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Thanks! Good to know.

I agree with you, a possum is the only animal I know of that will enter the coop at night and eat a chicken in there. Was the chicken door left open? Or how did the possum gain entry inside?

I apologize for being off topic. I created a new thread last night after seeing a possum in my yard, and BYC directed me to this post. I have two very mean Easter Egger roos that made the hens squawk every time they mated. I have removed them and the Rhode Island Red roo I have with them now is...

An update on one of my missing hens. It is spring, and I know there's a possibility that they went broody since they are all free range. This happens sometimes and they suddenly show up a month later. Sure enough, I saw one of my Easter eggers heading for the neighbors fence instead of the coop...

I agree, removing food at night and closing up the coop are key. It is apparently also attracted to their water. It is very dry here and I try to leave water outside for my chickens at all times. I may try to remove the water at night or only have it available in locked up areas.

Thanks for your kind and helpful post. I have a call in to Animal Control. I have had to call in past years regarding rattlesnakes and an injured owl inside my chicken coop, which they caught and removed 30 miles away. As for the rattlesnakes, it's illegal to kill one unless it's inside my...

Thanks for the swift reply. I didn't know we had possums in Eastern Colorado. I always thought they were in the Eastern US but apparently they are in all states except Hawaii.

I saw a possum tonight under an old pallet house where my young pullets used to live. Something had been pulling their chicken feeder off its perch. Years ago I had several kills inside my old chicken coop where the predator has obviously eaten the chicken meal inside the coop. Until I saw the...

I have not tried it yet, but I am ordering Elector PSP off eBay for $17. It is a soil bacteria, so completely safe to use. It is very concentrated, so a little goes a long way. It is a one time treatment for lice and mites. It is the only product that will kill lice and eggs. I do organic...

THE SEX LINK WORKED! I have finally had a successful chicken hatch. My temperature was set too high, so I am having early hatches. So I will adjust my incubator down from 38 degrees C to 37.5 degrees C. I understand that might help give me more hens. I lost track of the lockdown date and had 5...

A quick update. My shipped quail eggs hatched a day early and I have 18 baby quail! I got Falb Fee, which doesn't hatch 100% true. I also got 8 random eggs, so I ended up with a Schofield Silver, a Tibetan, Falb Fee and a few of unidentified breeds. Now I know the new 55 egg incubator works! I...

Next update. My first 5 baby chicks are over a month old and I can't tell roosters from hens yet. So the attempted sex link didn't work. But my birds are huge, will be great for frying if roosters. I had 5 birds from hatch A, 3 birds from hatch B, 1 small chick hatched from C and zero from hatch...

I wanted to give an update. I had problems with the cheap incubator I had bought off Wish. My first hatch was 5 birds. My second hatch was 2 birds and my third hatch was one bird. Out of those I have 5 black birds all with spots on their heads, 2 RIR birds and 1 RIR Cinnamon Queen cross. So I...

For the black sex link to work, so you know sex at hatch, the barred rock has to be female. You can put a RIR or Buff Brahma rooster to breed the BPR hen. She only has one barring gene which she gives to her sons, but her daughters won't be barred. A barred rock rooster has two barring genes. If...

Some people have reported H2O2 to have improved their hatch rates. Dirty eggs usually won't hatch. It's great to have something to clean them with that won't hurt the chicks. You can use eggs for hatching that you would normally consider too dirty for your incubator. If you are setting eggs from...

I have some eggs in the incubator now that I put hydrogen peroxide on. I watched a YouTube video and she was washing the eggs first, actually letting them sit in warm water first to help loosen the crud. Then rinse under warm running water until clean. Then she had a small bowl with a third of a...

What I do is get several roosters of the breed I want. Then I watch them as they grow. I select the fastest growers that are friendly with the hens. Your rooster should ignore you and pay attention to the other chickens. If he becomes aggressive towards you, there are ways to tame him. I had a...

The first bird is a roo. I look at the pointed saddle feathers. Hens don't have saddle feathers. Around the neck the roosters have pointy long feathers like arrows. A pullet has feathers that are more rounded at the bottom around her neck, then her back feathers begin... without saddle feathers...

I have two RIR roosters that are friendly, great with the hens yet very submissive with me. I chose them for personality and one had fast growth. They were chosen from 46 hatchery males. Of course, two of them ended up being hens. I butchered the ones with bad attitudes first. One of the roos...

I had low fertility on the first batch. I finished my homemade incubator just in time for lockdown. I ended up using foam board for the incubator, no wood or metal. Just tried to use the low 100 watt setting on my reptile heater. The medium setting brought the temperature inside the incubator to...