Jess172 journal: I want to do it all!

[Britesea]

Pool Party at Jess172's everybody! BYOW (bring your own worms)

 

[Denim Deb]

It's too cold for a pool party! Let's wait until it warms up some.

 

[Jess172]

It's supposed to be in the 80's next week. Pool party postponed until then! Ducks are grounded in the brooder until it warms up since they won't stay out of the water. Chickens seem to like the cooler weather though. It got up to 70 today and there wasn't a chicken outside. It's 56 out now and all of them are out in the run having a good ole time. I don't get why the wait until it cools off to go outside. I get the feeling that I may be wasting my time trying to figure out the though process of my chickens.

 

[Jess172]

Had a bit of a chicken lice scare today. Hubby came in early this morning saying that one of the white leghorn chicks got out of the cage brooder while he was feeding them and when he picked it up and put if back in the cage he noticed small white bugs crawling up his arm! So I spent the better part of the day researching what the bugs were (I thought lice seemed most likely by what he described) and then how to treat them. When I went to check on them and refill waterers I looked several over really well and didn't find any bugs. I even looked over the other chicks in another brooder and the ducks too and didn't find anything. So when hubby got home from work I had him go out and look the chicks over to see if he could find them again. He couldn't. So we started talking about what else it could have been. When he caught the runaway chick she had ran behind an old table. Best we can figure, he got into a nest of baby spiders. Either way when I go to the feed store tomorrow I'm going to look into what they have to treat lice and mites incase I need to treat them in the future.

 

[Denim Deb]

Tell him next time to get a good pic of the bug and post it on here so we can try to ID it.

 

[Jess172]

I will. When he saw them he just grabbed the water hose and sprayed them off. Woulda been nice if I hadn't spent so much time researching a problem I don't have, but on the upside, if it ever becomes a problem I'll know what to do. Also, I'm going to start regularly inspecting my flock now that I know what to look for.

 

[Denim Deb]

Well, that's one good thing.

 

[Jess172]

Went out to the garage to check on the chicks and ducks to find a white leghorn with a bloody tail! Naturally, they were all pecking at it so I grabbed her out of the brooder pen and put her into one of the empty brooder totes. While I was chasing her down I found 5 more that had small bloody spots where they were starting to be picked on too. I wasn't sure why they were doing this at first. I again, thought parasites maybe? But another thorough inspection found nothing. So I got on BYC to look up why and it looks like boredom. Apparently this is not uncommon for leghorns. Found that out the hard way....anyhow hubby is going to try and get some blukote or something similar at the feed store on his way home. I'm keeping the pecked ones isolated until better and now I'm off to find something to entertain the bored chicks.

 

[Marianne]

DE won't take care of the buggy problem?
Sorry about your pooch...

 

[Denim Deb]

Maybe they need their own TV and video games?