Break out new arrival equals a few sick chickens!

 A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the Bothell Feed Center. Now this was a particular nice day, the sun was beaming and the breeze was scarse. Not a great day for an animal to be traped outside in a box. That being said, the great people at the Feed center informed me that they had come across a rooster of some sort out in thier parking lot, packaged in a dark green tote and a wire mesh lid. They had no idea how long this poor guy had been out there. But he also had a note taped to the box with him that read; "My name is Charley, please help me find a new home". Well I ran right over to collect said rooster, see some of the workers there have chickens but are eather not aloud to have a rooster or do not want one. I had no problem having him untill I could find him a home.

But first I wanted to quarentine him as we had no clue were he came from. Regardless it is always a good idea to quarentine a new addition untill you know they are not sick from the previouse home or even because the stress of travel to a new home and new exposures can weeken their system temperarely and they can become sick. A good amount of time to keep them seperate is 2-3 weeks.

 I put him into his temperary encloser were he could see the flock but not come into contact with them. Apparently he had other plans. The next morning when I went out to check on everyone he was our frolicking with the ladies. I made the decistion to let him be out with everyone, which I have come to realize was a bad idea. I now have a few girls that have come down with a respitory issue. With the generouse help from some very knolegable people on the Where am I? Where are you? Washington thread of http://www.backyardchickens.com/ I now know what I need to correct this problem and am on my way back to healthy chickens.

 Here is a picture of the culpret who got me chickens sick:

One of these days I will tell you a bit about this interesting little guy, but that is a story for another day!

Do you always quarentien your new chickens or just throw them in and hope for the best?

On a side note, I am sorry for my bad spelling. I tried useing the spell check, but don't think it worked as there were not highlighted words. There is no possible way I spelled everything correctly, not even a chance! 

It's been a while!

  April was the last time I posted, and there have been many changes sense then. Good and bad, but we have survived and are thriving and will continue to do so.

  All my kids will be out of school this coming Wednesday!

  Well as far as chickens go, we are defiantly up a few from the last time I posted.
I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but as far as adults I now have about 25 Hens and one temp rooster.
  Then, well then there are the chicks and pullets..... Lets see there are 3 that are 15 weeks old, two pullets and one roo (that is my up and coming roo for my flock) 7 Silkies that are about 7 weeks old, one mixed girl from my flock that is also 7 weeks, 2 hen raised mix chicks that are 9 weeks old, 6 chicks that are about 13 weeks old, and 3 bantam unknown breeds from the feed store that are about 3 weeks old. Not to mention that I have two hens that went broody (these are my 4th and 5th hens that have gone broody) and I bought 15 eggs to divide between them. So one had 7 and one had 8.... Well one still has 7 but my other girl STOLE eggs from the other nest boxes, my last count under her was 11 eggs. I moved them into the broody area right away so that she could not "collect" any more! Those eggs were set on Monday the 18th. Today is day 4 and hatch day should be about July 8th (one of my dear daughters birthday, Rylaya)

 Well I think that is all for now, but hopefully I will have time tomorrow to post some pictures!