Carol's Chickens

I am afraid to say too much in case I jinx it but I think the little girls are finally getting back to normal.

There has been no more wheezing and eye bubbles and the sneezing is fading now to less often and quieter sneezes. I think it’s finally going. I am going to keep up the current regime until New Years Eve. That will be day twenty eight of the tylan.

I am afraid to stop but I must stop sometime so that seems a good time to stop treating and see what happens. I could always treat them again if there is a relapse.

Yesterday was frosty again and the girls hang out around the two shelters on frosty days. The shelters have proved really worthwhile this winter. They have had loads of use on cold days and Speckles likes to hang out on top of both shelters.

The little girls hang out by the big shelter

While Speckles hangs out on top of the big shelter

Emerald is on the perch at the end of the run

Speckles is never far from the little girls but Emerald likes to wait on the perches at the end of the run for the sun to come round.

I am hopeful that the new year will see the girls back to full health. They are such a lovely, close, flock and I want to see them going into the new year together.

Boxing day I gave the girls fish for their treat. One by one they all got their share.

Speckles has some

Emerald has some

Apricot has some

Freckles has some

Dandelion has some

Cinnamon has some

By the end of the day all the fish had gone. I think they enjoyed that.

The girls are looking so much better. There has been no wheezing and no eye bubbles since the weather turned milder and the sneezing is much quieter. If it wasn’t for the sneezing I would think they were completely well.

I am going to stick to the current regime until the sneezing stops completely as I am afraid of them having a set back once more. Cinnamon is now moulting quite heavily and I continue to pick up loads of feathers each day. It seems that the two straight feathered girls moult the most heavily.

The girls are bright and active and eating well and even Freckles comb is looking more red than recently. I am hopeful that we are finally through the worst of this. As long as the next cold spell doesn’t set them back I think we may be on the road to full recovery.

It wouldn’t be Christmas in our house without some form of chicken gift. This year I received this gorgeous plate.

Chicken plate

Close up of chicken plate

It’s large and heavy and I can just see it loaded with the cold meat left overs to be served over the next few days. I love it.

The girls are having some yogurt as their Christmas day treat.

Yogurt for the girls

Yogurt treat

They are enjoying the yogurt

The girls seem so much better. I didn’t hear any snuffling yesterday or today and the sneezing is much more subtle. They are still sneezing but much quieter, smaller, sneezes and not so frequent. I hardly dare say too much but I really think they are on the mend.

The moult is picking up though with Cinnamon now dropping loads of feathers and looking a little tatty. I just hope this milder weather lasts for a while.

I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas.

The milder weather seems to be helping the girls. Since the weather has turned milder there have been no eye bubbles. The sneezing has been a lot less but I can still hear the snuffly sound to Dandelion’s breathing. I think Dandelion is the weakest of the little girls.

This morning I hand fed them some spinach so that I could get some photos.

Freckles has some spinach

Speckles and Emerald

Apricot has spinach and Emerald photo bombs

Dandelion and Apricot have spinach

Emerald finishes the spinach leaf

Dandelion

Cinnamon

Apart from Dandelion being a bit snuffly I think they are looking a lot better. I just hope the next cold spell doesn’t set them back again.

Today we have our first full turkey Christmas celebration with my side of the family and little six month old grandson’s first Christmas. Christmas day will be just the two of us and then two days later a roast lamb celebration with my husband’s side of the family and two older grandchildren so it’s full on from today.

I would like to wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas and New Year and I will pop in with updates when ever I have time.

Over the last few days I have tried asking at local pet stores if any of them could get hold of denagard in a manageable amount. Nobody was able to help me. There seems nothing for it but to carry on with the current routine.

Throughout all of my research I haven’t found anyone who has used tylan for this long. I am having to trust my instincts here. I think if I stopped using it the girls may relapse. The daily tylan seems to be keeping them stable and doesn’t seem to be having any ill effects so I think I should just keep up with this regime even if I have to continue until spring.

I had expected to have had to make a horrible decision by now but the girls have remained stable so I think I must carry on as I am and keep hoping that they will eventually come through this.

Freckles and Dandelion remain the worse with occasional slight wheezing, occasional bubbles in their eyes and sneezing. Apricot and Cinnamon have occasional sneezing but other than that look okay. Emerald and Speckles seem to remain unaffected although they too sneeze occasionally. They are all eating well.

I am picking up loads of feathers from Freckles in the chicken shed in the mornings and she is looking quite tatty. Seramas are supposed to moult lightly all year round but Freckles is having the same sort of complete moult that the bigger girls have. I just hope the milder weather will help them.

I have had discussions with my vet today and we have run through all the options. Getting the denagard is proving to be very difficult and would be very costly. My vet has had talks with people who have farms as this was one of the leads I had been advised to follow up. The opinion was that the denagard may not make a difference and that when this situation has gone on so long the outcome may not be positive.

We decided that I would collect more tylan so that I have enough to last into the new year and that I would continue the current regime and we would assess the situation again in the new year. We talked about the difficult decision that may occur at a later date if it becomes obvious that there is no improvement. Our joint worry is that there may come a point where this has gone on so long that it is only being managed by the treatment and not being cured. There is also the possibility that the girls will become imune to the tylan if it is given long term.

My vet has spent time researching on my behalf and talking it through with me (twice today, morning and late afternoon) and I feel she is doing her absolute best for me but I know we are both agreed that we can only do so much and there will be a decision to be made in the new year, but we both agree that we don’t want to give up too soon.

It is so difficult to make a decision when there are moments when the girls seem really well in other ways. They were all dust bathing this morning. The next time I checked on them Freckles had lost her last remaining tail feather.

Oddly enough she was taking a real interest in the second grit box that is out in the run. With egg laying firmly a thing of the past at the moment, why the interest in the grit!

Freckles has lost her tail feathers today

The little girls gather together around Freckles

The little girls with Freckles firmly ensconced in the grit

Freckles at the grit

A tail less Freckles in the grit

What is this all about! Who knows what goes through their little chicken brains. They clearly haven’t given up yet and therefore neither can I.

I know that ultimately I have to make the decisions here but at the moment it is still too soon. Chickens usually very quickly get better or reach the point of no return but these girls seem to be defying that at the moment and while they are not giving in I can’t give in either. So for the moment it is a case of carry on with the routine, try to stay positive and hope for the best with everything crossed.

The girls have moments of looking brighter and moments of looking down again. In the morning when I let them out they look fine but then I hear the slight wheeze in Freckles and Dandelion’s breathing and hear sneezing from each of them at different times and I know that really they are not fine.

They are still eating three dishes, a day, of their mash with tylan water and ground poultry zest as well as drinking the tylan water.

It’s always when they perch up that I can see that they are not well. They were perched on the branch perch above the ladder in the sunny spot this morning when I checked on them. One of Dandelions eyes was so frothy that it looked as if it had frosted over. She didn’t seem able to blink it away like she usually does.

I tried stroking her to see if she would blink as she only barely tolerates being stroked. In fact the fact that she let me stroke her shows she is not her usual self. I then hand fed her some spinach leaves. I thought that the action of eating leaves would cause her to blink and clear her eye. She did manage to clear it while eating the spinach.

Dandelion’s eye has bubbles again

Freckles and Dandelion not looking good

I am so frustrated that they don’t seem to be getting better but then I have to remind myself that they are not getting worse either.

In three weeks Caramel went from coming into the flock to being put to sleep. She went from one eye swollen, to mucus oozing from her nostrils, rattly breathing and finally both eyes swollen shut. I have since read that there is no coming back from rattly breathing.

It has now been four weeks since this started and it is day sixteen of the second round of tylan. My feelings are that the daily tylan is keeping it under control and stopping it from progressing but not actually getting rid of it. I don’t know how long it is okay to keep going like this. I wish someone could tell me that in time they would get better.

The little girls congregate together at bedtime before going in the chicken shed

Top girl and oldest girl, Emerald, always goes into the chicken shed first each day. Speckles, surrogate mother, follows Emerald in and then comes out again several times, clucking to the little girls to tell them to go in. She gets very agitated and runs back and forth trying to encourage the little girls to go in. They take no notice of her!

In their own sweet time the little girls go in and they all snuggle up close together. I just don’t know how this is going to work out but I don’t know what else to do.

I have moments of thinking that the girls are improving and then they seem to slide back again. For three days I didn’t hear wheezing and and didn’t see any bubbles in their eyes. Yesterday afternoon they were perched in the shelter and I could hear the slight wheeze in Freckles and Dandelion’s breathing and once again they both had bubbles in their eyes.

Today I haven’t seen any bubbles but sometimes it may be a case of which moment I am watching them. The fact that both Freckles and Dandelion are moulting is really not helping matters, especially with it being so cold.

The forecast is for milder weather to come so I hope that will help them. I am resigned to this taking a long time and now wonder if I will need to keep them on tylan through the winter. I am continuing the daily regime of tylan in the water and three dishes of mash made with tylan water and a teaspoon of crushed poultry zest.

Freckles looking a bit tatty

Dandelion

Apricot

Cinnamon with a ridiculously full crop at the end of the day

I have said before that I wonder if Cinnamon is the most well because she eats the most and therefore gets a bigger dose of tylan. She is the smallest girl of all of them but has always been the one constantly feeding and always looks lopsided at bedtime because her crop is so full. Her comb is also the most red. She was also the only one still laying until recently but hasn’t laid for the past week.

I would think Cinnamon had escaped this if it wasn’t for hearing the occasional sneeze. Apricot only sneezes occasionally too but has had the wheeze in her breathing but that seems to have gone now. Freckles and Dandelion have been the worse effected with wheezing, eye bubbles and sneezing and Freckles sneezing the most of all.

The two bigger girls, Emerald and Speckles don’t seem to be effected, thank goodness. I am very up and down with how positive I feel about this but I think that for now there is nothing more I can do but carry on doing what I am doing and just keep hoping they will get better.

We don’t like to decorate for Christmas too early and generally do it two weeks before Christmas. This year however, with one thing and another, time somehow got away from us. We suddenly realised that it’s only a week to Christmas and we thought we had better swing into action.

I had a five pound off voucher for our local garden centre so we went there first to look for a tree. We were shocked at how expensive they were. They were much more than last year. They were priced at fifty and sixty pounds. We didn’t want to pay that sort of price especially as there is only a week until Christmas so we wouldn’t get value from it.

My husband remembered seeing a sign advertising Christmas trees for sale further up the road so we decided to go and take a look. We drove up a steep drive onto a muddy field with a small car park, a tent and piles of Christmas trees.

A man came out of the tent and asked if he could help us. I asked him what his cheapest Christmas trees were. Among the big piles of trees he took us to a small pile of just two trees. He said that they were twenty pounds and held one up for us. I said it wasn’t bad at all and was a bargain. I said we would take it.

We were really chuffed at our bargain and in fact it’s a better tree than we have had some years.

The tree is ready for decorating

I trimmed down the rather long branches at the top to give it a better shape.

The tree is decorated

I am really pleased with this tree. We put a wreath on the front door and put up the rest of the decorations in the sitting room and the dining room and hung the Christmas cards from ribbons in the dining room. We are now ready for Christmas.

My lovely vet ordered me in some denagard. She looked for the cheapest option as she had already talked to me about the fact that it is in big amounts for farming and there are no small options for backyard flocks.

I have paid ten and twenty pounds for tylan and the cheapest denagard was fifty pounds which came out at sixty pounds after the V.A.T. was added. Gulp! I ran it by my husband and we decided to go for it.

I went to my local vets to collect it and when the receptionist put it on the counter I did double take. Wow! That really was a big amount and was bigger than I had anticipated. I imagined going on the “Down The Lane” forum and telling anyone near me who wanted some that they should come to me and I would let them have some for free.

Denagard with my tylan bottle in front for comparison

I started to read the complex instructions for use. I had expected something to add to the water like the tylan but this was to be added to the feed. I could add it to their mash I thought. I tried to find the quantity but it gave an amount to be mixed with a ton of food. Uh oh! It also said that not enough wouldn’t be effective and too much would send chickens into toxic shock.

Oh goodness! This was going to be impossible for me to measure accurately and would be much too dangerous to risk using. I called the vet and explained the situation to the receptionist. She said my vet would call me back which she did and she said to take it back and get a refund. We discussed that the girls seem to be improving so we agreed that I should carry on as I am and update the her next week.

Today I continued with the daily regime of three dishes of mash with the ground poultry zest and tylan water. They girls were eating one of the two dishes at first but over the last few days they have eaten two of the three dishes and today they ate all three dishes, hurrah!

This afternoon they had a communal dust bath. I haven’t seen the whole flock dust bathing together for ages. This is a good sign that they are feeling better.

Communal dust bathing

Freckles helps Dandelion with her dust bath

All the girls dust bath together

There has been no bubbling in their eyes and the sneezing has been quite a bit less. I am really hopeful that we are getting there now.