[Ag-eq] Chicken Lady

Tue Mar 5 21:52:21 UTC 2013

Hi Jody and Everyone,

I am so glad to see this list pirk up, but I suppose if you want to hear 
from anyone you first need to post and do exactly what Jody did.  "What's 
going on with everyone?"

First Jody, about your chickens.  Yay!  I'm so glad you have your first 
chickens.  Without knowing what color eggs they are laying, the white one 
could be a white leg horn, the gold one could be a buff orphington, the 
white and black hen could be a bard rock or a dominicker and the black one 
could be a austrolorp from Austrailia.  I have bard rocks, orphingtons and 
one loan little austrolorp left from my original stock.  She is like your 
Gabby and she is still laying eggs.  We had planned on getting 4 week old 
chicks this month, but that might have to wait until April.

We had a horible emergency Saturday afternoon and all thoughts of getting 
things ready for the chicks went flying out the window.  One of our retired 
Walker Coon Hounds, Dover, hadn't come up to eat in two or so days.  This 
isn't too unusual, but we were getting a bit worried when his brother had 
come back without him.  We have the 60 acre farm and they have the run of 
the entire place and seldom wander off.  Needless to say, my sister came 
home from grocery shopping and my husband was upstairs sleeping from working 
12 hour nights and she noticed something strange on Dover's neck.  She 
brought the bags in and went to check him out.  She screemed back to me to 
wake up Matt because Dover had some sort of trap around his neck, choking to 
death and hardly breathing.

I got mat up and we went outside on the porch to find some sort of metal 
snap trap that was not only around his neck, but a portion was in his mouth 
and pinning his jaws against his chest at an extreme angle.  Dover was 
imaciated and he was near death.  Matt tried to use his bolt cutter, but 
they were not strong enough and hardly scratched the wire.  We called a 
neighbor who came over with a heavy duty pair and he was so shocked at what 
he saw.  He had to cut the trap in 3 places before he could get it off of 
Dover.  One of the coiled springs was in Dover's mouth and could not be cut 
like the first coil because they were afraid that in doing so, it would 
brake his jaw.

The neighbor said the trap was called a coil bear trap and it was used for 
trapping beaver.  The trap is suppose to be set under water, in moving water 
and well away from where any other animals could get caught.  It had to have 
been illegally set above ground.  If that wasn't bad enough, it was 
determined that Dover had been caught in the trap when he first went missing 
(at least 2 and a half days) and so he had not eaten or had any water the 
entire time.  He was also locked with the trap on his head and then the trap 
chained to the ground, because the trap had about 4 inches of dog chain 
attached.  Poor Dover had been pulling and jerking and straining to get out 
of the trap, only managing to brake the trap free from the chain.  Then, 
somehow, none of us knows, he managed to come all the way back home, up on 
our front porch, and lay on the blanket next to his brother.  It about 
turned my stomach.  Dover is the most sweetest dog and loves everybody.

My husband wrapped an old comforter around him and off in the truck he went 
to try and find a vet open on Saturday afternoon.  We just knew he was too 
bad off to live, but if that were the case, then I didn't want him to suffer 
any more.  Everywhere he went, in three counties, they were either not open 
on the weekends or had just closed.  He found one that was closed, but there 
were still people there.  They wouldn't take a look at him and told Matt to 
take him to the emergency vet that was an hour away.  That wasn't going to 
work because Matt had only  a couple hours of sleep and had to go back to 
work in less than 3 hours.  My sister's driving is limited to familiar areas 
due to her sight.  He brought Dover back to us and we made him comfortable 
inside.  By that time, he could stand up on his own, became interested in 
water and would eat a bit of food out of hour hands.  He had a good size 
gash on the back of his neck where the trap had cut in while he yanked and 
jerked to get it off.  However, it had not started bleeding until 3 hours 
after the trap was removed because the trap was tight enough that blood flow 
was restricted.  My sister and I staied up all of Saturday night with him 
and gave him small amounts of food and water whenever he got up looking for 
it.

As soon as Matt came home from work, we all piled into my sister's station 
wagon and took Dover to the last clinic Matt went too.  They said they'd 
squeeze him in, but there were 3 people ahead of us.  When the vet came in 
the room, he found Matt sitting on the floor with Dover laying on his coat 
next to him.  The doctor told him that if the trap had caught him in a 
slightly different angle, it would have either proken his neck or crushed 
his windpipe.  If Dover hadn't broken free, we would probably never have 
found him.  The vet cleaned his cut and put 4 staples in, gave him 
antibiotics and pills to take in his food.  The swelling with his neck, 
face, lower jaw and his right eye were all just bruising and would clear up. 
There is a portion around the cut that was extremely bruised and in healing, 
might sluff off, but he will have the staples out in two weeks.

Our neighbor told us to call the game warden because it was illegal to set 
that trap not only above ground, but possibly on our property.  He came, 
verified the nature of the trap, checked out our pond and said there was no 
way the trap was in our water.  More than likely, it had been set and 
ankered over a den hole or a culvert to catch a different animal.  We have 
to check the property to see if we can find the rest of the trap and to see 
if there are others.  If we find anything, then they will be staking out our 
property to try and catch who did this.  I have a feeling it was not on my 
property, and if that is the case, then there is nothing the game warden can 
do.  I hope someone wasn't trying to trap ground hogs by placing the trap 
over their den holes.  They are a big problem around here for farmers, but 
these traps are not designed for this use.

The traps do not have teath, but are made of a heavy gauge wire as thick as 
a pencil.  They snap around a beaver under water and hold him there until he 
drowns.  Two men could not even pry it open.

Dover is doing better, not his old goofy self yet, but as long as he's 
eating, drinking and that tail is wagging, he'll be with us a bit longer.

Susan
dogwoodfarm at verizon.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jody Ianuzzi" <jody at thewhitehats.com>
To: "'Agricultural and Equestrean Division List'" <ag-eq at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 9:48 AM
Subject: [Ag-eq] Chickens

> Hi everyone,
>
>
>
> This list ahs been quiet so I wanted to see if everyone was frozen.
>
>
>
> We are an official farm now, we have four chickens and we have collected
> about 21 eggs in the last four weeks.
>
>
>
> We have a variety of chickens, one white one, one gold, one white and 
> black
> and one black chicken.  I don't know what breeds they are so if you can 
> help
> I would appreciate it.
>
>
>
> The black and white one is named Gabby and she will die of old age because
> she has such a sweet personality.  She stands at your feet and looks up at
> you and talks to you.  The other three act like chickens but Gabby is more
> like a puppy.  <GRIN>
>
>
>
> We kept them in the coop for the first week so they would know where home
> was and now we let them out in the morning and put them back in the coop 
> in
> the evening.  They are great fun and we love the  eggs.
>
>
>
> How are you all doing?
>
>
>
> JODY
>
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