Recent content by Gma

Our chickens have been molting, not laying much, so we got lax about checking for hidden nests. A couple days ago my son-in-law found a nest at the far end of the pasture in the blacberry vines with 30 eggs! Needless to say we are taking care of that situation, but the good news is that they are...

the bird is about 1 year old and yes, it does have a single comb. I will have to spend more time watching to see how it acts on a regular basis.

What I thought was a barred rock hen has started crowing in the past week. It is about a year old now, how long does it take for roosters to mature and start acting like a rooster?

RIP, Zam. Sorry she had to go that way.

I read something that may help you with cockroaches. It works on fire ants. Try putting a dish of food for the cockroaches on the floor, make a big circle around it with DE, the bugs will have to cross the DE barrier to get to the food. Cockroaches can take up to 45 minutes to expire, so they...

I think 2% DE (about 2 lbs per 100 lbs feed) was recommended for dairy cow feed but not sure on the chickens. Originally it was used as an anti-caking agent (and insecticide) in feed but the dairymen using it said their cows were healthier also, there are 14 minerals it DE. Supposedly reduces...

I have fans that I used last year and I also floated ice cubes in pans of water for the girls. This year has not been that warm yet. I also flood the grass near the outside water pans that are shaded by the barn, they like that. We are now up to 72 hens of various ages and 17 different breeds...

23 today from 30 hens-we get between 20 and 26 per day. Also today we got the biggest egg ever-3.1 oz and it was from an Easter Egger! Will post a picture when I find the camera.

I am not so happy with the feed store chicks this year either. I ordered 10 Cuckoo Marans and 3 of them died, also lost one of another breed. Last year I ordered my 30 chicks from Belt Hatchery in California and all of them thrived and are great layers. Will go back to them next year I think.

I think that the youngest grand-daughter named our one Polish Top Hat, two Naked Necks and two SS Hamburgs-the other 61 are called "here chick chick" and they come running. My chicken math was out of control this year. We were going to get 15 more layers but got 31 plus the 5 odd ball breeds...

I totally understand-we were going to get 10 additional chicks this year-then 16-then 20-now its up to 32! That will give us a total of 62 hens unless we go to the feed store again.

we have several breeds: I think the Barred Rocks are my favorite; the golden Laced Wyandottes are beautiful but a couple of them are very agressive-probably will not get those again. this year we ordered Cuckoo Marans, Buff Orpingtons, Aracaunas, Delawares, Silver Spangled Hamburgs, Speckled...

We lost one of our 3 day old cuckoo maran chicks last night, she just wasn't thriving. We brought her into the house, fed her warm water with a little sugar, kept her warm, made her some soupy mash but she wouldn't eat it. She just didn't seem to have the energy or will to fight. She finally...

thank you all for the input and I will check out that website.

I have 5 EEs and they lay between 3 and 5 eggs per day.