Carol's Chickens

Diamond was only with us for eight months and was only a year and four months old when we lost her. She had never laid an egg. Her breed was supposed to be a prolific egg layer but we never got to find that out.

Diamond was our biggest girl and despite her health problems came in as new top girl and yet was gentle and mild natured with it. Diamond and Dot had a close alliance and were often to be found perching or sitting together.

I don’t have a huge amount of photos as her time with us was short so I have picked one from each month with us and a couple extra.

Once again our flock of six is feeling rather small. Goodbye Diamond. She was a beautiful girl.

Over the last few weeks Diamond had gone down hill. After her double dose treatment with flubenvet to her beak she had passed some gape worms. She was making a snoring sound on her perch at night and I thought that it was probably dead worms clogging her airway and making breathing difficult.

Diamond continued to have a mucky bottom. It was really black and was causing hard lumps to cling to her feathers. I had hoped that I could keep her going for three weeks and then treat her again as recommended.

Then over the last week Diamond spent her afternoons on the branch perch above the ladder. Her bottom was bobbing up and down and her breathing was laboured. She looked really poorly.

Diamond’s beak needing trimming again and once we had done this and put her down she looked like she was about to have a heart attack. She was panting and wobbly. I said to my husband that I thought it was the stress of being handled.

A few days before this I had cleaned her very mucky bottom and I thought she was having a heart attack when I put her down. She was breathing through an open beak and flopping down on one wing then the other. I ran indoors and chopped some tomato in the hope that it would revive her but when I returned to the run she seemed to have recovered.

I dropped tomato in front of her and she ate it. As the days went on Diamond was spending part of the afternoons in the chicken shed. This is never a good sign. For the last two nights Diamond didn’t go to her low perch but sat on the floor in the pine shavings.

This was just a couple of days before Diamond was due to be treated again which was why we had trimmed her beak to make it easier and I had cleaned her bottom so that I could monitor her once starting treatment.

I knew in my heart of hearts that it was unlikely Diamond was going to get better. I continued to read other peoples experiences on the reddit forum. People that had tried to treat for gape worm said there was a very low survival rate.

Seeing how badly Diamond was being effected by us handling her I decided that it would be too hard on her to pick her up and put flubenvet in her beak for seven days especially when I was beginning to feel that it wasn’t going to work anyway.

I called the vet and made an appointment to take Diamond in. Once in the cat box Diamond was very stressed. She was again breathing through an open beak and flapping. It was very stressful. The vet saw me straight away and said that Diamond was having heart failure. I have been here before with Sienna. The vet put Diamond to sleep and once again I was crying. I feel heart sick and I am terrified of any of the other girls getting gape worm. I just hope we won’t be that unlucky.

We have only had Diamond for eight months and she has had problems in all of that time. She was a year and four months old and had never laid an egg.

I feel so sad for her. I have grown really fond of our special needs chicken and I have tried so hard to get her through this. I should probably have let her go earlier but it is always so hard to give up.

I feel as if we go through one thing after another and my blog has become really sad lately. It’s almost enough to make me give up and yet I love chickens so much. We will stay at six for the near future. It makes me worry about having girls in future and yet if you don’t add new girls the flock will gradually die out. We seem to have had a run of bad luck lately.

The thing that truly terrifies me is the possibility of any of the other girls picking up gape worm. I am scared of losing them one by one. This is the worse thing that we have had to deal with so far because it is so hard to treat.

I will do a tribute for Diamond tomorrow. Her time with us was short but she was such a lovely girl despite all her problems.

Sometimes I feel that no matter how hard I try to keep our girls healthy there is always another problem round the corner. I wonder if, as long time chicken keepers, we will experience every chicken problem eventually. It’s been fourteen years of chicken keeping for me and now another new problem has cropped up.

I recently noticed that Dot’s feet were looking gnarly. I immediately thought of scaly mite and started researching it. It does indeed look as if Dot has scaly mite. I asked where it comes from and found that it can come from wild birds, rodents or it can live in the soil in the run. We do have mice coming in during the winter months and they can get through the weld mesh so there is no way to stop them.

Chickens’ scales on their legs and feet should be smooth and flat. If they have scaly mite the scales lift and look rough and white.

The scaly mite burrows under the scales and it is highly contagious so the whole flock needs treating. I looked for the best treatment and ordered Net Tex spray solution. It soothes, softens and cleanses the scales and suffocates the scaly mites. It provides a protective coating and prevents further infection.

Scaly mite have a life cycle of ten to fourteen days so the treatment needs to be done every five days for up to three weeks to break the egg cycle.

Scaly mite will not go away without treatment and eventually will cause damage to the feet and possible lameness. When the treatment is complete the chicken shed will need cleaning and disinfecting to get rid of any eggs.

Some people use vaseline or petroleum jelly to smother the scales and suffocate the mites. My research says its messy and not sure to get rid of them all so the spray is the best method. I will lift the girls from the perch at bedtime and spray them. This will make it easy to do them all and it will allow the spray to stay put over night.

I will keep spraying Dot until she is completely back to normal. It does say that it’s easy to treat so I am hopeful that I can get on top of this.

Yesterday I opened up the separated part of the run and let Star rejoin the flock. The first thing she did was to go to the food dishes. She is definitely moving much better and she looked really happy to be back with the flock.

Star has also managed the steps with ease. At bedtime she was back on her own wider perch in the corner of the chicken shed.

I have continued to put a dish of mash just inside the wooden shelter for now so that Star doesn’t have to compete for food. She has joined in with the flock for spinach and apple without any problem.

I took the opportunity to worm Star while she was separated and found no worms so that’s good too.

I am very happy with how Star is doing and think she is going to be okay. Star looks happy to be back with the flock.

Star will be separate for one more day. She wants to come out but has one more day of flubenvet for worming and metacam for pain relief. After the first few days I switched to adding her metacam to sunflower hearts instead of syringing to her beak. This is less stressful for her as she didn’t like being picked up.

Star is still limping but it’s much less pronounced and she looks brighter in herself so I think she is healing. She is eating, pooping, preening and dust bathing which are all good signs.

Meanwhile I have re done the steps to make them safer. It’s a bit “after the horse has bolted” but “better late than never”. The steps had evolved over time. I started with one block pointing out into the run and then as the soil gradually dropped I added a second block. The first one had set as if in concrete over time which is why I hadn’t moved it before now.

I spent time chipping out the baked soil and removing any stones. I moved soil up towards the chickens’ patio and then dug the blocks in. I sloped them very slightly backwards, the first up against the patio and the second up against the first, so that they are stable.

The steps are now stable, level and shallow. And yes, Gold is now broody too. She went broody a few days ago after laying twenty four eggs in six weeks. We seem doomed to only have a couple of girls laying.

I am going to give Diamond her next beak trim and bottom wash. She is due her repeat round of the double dose of flubenvet in nine days time. I really hope she will then be clear of gape worm for good but only time will tell.

Dot usually lays her egg in a corner of the chicken shed and it’s always the same corner. But while Sugar is broody Dot is very interested in her nest box. Dot sometimes joins Sugar in her nest box despite Sugar raising her tail and growling at her.

Yesterday Dot settled in the nest box with Sugar. Later when I checked on them Dot was back in the run. I lifted Sugar and there was Dot’s eggs under her. Sugar must have been pleased to have an egg to sit on for a little while.

They are such funny girls that you can’t help but smile at them.

Star has such long toes that she sometimes stands on her own toes and is quite clumsy. Nearly a week ago while I was sweeping the chickens’ patio I happened to see her stumble off the edge of the wooden blocks that make the steps from the patio area to the run.

The following day I noticed that Star was limping. I picked Star up and inspected her feet and legs and couldn’t see anything amiss.

It seemed to have knocked her confidence as she wouldn’t compete with the other girls at the food dishes so I put a feeding station just inside the wooden shelter like when she first came to us.

I hoped that Star would get better on her own but over the following days her limp became more pronounced and she was spending a lot of her time sitting down. I decided to separate Star into the corner of the run that Diamond had been in. This would mean that she wouldn’t have to compete for food and she wouldn’t have to get up the steps to the patio area which was a struggle for her.

I phoned the vet and the earliest appointment they had was for this afternoon.

I also decided that while Star was separate I would worm her as I realised that I had wormed the girls just before she came in. While separate it would be easy to put the powder in her mash or in a dish with some sunflower hearts.

Meanwhile Diamond has a mucky bottom once more and sometimes makes a slight snoring sound. I am hoping that it is because dead worms are blocking her up a bit rather than live worms. I have found gape worms in her poop and on the patio area so I think she is coughing them up and pooping them out. I am cleaning up umpteen times a day to try to keep it as clean as possible. I decided to take the opportunity to talk to the vet about the whole gape worm situation while I was there.

At the vets we put Star on the floor so that the vet could see her limp. I then held Star while the vet gave her legs a feel all over. She concluded that it was her ankle that was causing her pain. She said that Star had torn her ligament. There is nothing that can be done to help fix it and it should get better on it’s own but will take time. She gave me some metacam for pain relief. It is a honey flavoured mixture that we can syringe to her beak.

The vet said that it would be best for Star to stay as inactive as possible. When I told her she was separated and the space was small and flat she said that was perfect.

In between I had run the vet through the whole situation with Diamond. She said that I was doing all the right things and she had no tips or advice to add. I said that when I realised after six months and lots of worming that Diamond still had gape worm I had considered having her put to sleep for the safety of the flock but decided that as gape worm had been amongst the flock for six months that I would have another go at trying to rid her of them.

I said that if I can’t get Diamond clear of gape worm after the next worming I may have to consider having her put to sleep because I can’t keep on worming so heavily on an ongoing basis. The vet absolutely agreed that I was right. She said difficult decisions have to be made for the good of the flock and Diamond herself and they would be totally on board with that.

I said it scares me that the other girls could get it and that I had read the eggs can stay in the soil for three or four years. I am paranoid if I see a girl eat a worm because worms eat the eggs and pass them on. She said that unfortunately you can’t disinfect soil. I said that I am cleaning the run all the time and she said there isn’t anything else I can do.

It was good to know that the vet thought I was doing everything right and as she said doing all that I can. Hopefully Star will start to feel better soon and will gradually heal. This is the first time in all of my chicken keeping time that I have had a girl have an injury.

With Diamond only time will tell. I hope I can get her through this but I also know that I have to be realistic. I can only do my best.

Yesterday Diamond had her seventh day of a double dose of flubenvet in water syringed to her beak. Since she has been separated she has eaten just enough to keep her going so we had to keep giving it to her this way to make sure she was getting a full dose. During this time I have found gape worms in her poop. I hope that by giving her this bigger dose we can rid her of them. We will repeat in three weeks as recommended to break the cycle. We don’t want to take any chances of not eliminating them this time round.

Meanwhile Sugar has gone broody already. She has laid seven eggs in fourteen days. We seem destined to only have three girls laying. Storm resumed laying just as Sugar stopped. Luckily three girls laying gives us enough eggs to keep us going.

In view of all the egg laying problems we have had in the past I have decided that for now I will just leave her to it. I may try to break her out of it if she goes on too long but will see how it goes. Sugar is the most committed broody we have ever had so time will tell.

Diamond has settled back happily with the flock. She is now eating pellets again and went straight to her own perch in the chicken shed last night. A few days ago I cleaned her bottom again.

I will be repeating the worming process again in three weeks time but I will now know that if she has a mucky bottom again it is probably a sign that she still has worms. I really hope we can get rid of them this time around as I don’t know where else we can go from here otherwise. I am keeping everything crossed.

For the last few days Storm had become more vocal and had been looking in the nest boxes. I felt sure she was getting ready to lay again. It’s been three weeks since she last laid before briefly going broody.

Yesterday she was scratching around in each of the two nest boxes before settling in one of them. Meanwhile gold was in the corner of the chicken shed and Sugar settled in the other nest box.

A little later Storm came out giving the egg shout. This was followed by Gold and then Sugar. All three girls laid in quick succession. Dot had laid the previous two days so it was her turn to miss a day. Storm’s egg is quite big for her small size and Sugar’s egg is the typical round shape that seramas seem to lay.

Diamond has two more days of her double dose of flubenvet to go. After the first day we switched to giving her the full dose once a day as it is less stressful for her to be picked up once instead of twice.

This morning there were gape worms in her poop so the flubenvet is working. She is still eating very little though. She will only eat a small amount of her favourite things. She will peck at apple, eat a few spinach leaves and eat a few sunflower hearts and a bit of corn. It seems like she is eating just enough to get by but I hope if we can clear the gape worm she will start eating normally again.

We are not out of the woods yet and only time will tell if we can get Diamond through this. We can only keep doing what are doing and hope for the best.

I have felt for some time that all was not right with Diamond. I had wondered if she still had gape worm but she wasn’t showing the symptoms that she had last time. Recently though, as well as the mucky bottom, she has been making a snoring sound when breathing which indicates the possibility of a bit of a blockage.

Then a few days ago Diamond pooped on the chickens’ patio area and I saw the gape worms. I had researched them last time so I knew what they looked like. They look like thin red threads.

I had wormed the flock recently but it takes a double dose for gape worm. They are really difficult to get rid of. The biggest problem with Diamond is that she is really difficult to treat. If it was any of the other girls I could put the flubenvet in a treat and separate them and they would hoover it up.

Not so with Diamond. I tried holding a dish of chopped tomato and powder in front of her and she refused to have any. I even tried moving her to the dog crate in the shed and putting the dish in with her but she refused to have it. Any slight stress and Diamond won’t eat anything no matter what treat it is. I also tried getting her out at bedtime when the other girls were in and giving her the dish of tomato but she refused to touch it and just wanted to go back in. This worked last time but not now.

This causes a real problem with treating her. I have researched the dose of flubenvet and found it’s recommended to use 24g for 30 birds. This means 12g for 15 birds and so 6g for 7 birds. The measuring spoon is 6g. This means the usual way I worm of one level measure spoon per day between the flock is pretty much the correct amount. The problem is that for gape worm a double dose is needed. This means a third of the measure spoon for Diamond. There lies the problem when I can barely get her to take more than a few pecks.

Enough powder to make up third of this spoon is quite a lot for a girl who is very reluctant to take it. Diamond probably didn’t get enough last time to rid her of the gape worms completely even though I was giving her extra. This is so frustrating! What terrifies me is the rest of the flock getting gape worm. If eggs or worms are picked up by the other girls they will have them too.

I had to come up with a plan to get Diamond to have the double dose. I decided to separate the corner of the run where the large wooden shelter is. I set up a feeding station just inside the shelter. I put in a dish of water, a dish of mash and a dish of sunflower hearts. I divided the flubenvet between the mash and sunflowers hearts with a little olive oil to make the powder stick. Diamond had taken a few sunflower hearts like this the day before.

I thought it would take quite a big helping of sunflower hearts to take all the powder which would be unhealthy for her so I planned to leave her in her section until she had eaten all the mash. Then she could be returned to the flock.

I decided to leave her in there all day if need be until she had eaten the mash. She ate the sunflowers hearts straight away but didn’t touch the mash. It’s so difficult to get this amount of powder into her but I decided to just keep trying different ways until I could get her to have it.

By the afternoon when Diamond still hadn’t touched the mash I mixed the flubenvet to more sunflower hearts and olive oil. I decided that in the end it doesn’t matter how many sunflower hearts she eats if she takes the flubenvet but she only ate a few. If I can’t get her to take the medicine then she is doomed.

I don’t know what else to do. I have done loads of research to see if there is something that can be given directly to the beak but can’t find anything available to buy so I just have to keep going with this.

As the day went on I couldn’t get Diamond to eat anything or to have any water. I was beginning to feel a bit desperate about the situation. I decided to move one of the little coups we use as nest boxes into her area and keep her confined until she starts eating. She can use this at bedtime and it’s probably best to have her separated anyway.

I put a tarpaulin over it to stop any drips wetting the top of it. Diamond went to inspect it straight away so I didn’t think there would be a problem at bedtime.

As I couldn’t even get Diamond to have water I decided to syringe water to her beak. My husband suggested dissolving some flubenvet in the water so that she at least gets some of that as well as water. What we hope is that if she has some flubenvet and it kills some of the worms she may feel a bit better and start eating again.

I thought that I would know if she still had gape worm because I thought she would show the same symptoms as before which were beak breathing and coughing. This time the only sign was a mucky bottom and a slight snore sound occasionally. Yet I think she must have still had them for some time and I am worried that it might be too late but I have to keep trying to medicate her.

I am so frustrated by this. It was the first seramas we had that bought mico to our flock and now Diamond has bought gape worm in. Considering the research says gape worm is uncommon I feel so unlucky to have this come into our flock. I have to get rid of it or it could risk the whole flock. I am feeling pretty down hearted about this at the moment.

Diamond’s second day in confinement

Flubenvet isn’t soluble. If you mix it with water it will soon separate with the powder at the bottom and the water on top. However, yesterday, when we mixed it with water and straight away sucked it into the syringe it meant that by putting that into Diamond’s beak she was getting some powder and some water. She refused to eat anything yesterday.

Now that we can see that works we have given Diamond the full amount of flubenvet that she needs today. We did it by syringing into her beak splitting it into two lots, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. As I had hoped this has kick started her into eating a little this afternoon. She has had a piece of apple which is one of her favourite things, a few sunflower hearts and a little corn. It’s a start and I am feeling a bit more hopeful today.

We will continue to give the flubenvet like this until Diamond will eat the mash and then I can switch to adding it to mash again. She will need seven days and a repeat of another seven days in three weeks time. I am keeping everything crossed.