) in the winter, and briefly in spring we let them till up the tomato patch (all are adjacent and fenced around with partitions separating them) and we have a 6 foot narrow-mesh fence around the whole area about 80 feet by 120 feet, topped by a hot wire, and the lowest 12" has metal 1" chicken-wire and we keep limestone driveway stone piled up a bit to discourage critters digging in.

No medications other than the vaccine they give the day-olds before shipping them out, and medicated feed for the first few weeks. Rotating the 'pastures' seems to help. We run 12-24 birds and they have an 80 foot long run and at least two 30-foot wide sections to roam in at any given time. They fairly well make it barren unfortunately, so we are always planting cover crops under the fruit trees.

Feed is a mix of scratch grains, layer pellets, and lots of kitchen scraps, plus any deer carcasses we are done butchering. Of course lots of bugs (we never have to spray our fruit trees) in summer.

Always we have thawed water with a 20-30 gallon trough low enough for them to reach.

We clip one wing (always we cut the LEFT wing, as a political statement :lol: ) so they can flap and scare predators but can't get the altitude to clear the fence and go out into dog-land.
Thanks for the laugh!!

Steve
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