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We have a black star, seems healthy weight and activity. We were inspecting feet and noticed a scab on the pad of each foot. Not bad looking, no redness or signs of infection or limping. Should we start epsom salt soaking or just keep an eye on it? Also, all our 4 hens have scant feathers on...

We ended up with one 3 year old hen left, so we got 3 chicks to give her a flock. (She had been a flock of 2.) The chicks were brooded inside her coop in a see but don't touch method. They are now 4 weeks old and we are starting to attempt integration. When they are in their separate cage...

This is a 4 week old chick sold as a blue rock pullet from tractor supply. I'm starting to wonder if he/she is an andalusian instead of a blue rock? And thus perhaps a cockerel? I started getting worried when his/her comb turned a bit more pink at the base. Unfortunately, we are in a suburb and...

Our latest batch of hens (2 BR's) has consistently refused to lay in the nesting box. The boxes are internal, with doors to the outside and made out of plastic. They seem to scare the birds, somehow. We've tried anything we could imagine, but they would always make their own nest in some...

I noticed tiny fast moving reddish bugs on a newly laid egg. Checked out our hens (2 barred rocks) and near their vent their skin and feather shafts look good but every time I parted a new area I saw about 10 of these bugs quickly skitter away. I can't see any dimension to them, they look like...

I'm wondering if having a coop that moves every day is a slight deterrent to predators like mink and raccoon? We have a chicken tractor (elevated plywood coop with run in front and below, on wheels, moved almost daily) for our 2-4 chickens. We live in a suburban area with raccoons, coyotes...

Sometime last night something dug through our trash ignoring the meat wrappers and eating about 15 lollipops, the typical dumdum Brand. I also found some predator looking poop by the compost bin. We have raccoons, opossum, lots of coyotes, and other typical suburban wildlife. Any ideas what...

I just bought some chick crumbles and I cannot figure out the date, and the TSC workers could not either. It says lot# 16124058-18 so they were guessing 24 May 2018 but weren't sure. That seems way too close to be possible. The feed is "Nature's Best organic chick starter and grower crumbles...

I have read that powdered Corid 20% dosage for coccidiosis is 1.5 tsp per gallon for severe outbreaks and 3/4 tsp per gallon for moderate outbreaks. What I'm wondering is what to do when my 3 chicks drink maybe 2 cups of water a day? I could mix up a gallon and dump most of it out, but I...

We have a 3 week old barred rock chick whose breath smells like fake crab meat, kind of sweet and fishy. She seems normal otherwise, except for little sneezes every few minutes. No one else smells. We had bracelet rubber bands around their ankles for ID, and then noticed that one fell off and...

I have three barred rock chicks that are 2 1/2 weeks old. One of them has been about five days behind the others in feathering out. This was especially noticeable with the tail. Now I’ve noticed that this one seems a little more white than the others. We cannot have any roosters so it would be...

We have 2 week old barred rocks in brooder in a 3-season room so it gets to 50-70F at day and down to 40-50F at night. They have wing feathers and start of tail feathers. For the last 3 days they haven't been under the heating pad ever during the day and at night the least feathered (she's...

We have three barred rock chicks 11 days old from a feed store. I noticed a little bit of red in their poop this morning and I’m worried about Coccidiosis. They are all behaving normally eating drinking running around tweeting and one even made it to the top of the feeder last night. I...

This morning my (almost exactly) 5 year old barred rock hen wasn't out in her yard, and I found her sitting in the hay in her coop. She let me snuggle her (unusual, she usually resists contact) and she talked to me normally, and everything seemed to feel normal in her body, and no injuries...

My BR hen had a lump between her toes on each foot, the size of half a marble. Not limping, happy other than starting to molt. I figured she had bumblefoot and got prepared for surgery. After soaking and scrubbing, some black stuff came out and it's dirt. Normal, gritty, 'clean' dirt. I got...

I want to build a nipple waterer system for 4 hens. All of the designs I've seen use PVC - 5 gallon buckets and pipes. I'm not so happy about using PVC to store water that enters my food supply, eventually. (We have switched all our human food/water containers to glass or stainless.)...