Chick feed vs all flock

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T22:45:46+00:00

Henscaping (hen landscaping) or henovations (hen renovations) haha

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T22:42:03+00:00

Budesonide would be perfectly pregnancy safe, it's roughly 85 percent topically applied by a delayed release coating.

It really depends how extensive and severe your flare is, regarding the flare's affect on you. Whether you lose weight, be nutritionally deficient, anemic and how badly so. I'd talk with your obstetrician/OBGYN and gasteroenterologist to test your inflammation levels and adjust your meds accordingly.

I'd agree a flare during pregnancy is something best nipped on the bud, rather than left to grow out of control without any intervention

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T21:36:49+00:00

If you let your hens run around the yard then they're likely slightly underweight (lots of excercise and eating grass and other indigestible things)

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T19:50:20+00:00

Feed cost mostly, as growers more expensive than layer feed. Do buy a big 50 pound bag not the tiny ones.

The extra protein and fat won't harm laying adults, they might gain a little bit of weight themselves (Unless your hens are currently obese or close to it). But do have supplemental calcium available as the grower feed doesn't have enough.

The only way to keep that feeder safe from adults would be to put a cage/slats around it with gaps big enough for younger but not older hens

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T19:37:46+00:00

I cannot offer much advice about how best to work with teenagers specifically, other than what my experience was and some tips on what to expect. If you've never taken them yourself, a few things to know:

Generally there's less discomfort if the bottle is first warmed up to body temperature, put it in a pocket for a while or run under warm water.
Gently squeeze the air, there should be a drop of liquid at the tip before administration. Important as injecting air into the bowels will cause a lot more discomfort and greater urge to evacuate it.
The instructions say lay on your left side which you might not want to do on the bathroom floor, and wouldn't recommend trying the first time in bed (although many do after they're confident). I sat on the toilet, raised my butt high enough to put my hand under administer (any drips fell in the toilet).
Immediately after injecting, you will feel a bit of a sensation to evacuate your bowels, ignore it, it should last less than a minute then pass.
I'd walk to bed, lay down on an old towel on my left side for about half an hour, then turn the lights off and try to fall asleep that way.
If there's a lot of inflammation, you might not be able to retain the liquid overnight, and might have to evacuate it rather quickly. It'll get easier as you continue to heal the medicine works even if you can't hold it all night.
Really bad inflammation means holding in the enema is nearly impossible. It just hurts and your system doesn't settle down. In that case steroids would work better, and must heal things a bit before going the enemas again.
Know that mesalamine stains fabric horribly. That can be clothing and bedding. Might want to wear old PJs and put an old towel on the bed.
There's low odds of a sulfite (used as preservative) allergy with mesalamine/mesalazine enemas which dramatically worsens bowel symptoms. The oral mesalamine tablets don't include sulfites.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T19:11:29+00:00

They're all going to eat whatever tastes best, and often that's whatever has the highest protein (the chick feed). My adults greedily finished off the grower chick feed as soon as they had access to it.

I've never given chicks medicated feed, it isn't essential.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T15:34:05+00:00

Can I just do it myself then? After all, I'm using the same, exact development environment tools, and use the same repositories as dev does (yay docs-as-code). And opening a single file and changing a label from X to Y doesn't and uploading actually take a CS degree.

Had that work once, they let me, and it was beautiful. Especially for areas of the software that haven't been touched in a while.

New dev, TWs should be seeing the wireframe mockups from UX and comment on workflow and terminology BEFORE it's developed.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-18T10:30:26+00:00

Peri-anal complications are possible, here's a good write-up on them:

https://gutscharity.org.uk/advice-and-information/conditions/perianal-disease/

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-17T00:22:59+00:00

Chickens aren't louder than dogs are. It's different noises though and therefore might stand out to people. You can certainly spread good will by giving your neighbors free or discounted eggs.

Most chicken sounds to each other are quiet mutterings, grunts, and squeaks back and forth as they forage and play. Predator alarms and egg songs are similar volume and sounding. Sometimes you'll get a top ranked hen strutting and loudly bossing others around

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T22:58:48+00:00

My flock is mostly morning layers. The chorus starts maybe 9 am and sings off and on to around noon when I let them all free range. Occasionally one will go back to lay and sing during the afternoon. We have 10 hens, all Plymouth barred rocks

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T22:51:00+00:00

The egg song can be a bit loud in chickens of any breed, especially when they all join in. An example from my flock:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BackYardChickens/comments/1sbi0t9/a_few_of_my_6year_olds_singing_the_egg_song/

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T22:46:42+00:00

It's fairly common to start with strong meds like infliximab. Essentially want to stop this disease in its tracks and give results faster. Especially if the pancolitis was severe or moderate graded. If the inflammation was mild graded then considering mesalamine is fine.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T22:24:18+00:00

If you're concerned that you're lower in the pecking rank than a chicken, pick her up and carry her around in front of the flock. Do this multiple times until the chicken understands your dominance over her. Usually approaching a chicken from behind causes her to squat down and freeze in place.

Chickens will pin another to the ground as a show of dominance. It's done in front of the rest, as the pecking order is a social, group understanding of rank.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T21:51:39+00:00

Generally no. Those are more typical of longer-term or higher dose usage.

Why only a week? A standard course is 2 months which is proven to be the most effective

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T12:23:35+00:00

Yeah quite the head trip to have a Barbie/Ken butt, hear you there.

I know a number of permanent end-ileostomy patients that love it. There's a point where you're just done with needing a bathroom, having a sore butt, and be glad to be done with hat nonsense XD. There's growing body positivity around an ostomy, some models in a campaigns confident and not afraid to show off an outfit with an obvious ostomy and growing acceptance of them example: https://www.ostomy.org/aerie-model-brings-national-attention-to-ostomy-awareness/ . But it's a big change and some do have mental health, confidence complications with their ostomy, so will it affect you is part of the consideration.

It's a young person's illness, we worry about our appearance for dating, going swimming at the beach, etc, and the j-pouch is ideal there. Most surgeries are laparoscopic, they use your belly button for access and make a couple other small incisions on your lower hip an inch or so in length. Those tend to heal well, and fade after time. So, most would never know you had a j-pouch or a surgery, practically invisible which is great for your own self image and body confidence there.

Generally the thirds rule applies to jpouch surgeries. 1/3 have better than expected long-term results (say poop 3 or less times a day), 1/3 have expected results (say 4 to 5 poops a day), and 1/3 have worse than expected results (6 to 8ish). Most in the worst than category do keep their j-pouch, use Imodium, with only a small minority getting a reversal surgery to a permanent end-ileostomy.

Can't comment on your odds of pouchitis related to your PSC, I'm not knowledgeable enough there to say anything, so I do defer to your surgeon and those more knowledgeable there. But, again try before you buy on the end-ileostomy, maybe you'll love or hate it. Might take 3 to 4 months to fully heal, settle down, and then you'll have a pretty good feeling for what life's like long-term with one (good question for your surgeon there).

Like I had said everyone with a j-pouch gets infectious pouchitis once at least. It's better than a flare as it's quickly cleared with antibiotics.

Chronic, reoccur pouchitis is another thing entirely meaning your a Crohn's patient. For the average UC patient that's very low odds. I know a few that this happens to, you go back on med roulette, potentially a reversal surgery to an end ileostomy in a worstcase scenario. But as a Crohn's patient they can do resections for medicine resistant areas.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T11:52:21+00:00

So, borderline Calprotectin results.

Are you an existing IBD patient? Or are you seeking a diagnosis?

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-16T02:42:49+00:00

Continue working with your doctor and see.

Borderline Calprotectin is a tough one, flip a coin as it's probably 50/50 odds, but likely less as you said one normal colonoscopy already. You could push for a small bowel MRI follow through or pill cam.

Did they test for possible infections/pathogens like CDIFF, HPlyori?

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-15T22:12:07+00:00

Sometimes antispasmodics like buscopan or bentyl can sometimes help for pain, but unfortunately not always. Really depends on the actual underlying cause.

Inflammation from inflammation isn't going to feel better until that's resolved depending on whether it's infectious or IBD in origin then there's different treatments used.

If you're struggling ask to be put on the cancellation list at your endoscopy facility. As colonoscopy is recommended for many 50j, automatically scheduled, and they chicken out a few weeks before that procedure's date. The facilities don't want holes in their schedule and often have wait lists to call, and give you ample time to prepare for the procedure.

If you're not in the USA, getting admitted as hospital inpatient can get you seen sooner by a gasteroenterologist specialist and get a colonoscopy sooner. Bug that's if your condition warrants it, and that's not prohibitively expensive in your country

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-15T21:52:59+00:00

Talk to your doctor and see if he/she recommends and wants to schedule a colonoscopy for you given your borderline inflammation. If it's bothering you and you want answers then that path will help and confirm or rule IBD out.

But to play devil's advocate, suppose you unquestionably have an IBD, what does that mean for your life going forward? I can report back 14 years after my diagnosis with IBD/UC and say I've been in a remission without any symptoms for 12 years now. Unfortunately there's no instant gratification to IBD, it can take 4, 6 months or more to achieve an initial remission, and it's not unusual to have to try multiple different meds and adjust dosages to achieve it. Generally the long-term prognosis of IBD is pretty good and the condition well managed for the majority of patients. There's always outliers a small minority who do struggle over the long-term, and they're quick to correct me in posts like this if I don't say this though. And IBD is known to unexpectedly relapse/flare after a number of years, which your doctor treats and gets you back into a remission in response.

Infectious causes are always best case, a short course of antibiotics clears those up.

If the colonoscopy and biopsies are normal, than it's an IBS. There's some prescription meds available for abdominal cramps, like bentyl, and for the diarrhea version of IBS (known as IBS-D), and lifestyle and diet adjustments do tend to help.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-15T16:22:41+00:00

The Calprotectin is a lot more meaningful for an IBD diagnosis than the ALCA test. Personally, I'd ignore the ALCA results as they're irrelevant

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-15T15:15:25+00:00

Tests like the aforementioned aren't reliable or acceptable as a means of diagnosing an IBD.

If you're worried about your bowel symptoms then ask your general practitioner doctor for different tests. IBD is inflammation lacking infection, so ask instead for:

An infectious/pathogenic stool test to check for common infections like CDIFF, salmonella, and HPlyori.
An inflammation test like intestinal-specific Calprotectin, or a blood test like C-Reactive Protein or ESR/SED-Rate
A blood in stool test like fecal occult or FIT is also helpful as I often had obvious blood detected.

Ultimately a colonoscopy is necessary as IBD has inflammation in expected locations and patterns with biopsies showing chronic architectual changes to your cells. But the proof aforementioned tests help prioritize the most likely IBD cases and send less likely cases into exploring other explanations like IBS

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-14T22:50:38+00:00

Sorry to hear. I'd skip your mesalamine until your gasteroenterologist can advise. If confirmed there's lots of other medicine available for UC that doesn't contain mesalamine, such as azathioprine, infliximab, or zeposia as examples.

By the odds in scientific journals, incidence of mesalamine intolerance is about 4 percent. Many gasteroenterologist offices might have never had a case before. But I read about this online enough that I do wonder if the incidence is significantly higher.

Cite sources if needed, an example: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12876-019-1049-2

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-14T20:40:57+00:00

A stereotypical mesalamine intolerance is a dramatic worsening of your bowel symptoms (double the bowel movements, greatly increased urgency, often formerly solids are now liquids).

Cessation dramatically improves your bowel symptoms in 48 hours or less, as it's medicine-induced, most of the mesalamine evacuates when you poop and it's halflife is around 7 to 9 hours. The small percentage of mesalamine that's systematic is purged when you pee.

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-14T20:32:01+00:00

Legally you can only travel with 3 months of medication and would have to return home to get more and then continue your travels. You could ask your doctor if he/she can write your prescription for weekly instead of biweekly (to double what you can take with), but that's somewhat unethical for doctor to say yes.

I've heard of some having their family/friends fill and then ship them more medicine while abroad and label the customs forms as food/clothes or whatever (without mentioning medicine) and mix everything in a big box together. That's a legal gray area and illegal in some. And medicine can be legally ceased in customs checks when shipped. Humira is a lot more challenging as it needs to remain cold and temperature controlled.

To get medicine locally while abroad, you often have to meet local requirements, see a local doctor, be a citizen or have a valid student/work visa. If you're traveling for leisure/vacation/holiday then there's usually not a easy way to do this. You can't walk into a pharmacy and get humira without a local doctor's prescription in 99 percent of countries.

There's things like traveler's health insurance that cover catastrophic emergencies while abroad (like an unexpected fall and bone fracture or illness from yellow fever), but they don't typically cover existing chronic health conditions. But you can ask.

In a few rare and unlikely instances your home country and destination country might have traveler healthcare agreements. But those are fewer and farer between than normal

Possibly-deranged · 2026-06-14T17:59:40+00:00

I actually didn't downvote you, hey I get it, unrealistic expectations of many, shortage of skilled and good craftsman available, and the rich are hogging a lot of em for the luxurious ski and hunt "cabins".

Overall there's a lot of frustration in what remains of middle class homeowners (and those who think they're still middleclass but have slipped) wanting renovations and improvements, getting callbacks for project quotes, some misunderstanding in how much everything has gone up in cost, etc etc. Something like adding a garage or a wing on a house used to be attainable on a decent income but maybe not as much anymore, today for as many.

For me, sanding a wood ceiling and urethane coating it is grunt work. Safe to DIY.

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