How huge is this mistake I have made? Bought 13 hens, sight unseen, from a total stranger, based on a Craigslist ad. Supposed to be young, healthy, immunized good-laying red sex-link hens "retired" from Tyson due to moulting.
Went to pick them up today. Dozens of cages, piled 4 or 5 layers high, jam- packed with 1,000 hens. Feathers everywhere. Strangely quiet.
They were supposed to have arrived yesterday.... so does that mean they spent an extra 24 hours in those cages without food and water? On top of how many other hours since they were picked up at Tyson?
But the "guy" in charge just started carrying birds to my vehicle and I didn't stop to look at them until I got them home. Big mistake.
What a pitiful sight they are. Beaks have been clipped (I hate that!), some nearly featherless from self-picking and them all picking each other, not just moulting I'm sure. Combs and wattles are very pale, not a red one in the bunch. I carefully lifted each almost-comatose bird from my carrying cage and set each one on the ground. They acted like they were in shock. Acted like they had never seen dirt, or grass, or daylight. I brought out a short bucket of water. They had to be thirsty!
None drank. So I caught one and dipped its beak in the water. Then it drank like crazy. I caught most of them, one at a time, repeating the beak dipping. The last few were too fast for me to catch, so I just hope they will learn from the others.
One hen, drank, then sat down, then fell over on her side. I set her back up, she plopped over again. "Here's one that won't make it throught the night" I thought. I brought food out to where the new hens decided to huddle together behind the chicken house. Some ate pellets, but they wouldn't even try the tomatoes, cucumbers, or bread.
When my older 7 hens went to roost, the new ones didn't follow, so one-by-one, I cornered 8 of the new hens and put them into the coop. The others were NOT going to cooperate and by now it was dark. So counting the one that was falling over on her side, I plan to find 6 new hens either dead or missing in the morning.
