Recent content by cekendri

I have since put the rooster in my chicken tractor while my meat birds are still under the lamps. Three of my hens were already bare backed and had capes on. The favorite one had a spur or claw wound that I did not notice before. The egg laying has since gone back up and the hens seem to be...

I just was watching my flock of six hens and a too and my smallest hen got mated three times. The rest have not been touch. Therefore, does my rooster just have a preference or is this not normal?

In my option they only sleep and lay eggs in the coop and so that size should not be an issue. The definition of coop will vary depending on who you talk to. The coop is 4'x4', but the enclosed run 24'x8' (door is always open except from 10 pm to 6 am) + coop is 192 feet^2.

I should say this is not my first time with chickens, but that was in NZ where nothing is doing to hurt your birds.

I did just buy a dremel for doing his spurs they are not very long ~1 inch, but I was also going to trim his claws this weekend. Will also be doing a full check for mites and lice again. I am up in the UP of MI and it has been hotter recently, but this is their first full summer so I am not...

I am getting two more layers with my meat bird order, but that will be another 8 weeks before I can integrated them. I like to have the rooster as he does do look out and keeps his girls safe, but just over sexed.

I was planning on hatching eggs in the future. I have a chicken tractor that I could put him in, but that is about to get filled with some new arrivals for 8 weeks

I have a mixed flock or 3 buffs (one is a rooster - got 6 chicks from TSC and 4 turned out to be roosters so we had three rooster dinners), 2 olive eggers, and 2 splash marans. The olive eggers and marans came from a breeder and we got them when they were about 8 weeks. The buffs are about a...

When a coop is broken down into its simplest form out it is a room with small openings for ventilation and access. That would be easy to model and look at air flow. Might do it for my coop and see what can be determined, I have done flow analysis before, not sure on how hard the humidity is to...

I have been lurking for a while and have used AutoCAD to design parts of my coop. Currently have 6 pullets and a roo surviving there first winter in the UP MI. Planning on a complete redesign this spring. If you want to look at heat and flow simulations you can do it in COMSOL or Solidworks...