My babies are a little over a month old. I recently moved them from their brooder into a pen inside the main coop. They have been there for a few days. I wanted them to learn that the coop is home and let my older girls get used to them.
They are quickly outgrowing their pen. My older girls...
I am not sure what is wrong with my Blue Orpington. Her crop is always big, full and squishy. At first I thought it was sour crop. I monitored her for awhile. The first day she was a little off balance early in the morning but as the day went on she was back to her normal self. She is still...
Sunday night we had just finished tending our flock of chickens and this little rabbit came into our back yard. She is definitely not a wild rabbit. She is very friendly and was extremely interested in the chickens, sniffing at the run fence and standing up looking in. We caught her and set her...
We are nearing completion of our coop and will start on the run soon. I have metal fence posts, sections of chain link and chicken wire to use. The run will be 12x20, 6-8ft tall and enclosed on all sides. My plan was to cover the entire thing with chicken wire and have the chain link around the...
Currently I am feeding my chicks Dumor chick starter/grower from TSC. My chicks are growing well, I do not have any complaints about the feed but I am interested in taking a more natural route with their diet. I have been researching nutritional requirements and looked at a few other members...
I recently purchased 1000 mealworms to start a colony. My chicks love them. I read some of the other threads here to get started. I used oats and whole wheat flour for bedding and placed apple halves skin side down in the bedding. At first everything seemed to be going well. Here lately I am...
The past few days have been hot and humid. I got home last night and it was about 85 in my house. My chicks are two weeks old. Several of them were panting and holding their wings out. They were all staying away from the heat lamp. I turned the lamp off and put a fan in the window in a separate...
Yesterday I set up a temporary pen for the babies. I made it large enough so all of us could get in with them. We let them explore and allowed the kids to handle them some too. They spent most of the time trying to get under my legs like I was mama hen.
It was a bit nerve wracking trying to...
Besides the basics (nesting boxes, roost, food, water). We are in the process of building our coop and I am planning how to do the inside. What do you have in your coop that makes chicken care easier? More entertaining? Do you have a brooder in your coop? Caged boxes for young birds? A chicken...
My babies were supposed to ship today from MyPetChicken. I have been checking my email like crazy today. Do they even send a confirmation? I called my post office last week to let them know I was expecting baby chicks and the lady was very helpful. She knew exactly what I was talking about, I...
I know chicken wire is not good for securing from predators. I plan on covering all openings to the coop with hardware cloth. But I am wondering if using chicken wire for the run would be a good idea or not. Obviously the chickens will be locked in the coop at night and only in the run during...
My husband and I began preparing for our coop this past weekend. We plan on building an 8X12 coop from recycled/re-purposed materials. Of that 8x8 will be actual coop space and the remaining space will be walk-in/storage area. It started with roughly 72 pallets.
We used a saw to cut through...
Hi everyone! I am 27, wife and mother of 3 beautiful kids. We have a little over an acre of land in Lancaster County (Amish country lol). We have been talking about getting some chickens for quite a while now and I think it is finally time!
I have been reading the boards here for some time now...