markhorsley68

Hi guys,
I'm at a low point in my chicken keeping at the moment and in need of some advice.
Where to start!...I had 18 chickens and a turkey this time 5 weeks ago (roughly) but in the following weeks I lost 2 Sumatran hens and a Wyandotte hen to bad health..they came from the same guy and the Wyandotte had a cough that I treated unsuccessfully and she died which was a shame but just one of those things.
Then my friendly neighbourhood stoat moved in and started chewing the heads off my beloved flock,I lost 5 to him...2 blue haze,a silkie,a wheaten Marans and a pekin...this was very distressing but I forked out for a nice new shed for my remaining girls and made their pen as stoat proof as possible ( touch wood it's not been back since).
Now my last remaining Wyandotte hen turns out to be a cockerel! And I opened up yesterday to find my beloved Sumatran bantam cockerel dead,no signs of stoat activity,he just died.
And to top all of this off the remaining 9 hens and turkey don't like the new shed even though its a good size and is warm and dry.....and I've not had a single egg since September!!
Do I just weather this period or am I doing something wrong?
Thanks for any advice given.
Mark.

CharlieEcho

Sorry to hear of your losses. A good fence and secure shed can't be stressed enough to keep the varmints at a distance. We failed to secure our hen house door one night and lost all our mature chickens and half our ducks to a mink. Bad for the mink, we also have a rat-baitbox inside the hen house. I think the mink got into the poison because I found it under our horse trailer a couple days later. The chickens cannot get at the poison. There's more to that mink story at another time.

Clean, dry, warm, and well fed is the only other advice I can offer. I beleive in time they will come around.

Good luck and hang in there.

markhorsley68

A trap in the chicken shed sounds like a good idea..I think I'll try that if the stoat turns up again.
Thanks for that CharlieEcho.

shickenchit

Always have isolation/quarantine cages/pens to seperate them totally from the rest. I would seperate all first timers upon arrival, and seperate others as needed. Also monitor them as often as possible, watch closely for subtle changes, in eyes, beak-mouth,nostrils, breathing, movement, appetite, H2O intake, the sooner you find any problems the better for all involved. Have basic first aid kit on hand, (wound care (blue kote, neosporin, tape, gauze) respiratory disease (Vetrx at feed store it works very well if you catch eyes weeping, wheezing early on).. Have saved a ton of young uns (pullets) with it.

Had chickens 40 years, best advice is... Careful Where you get em. If you can't see where they come from, (pens, coops, barns) ya know like at flea markets, side of the road, ad in paper willing to meet you or deliver.. (Same goes with all animals, backyard breeders). Some folks just makin money or someone doing it for the animals, chickens, people and bragging rights to provide quality birds.. Disease is bad.. And spread quickly.

Good Luck in the future...

markhorsley68

Good advice shicken chit,I should've known with the guy with the wyandottes, his place was a sh*thole,thought I was rescuing the birds I took but I just infected my birds instead.

I'll know next time.

BlackCrowFarm

We quarantine any new bird for at least 30 days, you would be surprised what stress can bring out in a bird. We also worm the chicken & cut nails at this time too.

Very few poultry will go & roost in a new house/coop right away. I would lock them in at night & keep the feed in there until they get used to their new digs, you may have to do this for a couple of week.

Sorry to read about the stout, few years back we had a young mink take out over half of our rose combed bantams, thank goodness one of our dogs took care of the mink.

__________________
Robin & Jeff
Black Crow Farm
blackcrowfarm.weebly.com
SCNA, ASBC & ABA

kimberley

I had to get a live rescue trap because of raccoons. A raccoon will get in one way or another. but he could have been trying to get in and the birds just overstressed and died. but ALWAYS quarantine new birds first. they can get stressed from anything. clean coop and everything before you get more.

Pinkter

I had to put two different locks on my coop. One night a raccoon unlatched the lock and helped himself. It's unfortunate that we have to learn how to protect them the hard way.

markhorsley68

Thanks for all of the good advice guys...I'll certainly quarantine from now on and a trap in the coop is. Great idea.

shickenchit

Good luck Mark... Keep us posted..