Rough Week On The Farm

Hi all. I've been a bit lousy with the posts since last week, but I gotta tell ya we've had a rough week here on Edgington Farm.

Our ducks learned how to fly out of their pen, but this new found talent would come at a great expense. We had to leave for the day and by the time we returned that night, we had gone from having 6 ducks to only 4. The puppy had killed one and one was missing without us having a clue where it had gone. That happened Saturday. Sunday the remaining 4 ducks were enjoying the yard peacefully. But, when I went out to feed everyone Monday morning, they were all gone! I do believe they left because of that darn puppy. There is a pond nearby, so I'm hopeful that they are ok. Monday night my fiance and I are enjoying a leisurely walk around the yard and we happen to go behind the garage and near the chicken coop. And what do we find? Inside of a dark, damp, dirty dog house that's been unused for who knows how long is an injured, quietly quacking little duck!!

We finally managed to get rid of the puppy Sunday afternoon, but not without a significant loss to our poultry. Before we got rid of him he killed 3 chickens, 1 duck, wounded 1 chicken and 1 duck. He killed an Easter Egger, a packing peanut rooster, and our small black bantam Sebright.

Our beans in the garden have been getting eaten up by some sort of pest, so we have to replant almost 50% of our beans!

The duck that we found in the abandoned dog house is on the mend in the old recovery cage I used for our wounded chicken. The rest of our garden and the corn patch are doing very well. I will do some updates on those very soon. So, I guess there is hope yet here on the farm. We will persevere through the mess, and replace our poor lost birds. We are going to work on our beans this week.

Wish us luck, and as always thanks for visiting Edgington Farm! Come back soon!

Caring for Wounded Chickens

Hi all! I thought I would share some info on my own experiences with caring for wounded chickens. There are a couple of different things that can cause a chicken to become injured. My own experience is from dealing with pecked/picked birds and a chicken that was attacked by our puppy (read about it here).

Picked/Pecked Birds

You may or may not remember the free leghorn chicks we got around Easter time. We got them from TSC for free since they were wounded and bloody. Chickens have a tendency to pick and peck at one another, particularly when they are overcrowded or too hot. This can also occur when you are trying to integrate different flocks of chickens into one flock. And, sometimes some birds are just bullies. At any rate, there are some key steps to save these feathery victims.

1. The best and most impotant thing to do is to separate the wounded birds from the non-wounded ones. Once chickens see blood, they won't leave it alone.

2. If your birds are bloody and have open wounds, you can use an antiseptic like Blu-Kote to prevent infections. They might be stained for a while, but they won't be sick.

Attacked Birds
If you have chickens, sometime during your chicken keeping you are bound to experience an attack by dogs, foxes, coyotes, etc. If your bird is fortunate enough to survive there are a few things you can do to help them.

1. As before, separate them. I put my bird in a large dog crate inside the coop so she can be protected from picking and stomping, but she can still get to see everyone.

2. Use an antiseptic or antibiotic ointment for small or healing open wounds.

3. Bandage any larger wounds and try to apply a bit of pressure for a while to staunch blood flow.

4. Wrap or splint injured legs.

5. Be sure they are getting and consuming food and, more importantly, water.

6. Give them some TLC, be patient, give it time, and hope for the best!

Thanks for reading!

PS. You can learn more about this on my friend Mary's blog post How to care for an injured chicken.