Recent content by Godzillamax

We free range our chickens during the day and it's while they are out of the coop that a fox or coyote occasionally kills one. The coop and run was well fortified when we built it, with all the measures you mentioned, but a mink moved into the area and found a small gap and got in which is how...

Thanks. Seems giving pullets layer feed is bad, but giving hens medicated chick feed isn't bad.

Over the course of the last year we lost all but one of our 18 chickens. We always lose a few here and there to foxes or coyotes, maybe one dies here and there from being egg bound, etc., but a mink or ferret (couldn't tell the difference when I trapped it) decimated our flock and killed seven...

I've got a three-phase process when we get new chicks. They start off in a brooder in our basement with a heat lamp. Then when they out-grow the brooder (typically week 3-4) we move them to a temporary coop in the barn. The temp coop is made up of 5 panels I made out of PVC pipe and chicken...

Been separated since mid-day Sunday, so about 24 hours.

Picked up our order of 26 chicks from the feed store on Thursday. Woke up Saturday morning to two dead in the brooder and one more that was looking a little listless, but once you nudged it it seemed fine (will call this one chick A). We have been very lucky in the five years we've raised...

We have four chickens in our coop, and this March picked-up eight more. The pullets are thirteen weeks old today, and nearly as large as our four yearlings. After the new birds out-grew their brooder we transitioned them into our barn into a 5'x10' temp coop (made out of PVC piping and chicken...

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but this past few weeks we have been seeing temps drop into the -20s F and, with windchill, -30s F and -40s F. My coop is insulated, but not heated, so it has been hovering around -5 F inside. My chickens are doing fine, but on the few days per week...

I lost four of my eight in an hour one afternoon to a fox raid in broad daylight not twenty feet off my back porch and a good 30-40 yards from the tree line. I found two with their heads missing, and never found the bodies of the other two. We knew we had a fox with her 2-3 cubs in the vicinity...

I've got eight seven week old layers (four Rhode Island Reds and four Americanas). The 8'x8' coop I'm building is nearing completion, but I still have more to do and expect it will be a few weeks before the girls are ready to move into their new home. They outgrew the brooder we had in our...

Making headway on my 8'x8' coop. I will get the stairs, landing, and roof done within the next two weeks. I was wondering what materials to use for exterior wall weatherproofing? Right now the walls are covered with 3/4" plywood. I was thinking about vinyl siding which I priced out at around...

Thanks for the good info, I will check out that link soon. I think my concerns about coop size are not wanting something too large that for just eight birds it is too spacious and it hinders warmth generation, but at the same time wanting something large enough that if we elect to grow our flock...

My wife and I will be picking up our eight baby chicks on Tuesday (4 Rhode Islands Reds and 4 Ameraucanas). They will go in our basement for a while, then to a spot in our barn until I finish building a coop (still waiting on the remaining foot of snow on the ground to melt before I can start...