animals
When is a vet not a vet? When it ain’t a cat or a dog you want help with!
Our first year as poultry keepers, and the evil weather has led to a major illness incursion into our flock. Some—not all, or even a majority—of our hens are suffering from an outbreak of something called mycoplasma. It’s an organism present all the time in most flocks, like candida (thrush) in humans, but with the right environmental conditions, it flourishes. And yep, you’ve guessed it: torrential rain nearly non-stop for over three months is just loved by mycoplasma. Wild birds from sparrows to seagulls all carry the organism all the time, and they spread it around as well. The symptoms are a bad cold that won’t go away—sneezing, runny nostrils, and a sound when they go to sleep like they’re gargling.
tags: animals, birds, chickens, poultry, veterinaryQueen Victoria has a lot to answer for!
And I don’t just mean her colonial ambitions. Or her denial that lesbianism could possibly exist. No, I mean she’s responsible, in a way, for the Orpington breed of chicken (or rather, one sub-set of the breed).
William Cook was the man who actually started breeding them, beginning with the Black Orpington in 1886. The White Orpington came next, possibly the following year, maybe 1889. The Buff Orpington, of which we have two large and fluffy examples running round our garden, made its appearance at the 1894 Dairy Show and was an instant success, becoming hugely popular. But it was in 1897 that the Jubilee Orpington was introduced, named in honour of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and she accepted a pen of these birds. And yes—today we go to collect two young Jubilee ladies from a lady in Wales. It’s a bit of a drive, to say the least.
tags: buff orpingtons, ex-battery hens, hens, Jubilee Orpingtons, poultry
