I had chickens when I was in jr HS and HS, late 60s, early 70s. My mother taught elementary school and we got the assortment of chickens that hatched when the classes were showing the students the development of chicks. When my parents moved away from the property there was a long gap with no...
Hi - I am in the Phoenix, AZ area.
Have had chickens for more than 10 years. Mine are loose in the back yard so they can pick where they can get. I find them under bushes a lot. I will flood a depression in the shade so that they can stand in mud. My chickens seem to prefer this over a mister...
I would like to rehome at least part of my flock. These are free range in the backyard hens that I have raised from chicks. There are 6 hens
I am debating keeping two of them for bug control but may consider rehoming all.
They have all been very healthy. One of the hens has gone broody a...
I have never had a hen hatch eggs for me but I have twice purchased day old chicks and had a hen raise the chicks.
After the broody hen had been setting on dummy eggs for a couple of weeks, I put the day old chicks under her after full dark when the hen and chicks were asleep. I had no problems...
I free range my chickens (all hens) in my very urban back yard. The yard is fenced with a block wall and I have only had chickens go walk-about a few times. The only predators that we have seen here have been hawks and, once, an eagle. They are fairly uncommon though.
I have areas of the yard...
Update on introducing chicks to broody hen.
After it got nice and dark out, I tried again. The hen was not growly when I disturbed her this time. I quickly removed the two dummy eggs she was sitting on and tucked the 4 chicks under her. The hen started making soft clucking sounds and the chicks'...
I have 3 Ameraucanas and one that was supposed to be the same but has grown up to be buff colored. The folks at the feed store (where I got my chicks) think she might be a light colored Production Red as she lays very large eggs.
One of my other hens has gone broody, been so for a couple of...
I am in Glendale.
When it is very hot, I do set up a mister where the chickens can get into the mist if they want.
I have used a portable evap cooler but they seemed to prefer standing in the bleed-off water to cool their feet to being in the strongly moving air. They do have the run of the...
Very interesting, thank you. Fortunately, I have only seen a few of these problems.
My biggest issue is convincing the hens to lay in the nest boxes where i can easily find the eggs and my dogs can't.
I don't believe that dog/chicken behavior can be completely generalized. Dog breeds have been developed to have specific traits and this often includes hard-wired behaviors. Prey drive is inherent in predators and is still very much present in our domesticated prey animals although it is often...
This last weekend, my last hen from the original AZ batch got as old as she could. She was 8 and a half years old. Sweety will be missed.
I do have four pullets that I'm raising but they haven't become as friendly as Sweety was. Hopefully they will in time.