A warning about using zip ties to identify chicks. (GRAPHIC PHOTOS!)

WARNING: There are graphic photos of an injured chicken in this post. If blood or open wounds bother you, please do not continue reading this post. Skip to this post or this post instead....they're funny not images of wounds! 

Many chicken keepers use zip ties to tell chicks apart. Especially if they have different breeds of the same age with similar coloring. It makes sense. The problem is when the zip ties are not removed as the chick grows it can cause serious injury. Such was the case with Peggy. 

Yes, son named her...injured leg, Peg leg...get it? *sigh* anyway... 

Peggy was brought to me with a severe limp. There was no known injury or attack, she just started limping one day so she was brought here to see if I could figure out the problem. Thankfully it was easy to diagnose and treat and 1 month later Peggy is just fine now! Read on to see exactly what happened.

Remember: those graphic pictures are coming up!

Why did you start raising chickens?

My answer: To keep the Guineas around. At least that's how it started. We had a bad tick problem in our woods, so we got some Guineas to control the ticks. Everything I read at the time said that if you buy adult Guineas that they will fly off in search of their 'home'. Then I read something that said that if Guineas live with chickens they stick around since the chickens do. So we got chickens. 

We also kept the Guineas confined for 3 months to sort of reprogram them to where home was. Not sure which one worked, but we still have the original Guineas and chickens. Plus about 70 more *sigh*