Rural Gardening: Need advise asap pretty please : ), 1 by janastasio

janastasio wrote:
Thankyou, I'm pretty sad for them, and pretty mad at myself. This is likely my fault for letting their coop get out of hand. I'm going to do more research on the net tonight. When I went down to put them in for the night I looked with a flashlight at the nest boxes and closely at the chickens, could not see any of those mites that come out at night. I think I am dealing with two things here. Alot of the chickens are experiencing feather loss without that bright redness. That I think is in fact from the rooster. Might be time to separate him, maybe even rehome him. I do like him, he's very nice, but I cant have him doing this to the chickens. He is the only rooster. I will check out those saddles and see if I can make them myself, but I cant buy 20+ of these things. It would be more financially smart to get rid of the rooster. So actually I think it is three things. 1. Rooster 2. Some dermatitis ? etiology ie: mites, lice, and bacterial that maybe started with the rooster 3. Bronchial. I have the one chicken wheezing and sneezing. When I was locking the chickens in for the night I noticed another chicken making some sort of sound from the chest that sounded fluidly. Again, I've stirred alot of stuff up in the coop from cleaning it, so that has prob. triggered this. I didnt think I stirred alot of dust up, but I'm sure some did. I'm thinking the flock may need to be treated with medicine. Also, I'm attaching a picture of one of my RIR's. This chickens feathers are lightening and she just looks like she is aging quite a bit. She is 3 years old.