3rd Week of Freedom

Sunday, 21 June 2009

Cleaning out time today so let the girls out of the house and run while I set to work with the rubber gloves, bucket of soapy water and brush.

The girls are really enjoying their new found freedom and are quite at home in the garden. Lucy and Dorothy in particular enjoy having dirt baths.

This is Dorothy


And this is a video of Lucy





I started to put the wire mesh onto the frames today.

It was harder than I thought as the wire is rolled up and as soon as the wire ties holding it together were un-done it sort of up-wound itself and shot off down the garden! My measurements were all wrong so I'll be cutting pieces to fit each section rather than having one large piece per frame.

Definitely a 2 person job - one has to staple while the other holds the roll and cuts - so it was just as well Robert's dad came over.

Found a fresh yellow poop sample (which hadn't been trodden in) so I managed to get some into an (un-used) cat wee sample tube I had from the Vet. The Ex Battery Forum has details about a laboratory which tests poultry poop samples and supplies medication. I'll contact them tomorrow.


Monday, 22 June 2009

6am - woke up with a cracking headache. Took the morning off work and after feeding and watering the girls I went back to bed for a couple of hours.

Called Retford Poultry (the lab for poop testing). The told me to send the sample to them with a brief history of the hens. They'd then test it and let me know what bacteria was found and what meds would be needed. It was already in one plastic bag and after wrapping it again I put it in a small padded envelope with the letter and took it to the post office on the way to work. Sent it 1st Class Recorded Delivery I bet they don't get much chicken poop pass over their counter!


Tuesday, 23 June 2009

Went out after work tonight with friends so this was my Mum's first "hen sitting" session. She let them out for a little while but had trouble getting them back in the run.


Wednesday, 24 June 2009

Called Retfod Poultry - the sample arrived today - so much for 1st class Recorded Delivery then! They asked me to call again tomorrow afternoon when they should have results.


Thursday, 25 June 2009

Called Retford Poultry. My yellow frothy poop contains Brachyspira - a form of Spirochaetes. She said that she usually sees this infection in large flocks but is increasingly seeing it in smaller ones.

She's sending me some antibiotics and antiseptic powder which I should get on Saturday.

There are occasions when I really wonder what I did before the internet came along, however, for matters such as this I scared the life out of myself when I googled spirochaetes. The bug itself is related to syphilis and lyme disease!

In the same search I found a picture of someone's leg with a huge red blotch on it and I've recently been bitten by a mozzie and have a similar, though much, much smaller, red blotch on my leg. Then one of my friends wondered whether this bug could be caught by my cats.

So it was another call to Retford to be reassured that this is a poultry version which can't be transferred to other species. That's a relief then.


Friday, 26 June 2009

My supply of Denagard 12.5% solution-Tiamulin Fumarate arrived from Retfords today. It says 2ml Tiamutin to 1 litre of water.

So I'll be adding it to their water tomorrow. However, they do make one hell of a mess in their waterer (cleaning their very dirty beaks in it the little minxes!) . I usually tip out the dirtied water replacing it with clean but they will have to live with it until they've finished their course of meds.

Saturday, 27 June 2009

Another hot and sunny day - ideal for cleaning the hen house day. Let the girls out again as it's much easier to do without them poking their beaks in. However, Dorothy kept coming up the ramp when obviously wanting to get into the nest box - she probably wants to lay and egg.

Started them on their antibiotics. One of the people on the Ex Batts Forum recommends that you don't eat their eggs whilst on medication and for a week after, but suggests cooking them for the hens. It wasn't Dorothy who laid today it was Ginger, so I scrambled it for them but they didn't want to eat it.

Finally finished putting the wire onto the frames. Now all I have to do is put them together, put the paving slabs down and it will be done.

While doing this the girls were wandering around the garden. I looked up and could only see 2 of them - Dorothy was missing. She appeared the other side of the gate and had managed to get into my Mum's garden - this is off limits to chickens due to their "garden wrecking" habits.

There is a big gap at the bottom of the gate that separates us and we've been putting a piece of old wire mesh in front of it. Ginger also managed to figure out how to get through the gap so I will have to make something better to block the gap.

The weather was lovely today until about 5pm ish when the sky opened and dumped another load of rain on us.

Ellis is here this weekend and we retreated inside and watched "Chicken Run".

It didn't stop raining until about 9pm so the girls couldn't come out again