I went to pick up the chickens that I found through Craig's list. 7 Cornish cross, 7 mixed Americana's and rhodies, a black silkies and a supposedly 4 month old turkey. The guy said 50 bucks and supposedly had 40 pound bag of feed left. When I got there I was absolutely appalled.
He took us to the back yard where he had to 50 gallon totes with a piece of plywood over the top. All the birds, including the turkey were in there. He claimed that he sold his coop the day before, I'm not sure he ever had one. There were no white crosses and I pointed that out. He pointed at some small brown birds and said they were it. I was sceptical, but since the birds were so pitiful, dirty, wet and very undernourished, I couldn't leave them. (I thought maybe he just didn't know his chickens and they might be buffs or something) He dumped them in the cage
we brought and we left quickly.
That's when we noticed the smell. It could have knocked you over, We could smell it even in the cab of the truck. We got them home and realized that the brown birds were actually WHITE at one time, but they were so crusted with filth, you couldn't tell. We took them out and put them in the chicken pasture and found the turkey only weighs about 10 pounds. The poor thing can hardly walk. The first thing they did was stagger to the water pan and drink till their crops were distended. Then they started eating and haven't stopped. Grass, grain, bugs, it doesn't matter to them. The 40 pound bag of feed had only 10 pounds in it, but I don't know who he fed it to, it sure wasn't these chickens!
Now, most of them are standing in the rain like it's a hot shower. I hope it cleans them up or I'll have to wash them tomorrow. The whole thing has just broken my heart. I thought I was getting healthy chickens to replace the ones I lost last week and now I have these poor things to care for. can't believe that people would treat living creatures this way.
I think I have lost what little faith I had in human beings.
Poor Neglected Chickens,( Not so optimistic today)
Really Sad isn't it: I found when I was doing my research on menacing Roosters, much of the same thing to my dismay. Sounds like they found you just in time. I wish you the best with them, If anyone can help them you can. Good luck...Haystack
Did you hear about the woman in Great Britain who is organizing people to knit sweaters for ex-battery chickens who have lost their feathers? I think you can even get the pattern online.
Here is a YouTube video about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKSmh8Q0zBc
I'm not going that far. All but they layers and the silkie will hopefully end up in my freezer. hat's why I feel kind of silly. Putting all the expense and effort into food! Of course, if the cornish crosses never reach full size, then maybe I could use them as layers and raise the meat chickens under the silkies.
Ahh jeez, I said I wasn't going to go through that again as long as the neighbor has thoes stinking dogs.....
"Ahh jeez, I said I wasn't going to go through that again as long as the neighbor has thoes stinking dogs..."
I'm not sure there's anything else you could have done, and still gone to sleep last night :(
I understand what you're saying about "food", but then, at least you'll know they lived at least some of their time in comfort, and with enough to eat and drink. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in these forums who could/would have left them. It's one thing to know they're going to end up dinner, another to leave them to suffer. Even with the dog issue, they're MUCH better off :)
I'm glad they're with you.
It makes me so sad to hear of any animal being treated so badly....glad you took them home and good luck with them :-)
They look so much better after a night of rain and unlimited food. The turkey has decided he is my best friend and follows me around the pasture and yard. Even the silkie is starting to look like a silkie. I think I'm going to snag her and wash her so she can join my other one without gagging her.
I'm glad you rescued those chickens. I'm also glad they're doing so much better already.
How do you wash a chicken?
There was a thread on chicken washing complete with pictures some months back. Does anyone remember which and when?
You have to use the gentle cycle....No spin
Really??
Hold the bleach too.
Well, chlorine bleach--I think you can use the colour safe--can't you?
I may be wrong....
I washed the silkie with baby shampoo. It wasn't quite sure what to think of it, but it loved the blow dryer. It just sat there with it's eyes half closed. Then I trimmed the ragged wing feathers hoping it would trigger new ones. I can't tell if it is a hen or a rooster. The entire comb is missing. It only has one fluffy feather for a crest too, but you can tell it feels so much better. I thought the tail might be broken or something, but when it was clean and dry, all of a sudden the tail came up and it started chuckling. I spent a long time sitting on the step afterwards whit it on my lap. I promised that it would never be hungry or dirty again, then I realised that it was the first kindness ever shown to that bird in it's entire life. I think it knew that it's life had changed. Tonight it is snuggled next to my other black silkie hen in a nice clean pen with lots of straw and food and water.
I worry about the turkey and the Cornish crosses. Their feathers are so matted that I'm not sure they can keep warm. I know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow. Hopefully it will be warm enough that I can let them dry in the sun instead of the hairdryer. It takes a surprisingly long time to blow dry a chicken.
baby shampoo? and a blow dryer.. i wondered how you bathed chickens! Just incase i need to at some point. I'm glad they have a good home. They were lucky to find you.
Oh Jyl.. I'm so glad you saved them.. even if they're gonna be food in time. I wish I could have been there to help you wash em up and feed.. I can just imagine how that felt!!
Best wishes to ya..
Jyl!!! I noticed you mentioned straw, and I wondered what you used the straw for? I also wondered about which was best for bedding straw, or hay? Maybe you could explain how you use the straw, as opposed to hay? I would be interested on any light you could shed on the subject. I know straw does not absorb as well as hay, and I was concerned about the sharpness of straw? Thanks for any info you can share. Haystack
Straw actually ends up softer than hay. The fibers break down quicker. My fawns will not sleep on hay, but snuggle right into straw. Straw also has less weed seed than hay and I put it in the garden after the pens for mulch.
There are lots of places I prefer straw to shavings for bedding. In most of the pens it is easier to remove than the shavings. Though I use a thick layer of shavings in the chicken coop, I also throw in a few flakes of strar near the doors to keep the shavings from being kicked out, the girls also like to make nests out of it. And you can't beat the price!
God BlessYou, you are a gem. I love you taking care of those poor pitiful chickens. Chickens can be just very
loving creatues, given a chance. There's a lot of us that would help you if we could. So glad you got some
babies to replace the ones you lost.
Congratulations.
I missed the story, how did the other ones die? and have you found a way to prevent it from happening again?
The neighbors dogs dug under my fences and killed 30 chickens and turkeys in one night. They of course, claim that it couldn't have been their dogs even though there was a trail of dead chickens all the way to their barn. The only thing I could do was to move the chickens closer to the house and away from the fence.
They at least, got a$60 ticket for having loose dogs. They simply shrugged and turned it over to their Lawyer to fight.
I want to build a safe place for my roosters at the horse lot. Then I start thinking I will need to dig down two feet around the entire perimeter, however large I want to make it. I'm just not sure how I would accomplish that. It seems like the choices are, dig down, or put wire on the ground of the entire area.
I know I won't be there in the mornings to let them out or at night to lock them up, so I need them to be enclosed and safe.
We keep our dogs from digging up the front yard by laying cattle panels on the ground - the grass soon hides them. They might work just layed under you fence line, unless the horses would be stepping on them. That would be disaster.
Poor chickens, some people shouldn't be allowed to keep animals. (including your neighbor) Any animal deserves care and respect, even if it's going to be food.
Unfortunately the neighbor's dogs will probably try to get in again since they probably thought the first chickens were fun and tasty. I have found electricity is an excellent dog deterrent. A couple of zaps from a wire and they usually stay away after that. If you can put up a low electric wire on the outside of your fence they will get zapped each time they try to get close enough to dig. You have to keep the grass away from it though, or it will ground out and not work on the dogs.
I know it sounds cruel but in most rural areas dogs that kill or injure livestock can be shot on sight. Unfortunately the dogs develop a taste for killing and can be a real menace after that. My dear, sweet, elderly great aunt had to shoot her neighbor's pitbull because it attacked her llamas three times and nearly killed one of them. And the neighbor wouldn't do anything about controlling the dog. Like I said at the beginning...
I use both electricity and wooden pallets layed along the fence line to keep my five dogs IN the yard. I have one dedicated escape artist who would repeatedly dig under a 7 foot stockade fence (eventually bringing down a whole section) and pull the pickets off the picket fence--even when I put pickets on both sides.
Then all the dogs would escape and run around the neighborhood. This is NOT a good thing. The electricity--very gentle, designed for pets not cattle--did the trick. I heard couple shocked yelps the first day and now even go near the fence anymore. It has been working for almost 3 years now...even with the electricity off.
Dogs running in packs will almost always get in serious trouble.
I've thought about electric, but the dogs dig INTO my yard not out and the neighbor has their fence right on the property line, so I could only put anything on MY side of the fence or sacrifice more of my yard for double fencing. The whole thing boils down to economics. I can't afford to make things secure enough to raise what I was. The cost of new fencing and such would outweigh the value of raising my own food. I only have an acre of ground and only about half that could be used for the chickens and garden. Unless I want to wade through the chickens at my back door. I have to give it up. This neighbor is never going to change and no one will ever hold them responsable for their actions. They have enough money and resources to make my life hell, so the smartest thing for me to do is give it up. I'll have my laying hens and maybe a few turkeys, but that's it. I'm not wasting more money.
the pet electric fences have bad sides too.. certain breeds of dogs it doesn't not keep penned up. The neighbors boxer runs up, hits it, yelps, bounces back.. then hits it at a full run bc he knows when he gets away from it it doesn't hurt. My brothers dogs would just go thru it too. To keep dogs out i burried a piece of hardware wire around the coop (my old one i don't use anymore hence why dogs got my chickens) 4 inches down & about a foot outwards. cut the wire so that little spiky bits of wire stuck out into the ground.. & when they'd dig they'd hit those stickers & yelp.. they never did find a way around that one. O.. we also laid bricks every foot or so on top of the wire before we covered it back with dirt. If the ice storm hadn't of taken out that pen I'd still be using it. but its a but flat due to falling trees now.
It would be pretty unfair to my animals. They would hit it all the time on the inside of the fence, while the killers would never touch it even digging under. I have invisable fence run all around my yard fence. There are still times my lab will bite the bullet and climb over. The deer I'm rehabbing would REALLY hate me!
Sorry your neighbors are so awful. The only other thing I can think of to prevent them from digging into your yard is pounding rebar into the ground close enough and deep enough that they can't get through it. It does sound like an awful lot of work and you're right, it probably wouldn't be worth the effort just to raise a few more chickens. Our favorite CSA farm had to stop raising turkeys because the cost of keeping the coyotes out of the turkey pen was more than they made selling the turkeys.