Lots of questions! Let me see.... I have them in a pen that is about 20x40 maybe, and then there are 2 horse stalls connected to them as well. I have an outside dog run in the pen covered at the top, and they roost and feed in there and in the horse stalls. The ground is sand on top of rocks, howver the sand has been getting wet a lot lately, lots of rain!!! So their poop seems to melt into it. I have clean fresh roosts I put up this past wekend, taking down some that were quite soiled and hard to clean. I have a total of 20 chickens in this area, 9 are little Seramas, 6 are young Jungle Fowl, just half grown (I am wating to sell 4 of these to thin out the fock, if they get better), the other 5 are laying hens, regular size. I am thinking this size area is OK? They have lots of room to run around.
I am feeding everyone laying mash. I do not wash out the waters everyday, only when they start looking bad, maybe once a week, but I have never used bleach until now. I usually just scrub them with a brush and run my hands over it. I will start cleaning them better now.
The feeders are fine, no molding. They eat everything out of them each day. I only feed as much as they can eat in a day, so there is no left over for varmits.
No other critters, just a dog and cat. The dog does not go in there, and rarely does the cat. I have seen squirrels getting some food out of the feeders at one time, not recently, in the past few months though. I am sure there are probably some rats around, I saw one a week ago.
The only thing that has been really different lately is the rain we have been getting. It was raining off and on for about 3 weeks straight for a while. The ground has really been wet. So maybe some kind of mold problem?
I have 2 chickens that seem quite sick right now, their eyes get glued shut and I have to use a warm wet rag to wipe them with. They rub up against it when i do that, guess it feel s good! I put the 2 worst ones in a pen to themselves next door in the other yard next to me, seperate from the others. Then I also have a pen with some that have watery/puffy eyes in another pen next door as well. The ones left in the big pen in my yard are either showing no symptoms (like the Seramas), or hardly any. I am giving everyone Duromyacin water and throwing away any eggs I get. Hopefully this will be good enough"damage" control.
I guess I will start calling vets to see if anyone will look at a chicken...
Thanks for any help!
Jen
CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
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