Another

So we have another chicken that has not be doing well, Shadow.  She has been low energy for a couple months and it has been progressing downward.  She now is too weak to easily get up on the perch at night, she spent last night on the floor.  I suspect she will succumb as well before too long.

So the death of Pumpkin and the illness of Shadow has made me look more in depth at what we are and are not doing right in the care of the birds.  A good portion of the chickens have had diarrhea like droppings for quite awhile.  It’s been so long that Cindy and I sort of just have accepted it as the norm but, we shouldn’t.  Seeing that in a bird long term is a sign of a problem.  The problem with that problem is the possible causes of it are immense.

The hens, especially during wet season are exposed to very dangerous conditions where standing water is common as is the hens deciding to drink the dirty ground water which is terrible for them.  We also don’t supplement the birds water with vitamins and electrolytes as we should and there are few other cleaning/maintenance things we do but not often enough.

I know at least for me, it seems that my daily routine is already pretty full which may lead to a “good enough” attitude when it comes to chicken maintenance.  However I am going to try to do my best to do more for the birds, to help them have a healthier day to day existence.  Over the winter I really need to do whatever I can to raise the ground level inside the entire chicken area to prevent it from getting flooded out during wet season.  Doing so will require probably a dump truck or two of fill, opening up and then redoing a section of fence, a Bobcat and an infinite amount of shoveling and raking.