Recent content by marlishama

Pros: in my experience... better feather quality, less pecking/fighting, chickens live a more natural life eating bugs and grass, rich tasting eggs, less commercial feed. Cons: occasionally something will get a bird but I have dogs that keep predators at bay. ..if only by their presence. Eggs...

There are genetics at play, no doubt... but if we're going to compare dogs and chickens remember it's not uncommon for dogs to "test" owners with aggressive behaviour, particularly involving food/toys. That doesn't make them immediately cull-worthy. We need to be able to read body language...

I think it can depend on where you live, your means of protecting them from predators and your tolerance for poop and eaten flowers, etc. I live on the prairies and we have our share of predators, but I have a rooster who's not afraid to take on threats (my small dog avoids the barn now...

Oh you may be thought I was having problems keeping the humidity down but actually it's been a problem trying to keep it up. If I don't add any extra water it wants to hover around 27 percent. I live in Canada and it's cold and very dry where I live so the air outside of the incubator is quite...

I'm on day 9. I've got some silver and gold laced Wyandottes and a couple of ee. Here's to hoping I don't have any drama with the hatching. I went with the cooler style incubator. I had a Rubbermaid hinge top storage box that I lined on all four sides with styrofoam insulation that has a...

I want to thank everyone who has posted information about hatching eggs...and a big thank you to those who posted all the wonderful plans for homemade incubators. I'm new ...only having gotten my first chickens in June 2013. Because of the good advice here, I only lost one and that was to a...

I'm in Canada and we've just had over a week of -32C, plus wind. I feel for any living thing having to be outside in that kind of weather. I installed a heat lamp slightly above the roosts and two 60W light bulbs as our days are so short and I was worried about reduced egg production. I have...

I am in Canada and we've just had over a week of -32 C. Not sure what that equates to in farenheit but it's cold. Really, really cold. Especially when you add in the nasty wind. I've got five hens and get between 3 and 5 eggs a day, even in this cold. They were taking a long time to lay, so...

Asking them would make sense....feeling a little sheepish now. :)

Hmm, your post also got me thinking about autocorrect!

I put an ad on a livestock sales website, advertising some roosters for sale. Someone responded, asking if i still had the "tipsters" for sale. What the heck do they mean?

I tried one bag of pellets, they scattered them everywhere and wasted them. For some reason they really seemed to dislike them. I feed crumbles now, mixed with some grain. They naturally pick the grain first but get to the crumbles when the grain is gone. For a treat I feed red river cereal...

Every dog is different, but we have all the breeds we do because people wanted dogs who were good for different jobs, and therefore bred certain traits into them. I'd love to adopt a retired greyhound but I've got no fence on my acreage and they can have higher prey drive so it's not the best...

Being taught right from a puppy is probably the most reliable means. But dogs have a natural prey drive. You're asking a lot of a high drive dog to leave fluttering, darting objects alone when you're not present. I have a 3 dogs. One will let the chickens walk on her back and peck her...

Thanks, the thread was helpful! I'll relax. With the bulb and straw, it sounds like they will do just fine.