Yesterday I found one of the hay loft young chickens under the gate between the two sides of the barn.  The feathers on the back were missing, and there was scabbing on the top of the head.  So I am assuming it was beat up by one of the roosters.  I moved the chicken to the weasel proof pen and gave some food and water.  It did eat and drink some so I have some hope it might make it.  He ah been perfectly fine yesterday.

Then this morning I found one of the White Midget Tom turkeys wasn’t acting right.  He wasn’t interested in eating and wasn’t moving much.  One of his eyes was closed, and he was breathing hard.  I moved him to the weasel proof pen, but he was not interested in eating or drinking.  He finally laid down and just kept panting.  I did not know what was wrong with him.  I couldn’t find any evidence of trauma.  I was wondering if he swallowed something he shouldn’t have or developed pneumonia.  He had had some mild diarrhea so I wondered if he was acidotic from that, but the diarrhea was not that bad.  So we had to decide what to do.  I contemplated giving him antibiotics but then he wouldn’t be safe for butchering.  So we decided to put him down now and save the meat.  He was clearly suffering.  Here are both of the ill birds.

Not what we planned on doing today.  But I guess that is farming.  When we cut him up we couldn’t find an obvious cause to his illness.  I hope the others don’t develop the same problem.

The hatchery young chickens seem to be doing OK.  They have taken to hanging out under the gates by the hay barn rather than the main barn.  They are obviously wise to the flying predators.  But they do roost in the main barn at night so I am happy with that.

In other news, I moved the cattle to the far back field.  They love this field because it has the street sweeper for them to scratch on.  They went right for it.