Hello there!
In my last post I talked about the building of my coop and now we're going to get to the exciting part! At the end of August I got 6 chickens. I had the bedding in the coop and everything ready to go except maybe a couple of touches that were no big deal.
I drove about 45 minutes away to get them and only paid $5 for each chicken. Looking back, I'm very glad I got 6 instead of the 4 I was planning. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of room for lots of chickens since my coop is 8 foot by 4 foot but I wanted to start small.
Everything seemed to be going well but within a few days I noticed that one had a foggy eye. About a week after that, my boyfriend found her dead in the coop.
No blood or anything. I concluded that she was blind and essentially starved herself. :(
Anyway, the first few day after I got them, I was figuring out feeding and all that. I did get 3 eggs in the first week but after that they started molting. Just my luck. haha. They are also about 2 1/2 years old so that could have something to do with it.
After I had them for about 3 weeks, I saw a post online of someone asking if their chicken was a hen or rooster and I started thinking that one of mine was a rooster. Turns out he is! I actually think he was younger because he just started crowing (not very good either) and he is getting really big!
About 10 days ago one started laying again and about every other day we get one egg. I hope the others start laying soon because come spring any non-layers will be off to freezer camp.
A couple weeks a go I notice one of my other chickens was getting a cloudy eye. It scared me because of the previous one but I have witnessed her eating. She did get pecked on that eye a few days after I noticed the cloudiness and I put some Manna Pro hen healer on it and it healed right up! I mean, she's still blind on one side but the cut healed great!
A few days after I found out I had a roo, I was watching my girls and I noticed one with a red rash-y looking butt so I caught her and I found mites. Ew. Well so, I had to catch the others to look at them and she seemed to be the only one with them. I didn't have any poultry dust and so I started to scour the internet for a temporary solution.
I found out that out can use the small dog flea/tick serum for their backs on chickens to get rid of the mites and follow up with poultry dust after a few days. We have a small dog so we just happen to have one of them on hand. I got it on her and in a few days there was no sign of the mites and her rash was clearing up. I did completely clean the coop and dust everything, including all the chickens, when I got the dust.
I did have to dust again about a week and a half ago because I found lice on another one of the girls and I put DE in their coop just last week to prevent.
In September, I decided to start getting the coop ready for winter. I bought 15 bales of straw because I planned to build a structure in the run outside of the coop that can let them go outside without having to be in the snow. I also have some leftover for bedding in the winter.
I'm doing the deep littler method in my coop. I've heard great things about it and I'm giving it a go. so far everything is going good with it.
I also bought a tarp to put over my coop and straw run structure to keep everything draft free but it still has plenty of ventilation. I got a red light for the coop. Its not a heat lamp. Its just to make their days longer. I got them a new 2 gallon waterer that as already been a life saver because we don't have to fill in everyday and last but not least, a deicer for the waterer that turns on when the water is getting close to freezing temperature.
I think I'm pretty prepared for winter but of course this will be a learning experience.
I will link a couple other products below that I mentioned in this post so that you can check them out!
Thank you for your time :)