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We bought a second-hand tin shed cheaply for our new coop and have built it up onto a raised wooden floor with a hatch for cleaning. It's all going well so far but we need to sort out some ventilation before we paint it. We've put roosts around two sides - one side is going to have nest boxes...

Near on a year ago I adopted a little hen from a lady who was moving. I think she's a golden Wyandotte cross - she's not very big. What I didn't realise at the time was that she'd had problems with scaly leg mite. Call me naive, but at a glance her legs looked okay, and it wasn't until after we...

I've had a bad week this week - husband let out cat, chick escaped, am nursing it in my shirt right now - but I wanted to share a story that started off badly but had an unexpectedly happy ending. A couple of weeks ago, about two weeks into incubation, my husband - there's a pattern here...

One of my four-week-old chicks escaped the pen yesterday on the same morning that my husband allowed the cat to escape She had a number of injuries and abrasions as though being caught between two paws. I've been treating her with iodine and electrolyte & B-vitamins and she was perky...

My Light Sussex has started laying two eggs a day. It's been going on for at least several days consistently now. She doesn't lay eggs as large as my barred rocks or my gingernuts, but if she's laying two, well then! They've had 100% hatch rate when I've incubated them. Is this normal? She's...

We're just a family raising for eggs, looks and fun for the children, so we have a mix of mainly heritage breeds crossed to first gen hybrid mutts - but we are raising extra this year hoping for some rugged, pretty hybrids to sell and hubby is going to eat the roos while I'm not watching! We...

I'm in shock. My two orpington girls, the giants of my flock, have been having issues with bumblefoot. They were on a course of antibiotics which got the lame one walking again, but I wasn't convinced it was properly gone. Our local vets will prescribe abx but don't offer surgery. Fast forward a...

Yesterday evening I found an eggshell in the corner of the brooder pen. Just a yolk covered shell, no trace of a chick. They were due to hatch Friday/Saturday, all were viable. The nest box is a box with sides - you can't roll an egg out. I assumed a rat must have somehow got in, even though...

This is the second egg I've had like this from my otherwise healthy hen, so I took a photo. I Googled extensively last time and couldn't find another egg like it. She's a good layer, nice strong shells, usually blemish-free eggs, no funny poop that I can find and just generally happy, friendly...

Some of my 5 week old barred rock chicks have feathered in a very strange way. One, who we've dubbed 'Crazy Feather', has them at particularly odd angles. They are NOT supposed to be frizzles and the eggs came from a reputable breeder, the same one all my other eggs came from. I've seen some...

I should have got a photo too, but I was making pancakes, so.... I've had blood spots often enough but this was more than that. It looked like an intact blood vessel, thick at one end and wrapped around two sides of the yolk. The blastodisc was still clearly visible and I don't think it was a...

My neighbour's keen to hatch out some eggs under her silkies for her kids. My little rooster is only 4 1/2 months old but it seems he's up for the job - the lowest in the pecking order of my older hens, Sooty, laid a fertile egg. And then went broody I've cracked open a couple more this morning...

Help me, I'm on edge here. I have a hen sitting who sat on a clutch a few months back. There was a poor hatch rate - a lot of non-developers but a few tragedies too. She went broody again and so we gave her another lot of eggs. This time, we gave her 8 instead of 12 (she is a large hen, light...

Some days ago we released our four week old chicks with their mother back into the main coop as we have a new brood of chicks in the woodshed and the older ones were flapping around and going nuts, wanting to stretch their wings. Well, it's all gone well up until now! They'd been scratching...

I have four, four week old chicks in the wood shed at the moment with their mother. They have nearly all their adult feathers and with it, they're getting boisterous and flying and looking for things to roost on. I'm not sure how many weeks I can keep them happily contained, or how much space...

Disaster struck this morning :( I went out to find that my broody had left the nest to care for her ravenous chicks that were wanting to explore. Overnight she'd sat or trodden on the newest hatchling and it was dead in the nest.That was the biggest blow, as that chick looked healthy when I saw...

I have a clutch of eggs under my broody - bought eggs and they're 6 light sussex and 6 lavender araucana. I've googled but can't seem to find the answer to my question. Around half of each breed began pipping yesterday morning, day 21, and some hatched by afternoon and others this morning...