Everything Old Is New Again

I spent the end of the year working hard...but the pallet coop that I have been working on is now in use.  We had more rain and the door would not close so, I sanded the threshold until I was blue in the face...then decided just to take the door off, the metal support plates off, and the screws out that would interfere with cutting off a quarter of an inch...my hubby came home just in the nick of time, he did the actual cutting and helped me hang it back up.  I am not very good with a circular saw, so that was very helpful to me.  Since the door wouldn't close I didn't get the latch put on until then either.  I still need to put the hook latch on the inside, that way I can lock the door so the roosters can't get out when I am cleaning up in there.  Yes, it has happened, I have had escapes a plenty.  He helped me get the rest of the wire up at the very top of the coop too and build the roosts.  With his help we got it finished enough to put the roosters inside of it that were in the muddiest of the pens.

It is not a pleasant task catching roosters, but we caught 23 roosters and 1 turkey and got them moved to the pallet coop.  We were rooster wrangling in mud at least three inches thick...well, it is not all mud...a bunch of it was wet poop too.  Wet chicken poop stinks pretty bad.  Mixed with water and mud it makes for a very slick surface when you are running around trying to grab roosters.  I know I was slipping and sliding, got splattered and my boots covered in the muck.  During the wrangling my husband noticed the turkey's feet had blood on them.  We had to finish wrangling or rounding up all of the three pens that were the worst and get tools put up and feed all the poultry before it got to dark to see.

My husband started getting the tools put up and I started feeding them all...he also got the feed and water dishes out of the pens and washed them up and filled the waterers for the the new coop.  I got two of the wallpaper troughs and moved them into the coop and filled them with food.  A few of the roosters were sparring when I went into the coop.  I am hoping not to find any injured roosters when I go out to feed them in a bit, it is still dark outside...so I will probably go out in about half an hour.  I feed 4 -5 gallon buckets of fermented feed to my flock at the second feeding, it takes me awhile to do it because they are heavy and I basically can only carry two at a time.  That is why I use a lot of troughs, I have goat troughs too...it allows more chickens to access the food from both sides than the round feed dishes that I was using in the individual pens.  But most of the pens have only a handful of roosters in them.  

After feeding and getting the food mixed for fermentation.  I went an ran and prepared water to bathe the turkey and inspect him for wounds.  He was dripping blood from his feet when my husband put him on the roost in the new coop.  Since he was muddy, we thought it would be good to clean him up and see if we could figure out what was wrong.  He was very muddy, my husband did the initial clean up, but the turkey was flapping wildly and not being very cooperative.  It was the first bath either of us had given a turkey...I have given a few baths to chickens, however...a 25 pound turkey is a bit different.  He seemed to calm down considerably once we got him out of the bus tub and into deeper warm water.  He just laid down in the water and let me wash him well.  I could not see his feet though...or his chest.  I could feel he was missing a lot of chest feathers.  I am pretty sure that had to do with sleeping on the pallet in the pen, I didn't have a roost set up in that pen for him.  He had three rooster companions too and the roosters looked clean except for their feet.  When a bird gets wet, their feathers come out pretty easily, it is kind of like when you process any poultry, a quick submersion in hot water loosens the feathers enough to make them easy to pluck.  Well, it is the same way when you give one a bath too.  You have to be careful how you handle them or you will end up with hands full of feathers.

Anyway, after we got who I am now calling Mr. Peabody cleaned up.  I decided to try and blow dry him.  He didn't mind getting blow dried, but as big as he is, and as thick as his feathers are (except his belly/chest)...it may have taken me until this morning to get him dry enough to go back outside.  I had him in my lap and wrapped in towels for a little while.  He seemed like he was ready to sleep, he still had some mud on his eye area...that I noticed on close inspection.  My husband examined his feet and chest for me while I held on to him.  He was such a good boy during the majority of the bath and while in my lap.  We couldn't put him outside as wet as he still was, not with as cold as it was...so even though my husband went and put fresh straw out for him in a smaller dry pen...I decided to keep him in the house over night.  The only thing we had big enough and secure enough to keep him in was an extra large dog kennel.  Normally...meant for our dog Kensie to sleep in at night.  So, we took Kensie's things out, put a puppy training pad in the bottom of it and put the turkey in Kensie's kennel.  He has been good all night, was very quiet...I need to go get dressed and take him outside this morning.  We withheld food and water last night so he would not make too big of a mess.  So I am sure he will be thirsty and hungry this morning.  He did have the opportunity to eat...before we brought him inside...but, I didn't see him eat.

On another note...my goose that has been laying...and I have been putting all the eggs in the incubator since she started...some of the eggs are actually developing now!  One should be born January tenth, it looks like the three I set on December 24th are developing now too....I am excited, this will be my first hatch of geese!