Heavenly Marans from Heavent Sent Ranch

In early June, I received a dozen chicks from Heaven Sent Ranch in California (the state, not the Maryland city). I ordered an even dozen, expecting to loose a couple, either in transit or while growing out.

But I certainly had better results with these chicks - they all are healthy and kickin' .. or rather cluckin... 3 months later.

Alas, I got more cockerels then pullets, 7 vs 5 if I count right. They are all getting beautiful feathers... did I say they were Black Copper Marans (or BCMs). They are turning out rather gorgeous - lots of red-copper feathers on the necks and backs. Pretty mellow guys overall. I will have to take some recent photos, the last batch was before all the lovely color started coming fore.

However, we need to make a bigger pen for them so they have more room. At the moment they are in a chicken tractor but I think at 6x8 it's a tad small. And over-built so it's heavy as the dickens so it's a two person move, which means its not getting moved every day.  The good news is it is VERY sturdy - no problems with the winds and rains from Irene and Lee.

Horse waterers - finally!

Oh Happy Day !!!!

The Horse Waterers are getting installed, just in time before we have to put the hoses away each day. After two winters, I am glad to be moving past that trouble. Last winter was especially "interesting" - dragging 200 feet of hoses from the garage through 2 feet of snow a couple times a week wasn't too bad. However draining the hoses after use and putting them away was a mess.

We are installing two Nelson Waterers. One is in the shed so it will be positioned between two stalls should we decide we need a stall in the future. The other is outside on the heavy use pad, located so that if we enlarge the shed length-wise it too will be between two stalls.

The heavy use pad we started before the first snow storm last winter has been enlarged and improved by one of our neighbors, who is a general contractor and also put in our septic system when we built the house. I love it, it is much better than what we had last winter, most importantly it has finer, stone dust on top so it makes it easier to clean.

Not sure what happened with this - it was suppose to have posted last winter! Ahh well, lack of attention on my part, I guess.

hiatus over - internet frustrations abound

It's been some time since I last posted. Life got a bit busy...or I got a bit lazy. Or both.

Or my internet connection just frustrated me.

Minor rant -- It is crazy to live within 30 minutes of the White House and not have a high speed internet connection. Verizon's vaunted Fios service ends at the road before ours, less than a quarter mile between intersections. I could walk through the woods and fields about 20 minutes on foot (or less than 5 minutes around by car) and reach the Fios cable and touch high speed connectivity. But when questioned, Verizon does not know when they will run Fios the last quarter mile from that road to ours.

Without putting in a satellite dish and committing $$ and signing a new contract, we make due with a cell company air card -- e.g. we get our internet the same way most people get cell phone calls. Which means we also experience a LOT of drop outs when people are at home making calls.....which is, of course, about the same time we are home and want to use the internet.

We've had the air card a couple years now and might  have better connectivity with a newer card. But the new card contracts will greatly limit the amount of bandwidth we can get for our money. And as our sole source of connection to the world, bandwidth/dollar IS important.

Also it is again crazy that, within 30 minutes of the White House, we also experience as many power outages as we do. But we are truly stuck with Pepco - one of the lowest rated power companies in the USA. We can get our electricity from another source, but we still have the failure-prone Pepco delivering that electricity to us. Can't say that deregulation of the electric companies has been beneficial for this area. Pepco has many well-publicized "improvements" planned or in progress, which of course the Public Service Commission is allowing Pepco to charge to the customers to recover their costs while maintaining their excellent earnings.

Wish off-grid was a viable option, but with a mostly electric house, the cost for solar and/or wind is prohibitive.

Ossie well on the mend

I have been pretty busy at work and at home and I haven't had a lot of time to post and update on Ossie's health.

We found a very nice vet, Dr Adam Terry, at All Kinds Veterinary in Callaway. It was quite a drive but he is worth the trip.

I drove Ossie down one evening last month - the drive was longer than it looked in mapquest!

Dr Adam did an exam and gave me some good advice. Dr Adam has a lot of experience with exotic birds but the pet chicken wasn't the norm. He took it well in stride.  Based on the treatment we had already started, we came up with a treatment plan that was a bit short of the ideal but doable with our commute and work schedule.

We continued the Tylan 50 for another week or so, then waited a couple weeks for the drug to clear Ossie's system.  I then booked another after-work appointment and made the long drive in a noticeable darker evening (I do hate the darkness of a pending winter!). Dr Adam checked Ossie, commented that he looked much improved, drew some blood and we were on our way home.

I received a call from the office asking to bring Ossie back for a tracheal swab (!)   After a return trip in a totally dark sky, the swab was done, fresh blood drawn, and Dr Adam shipped the material to the Eastern Shore lab.

Meanwhile, Ossie appears almost well. He does have a bit of dried nose snot on one nostril most mornings, which we clean out. Each day the amount is smaller. He is allowed out of his kennel to roam the yard while I feed the horses in morning, then crated while I am at work and the rest of the flock is in the yard.

The opposite sequence is followed in the evening. The other birds are fed and locked up for the night and he is allowed out to roam as we feed the horses. That part is getting tricky - luckily he likes to eat (!) and is waiting to go into his kennel when we finish with the horses, otherwise we wouldn't be able to see the dark bird in a dark yard! One day last weekend, he followed me halfway to the horse shed and ambushed me on my return trip. He is funny to watch as he runs to keep up.

Still waiting for final test results and whether we need to do additional treatment.

Since it's getting cold, I hope to resolve this soon so we can put Ossie in with the other birds before winter.

Worsening Eyes, But No Vet in Town

Well Ossie's eyes weren't getting better.

He was not recovering as fast as his (as yet unnamed) Orpington sibling, who has been happily running the roost in the new tractor with the guineas and our Wyandotte.

It looked like Ossie's back feathers were also getting pecked by the other, healthier birds, so we segregated him and put him back in the garage.

Friday his eyes had swollen such that, from directly above, his head looked like a round ball. We needed to step up the treatment plan.

A search of some of the forums showed the possibility of a vet north of Baltimore ...probably a 90+ minute drive. I tried to find a local vet who would look at his eyes.

Our equine vet had provided some good general guidance, but also said he wasn't a bird expert.

So I tried the dog vet. No luck there.... but they did recommend another vet.

A call to that vet was unfruitful - no bird vet there (or no interest in looking at a chicken). However they recommended still another vet who they said did pet birds like cockatoos, etc.

I called the 2nd referral vet and came up with a winner.....however the bird vet was out till Monday. I took the first available appointment...even though they were located about an hour away in Callaway ( a town I had never heard of before).

Ossie's eyes looked bad, very painful. However, he was getting around fine, eating like a pig - contrary to what one thinks when one hears the phrase "eating like a bird".

Last weeks' online research suggested numerous causes and treatments. We went with administration of Tylan 50. This necessitated a drive to the nearest TSC, which is about 50-60 minutes away for the Tylan. Then a drive to a local Southern States (in the opposite direction we had to go to get to TSC) for some opthalmic ointment. Of course it would have been too, too convenient if one store had both items we needed!

So, after a stop at a regular drug store for more items, we got our medical supplies and went with a plan:
1 Clean the eyes with eye wash (Big Box drug store) 2x/day
2 Cover the eyes with the opthalmic ointment (Southern States) 2x/day
3 Adminster Tylan 50 (TSC) 0.5cc 1x/day

This helped considerably - the swelling was down significantly the next day and almost entirely gone by Sunday.  I still anxiously awaited the visit to the vet scheduled for Monday.........................................

What to do about Ossie's swollen eyes?

Ossie, the Black Marans is not doing so well.

His eyes are still swollen after a week of Sulmet (sulfa mixed with his water) and I have had to separate him from the others as it looks like they have been pecking at his back feathers (I haven't witnessed this but the feathers are bare in areas of his back). It did seem that he wasn't eating as much as the others and they would run him over while he was snoozing, so I seperated him.

The other birds are outside in their tractor, sleeping in a pet carrier at night while the coop is finished.

Ossie is mostly in a box in the garage with his doctored water and seperate feeder. During the day, when it isn't too hot, I put him outside so he and the others can see each other. I put his container right up against the end of the tractor. I hope this will make them stay familiar with each other so when he is stronger I can put him back with the others and they won't attack him.

I need to find a chicken doctor, or an experienced mentor to look at him and advise me of the best course of action. I have been looking at garden coaches.... I wonder if I can find a chicken coach??

I may have to post to one of the chicken bulletin boards to ask for advice.

Another one bites the dust

Sorry to say the Buff Bantam Cochin died. I don't know what was wrong - after the eye infection it just never recovered. A shame as it was rather cute - stayed a little puff ball of gold and had a great attitude...didn't seem to notice it was smaller than the others.

That leaves me with three chickens and three guineas...all still living in their respective brood boxes in the garage.

When I go downstairs to feed the horses every morning, I open the garage doos nearest the birds to air out the bird smell and give them some fresh air. After feeding the horses, I close the door and leave the overhead lights on. They are right inside the garage door so get daylight from the windows in the doors.

We need to get going on the chicken tractor and give them some fresh air.