A few problems in all this rain :-(

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Timmy

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Hi all and a happy new year.
Here in West Devon we are now entering our ninth week of heavy rain..the little paddock where I keep the poultry was I thought perfectly chosen..... and well drained...unfortunately it is just a three inch deep mudbath.. the intensity of the rain has made it so.
My Buff Orpingtons are fine ..along with the little brown hen I found at the top of my woodland Well Merlin the Collie found her cold and shivering under some gorse...not mine...dont know how she got there..but now has a home for life...Anyway last summer a mate gave me three peacock eggs which hatched out under a broody buff..two males and one female ..I think!!
On Christmas eve...went down to shut them all up and found the two male peacocks dead in their run...no injury ..no sign of intruders..the female is fine and left with sugg mum...they were only pheasant size and were not fighting.. any comments would really be appreciated..

ps thanks for all advice on my black rocks...even in this atrocious weather they have started laying and my neighbour has given me a Rhode Island Cockerel

Best wishes all for 2012

Timmy
 
Have you checked their coop for red mite Timmy? Have they got a shelter outside from the rain, because if not it could just be they died from exposure after getting so wet?

RIR cockerel is a good choice -they are strong birds.
 
i would say double check for mites as well just cause its wet and gross that doesnt mean they have stopped breeding some of us are still getting them ,my rabbit hutch is being treated and i am still getting them but only a few thankfully .

maybe the birds were already poorly and you didnt know it i got some chicks last summer { sounds wierd saying that } and although they are now dead thanls to mr fox at thier new home it sounds like { from advice given by poultry friends } both had mycoplasma and i didnt know it i had moved them back and forth a couple of times from different homes and the last time one went very sick i was told the moving and stress very well could of broguht out the myco .
 
Hi...Chris Hi Karminski.thanks for the advice about red mite...I never thought of that with all the rain we are having...yes they had a nice double story run with accom over and run underneath though looking at the peahen thats left I noticed she was shivering today..I have tried to keep her in but she wants to be with sugg mum all the time...I am going to spray for red mite tomorrow just as a precaution..so much looking forward to the spring!! A girlfriend rang up today and asked me if I could take a few newly liberated rescue birds as she has 100 odd in her barn...didn't really have the room but what the heck...took a dozen and now they are pecking about in the lambing shed...they deservr a bit of quality of life for goodness sake
Oh well !!! Timmy
 
fingers crossed you havent got them but you never can tell i leant my lesson the hard way last year never noticed i got them untill i tried pulling down the shed and got covered in them now i check twice daily makes it worse though tomorrow as i am bac to work after 11 days of so i wont be able to check in the morning as i wont have time so it will have to wait tell gone 4 pm :( .good luck with the new girls :D am sorry about your other two wish i could of been more help.
 
Timmy, was wondering if you could cover over the underneath run with clear plastic leaving just one end (the smallest one) open to the elements? I use old plastic feed sacks - it doesn't look pretty, but as it is only temporary, it does the job for the worst of the winter.

It will break the wind, keep the run dry but still allow a certain amount of air movement with one end being open. Birds can stand a lot of cold, but damp and draughts they can't cope with.
 
Hi Timmy. Philcott has said exactly the same as I was thinking. Chickens hate wind because it lifts their feathers and they loose all their insulation -they can go downhill fast in those circumstances.
 
i put tempoary tarpaulin around my run about 1 metre high as it was already cut to that size to protect agaisnt wind etc and although its stapled on and there are concrete blocks holding it down this morning i had to rip it down at 6 am as the wind had just taken one side of it down :evil: i got sick to death of keep on putting it back up every other day so it will have to stay down until i can get some proper windbreaker netting in a few week times ,but this was the side that the wind was meant to blow the worse as everyone tells me but the winds have been coming from the other side for the past month or so .
 
The wind today has been appalling - has taken off one of the pens roofs, lifted the tarpaulin on another (a temp fix until I could get the right stuff to cover the shed roof!) fences down, gates blown backwards straining their hinges not to mention 'stuff' blowing all over the place! Really a horrible, horrible weatherwise day - not looking forward to dawn tomorrow to see what else has come adrift!

Feel for you with your tarp karminski - know the feeling!
 
hope that was the last of it my god today has stressed me so much , i put the horses out at 5am knowing we was in for stormy weather but not knowing when it was due to hit and i can say now if my horses could speak then at 3pm i would of heard the worse bad lanuage you could imagine they were so not happy tomorrow they will be staying with nice big haynets i was also stressing about the girls and wether thier houses would be ok or wether the run had been damaged but thankfully they were ok .
i am now really considering splitting my run into 4 sections and to roof each of those sections so at least they can be partly dry but its the amount of work involved thats worrying me i can still leave the netting up though as that would stop any corrugated sheets flying away if they ever came loose but once i banten them down they would not come of anyway .
 
Hi everyone ..thank you for all the advice..and I know most of you have a few probs of your own ..I sympathise with you.
The wind has strted to gain strength again this evening..and I could not just sit here in front of the fire worrying about things so I have given in to the weather and put all my girls plus two boys together in the lambing shed and nailed a fox proof grate over the door...
They have grub ..they have water and I will go and see them at first light hope I have done right but I really have no choice..Hope everyone gets through tonight without mishap

Timmy
 
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