Frost and dust baths and tylan

This morning there was a hard frost and a thin layer of ice on the chickens water.

The garden this morning

Very frosty

The cabin roof is white behind the frozen rose

Salmon and Spangle have formed a close friendship recently. I think that friendships form more within a smaller flock. These two are always together recently and at bedtime they are always side by side in the corner of the chicken shed next to the bigger girls.

Salmon and Spangle dust bathing together

Speckles watches over them

Speckles and her girls

Speckles has taken on the role of mother hen to the little girls and more especially these two since the other two have been broody. I used to read some opinions that it could be difficult to mix different sized birds together but that has not been my experience.

I thought that Ebony and Flame would be company for Speckles after we lost Emerald but Speckles actually prefers to hang out with the little girls. Very often Ebony and Flame will be perched together above the ladder and Speckles will be at the centre of the little girls. Speckles seems to relish her mother hen status with these little girls.

Today I started with tylan in the water and mash made with tylan water again. I will do this for five days to see if it has any effect on Salmon. As you can see above she is still happily dust bathing but she still sounds terrible with her wheezing.

While she looks happy and active she sounds like Darth Vader. When I see her looking so lovely and so well it makes it so hard to think that we may lose her this winter because she still sounds so terrible. I would love to have her stop wheezing but sadly I doubt that is going to happen and I know that she has a very uncertain future.

At the same time I don’t want to give up on her and although I doubt this five days of tylan will make any difference I feel I have nothing to lose by giving it a go. At the moment I feel that I must keep trying to keep her well. We have lost so many little girls this year that I really dread the thought of losing another one.  I know we will all be willing Salmon on.

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6 Responses to Frost and dust baths and tylan

  1. Sophie says:

    Absolutely Carol xx

  2. marion says:

    I hope she will stay strong, you have been having some hard frosts.If she can get through
    these, it will show she is still strong.

    • Carol says:

      I hope that if I can get her through winter she will be okay. They have been having tylan for three days now and she is still wheezing but I think she sounds slightly better some of the time.

  3. david says:

    It is so ironic that the photos from this post and the previous one would never indicate that she was other than in excellent health. Hope she makes it.

    • Carol says:

      It is so strange because she look fine but she sounds terrible. I keep hoping she will be okay but I worry that she still wheezes. There is nothing else I can do but wait and see.

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