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Lillyrose17

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Hi we are new to chicken keeping we have two birds but its not going too well, we started with three birds but one was a suspected cockerel and now little Phoebe we think has eaten some ragwort in the lawn. She seems much perkier today as she didn't eat or move much yesterday but I guess time will tell. She has eaten small amount of pellets this morning and come out of the coop so fingers crossed
 
Hi Lillyrose, and welcome to the forum.
Sorry to hear that Phoebe isn't very well. I would think its fairly unlikely that she actually ate the ragwort, chickens are usually well able to avoid poisonous plants. Maybe she just had a gut upset - are her poos normal, or are they green? Also, you didn't say how old she is - is she laying yet? Sometimes young pullets do get a bit down when going through 'pullet puberty,' just like teenage girls do, so I hope she'll be OK soon. Keep an eye on her and do let us know how she gets on.
 
Hello thank you for your reply, Pheobe seems to have picked up some what and is walking about and has began eating again, she was laying but hasn't laid since Sunday when she started to seem unwell. We had them early June at approx 16 weeks so she is probably 28 weeks ish. We are looking for a book we can learn some more information from can you recommend any good ones or authors ?

Will keep you posted but I think she is recovering from whatever it was : )
 
Hi again, I'm so glad she's a bit better. Sounds as if she's just settling into lay, they can sometimes get a bit under the weather.
There's a link to the main Poultrykeeper website at the bottom of the page, with lots of useful information about keeping chickens. See
http://poultrykeeper.com/ which may interest you. Otherwise, you could look up Keeping Chickens or Poultry Keeping in the online catalogue of your Public Library, and reserve some of the poultry books that come up. In Hampshire this is only 50p. Per reservation, delivered to your local library, and then they email you when the books come in. Its a good way to read lots of books, and then maybe buy some of the ones you think are useful, later on.
There's another thread running about Chicken Literature in the General Chickens section at the moment, as well. See http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8441
 
Thank you so much you have been very helpful, I will be at the library on Friday : )
 
We ended up syringe and drop feeding Pheobie pellets with warm water and normal water, she is still very thin but eating and drinking again on her own...I think if we hadn't of tried it following advice on here we may have lost her. We do think she ate the ragwort as the ends were nibbled and it was within their netting area but we will be very vigilant now. Thank you for all of your help and useful advice : )
 
Poor Phoebe, I'm glad you pulled her through. If she's now eating again, you could try offering a warm mash of pellets mixed with high-protein extras such as scrambled or mashed up hard-boiled egg, dried mealworms, a few sunflower seeds, and a sprinkle of mixed corn. Add enough warm water to make it just nice and crumbly when soaked for a few minutes. Chickens find this irresistible and it will help build her up again, and the others would like some, too, i expect. I hope she's learned her lesson! Its actually quite rare for chickens to eat poisonous plants, one would imagine that evolution has bred it out of them, but there's always one!
 
We lost Pheobie last night as she stopped eating again on Friday : ( think the ragwort mst have upset her system as she recovered well then gave up again. Now we need to work out getting two more as Lilly rose is all alone : (

I never thought it would be this hard/emotional one suspected cockerel and now lost one : (
 
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