Recent content by barnaclebob

My 3 year old hens didn't lay very consistently last summer and quit during the winter even with supplemental light totaling 15 hours a day. The one old hen left will be culled in spring to make room for some better layers.

It looks like the attack started closer to the house and slightly uphill from where the body was found due to the presence of feathers there. She was ultimately found under some low hanging branches (~3ft off the ground) with most of one side ripped off and two areas of "feather explosion"...

You'll need to post better pictures of the specific problem areas to get good recommendations.

probably not necessary at the backyard size

Mine have had no issues when being allowed to free range during the worst storms we have had here. One in particular doesn't seem to mind getting wet. She'll be in the middle of the yard looking for loot while the rest are hunkered under a tree. We don't get hail or thunderstorms but I'd...

Many of the feeder ideas i see here don't have any good way to deal with dust that will inevitably clog them unless you let the chickens eat all the food first or you empty it. Are you going to build a trough style? I detailed my improvements on many of the trough designs in a comment on this...

My chickens have an automatic pop door that opens to the yard in the morning and closes at night. Hawks have only been an issue when they weren't full grown knock on wood. The crows do a pretty good job of keeping the hawks busy where I live. My yard also has a lot of cover for them. Every...

Where did you hear that cats should eat grain free chicken? Sounds like BS to me. I doubt there is a single cat in the country that hasn't eaten and animal that has eaten grains. Also seems like a really expensive way to get cat food...

It goes into the compost as well. You probably don't need to clean it completely out very often. As you scoop it will go down in level and you'll need to add a bag or so every several months.

But then you would be ruining the good eggs too...

It was likely just frozen enough to crack the egg and slightly split the shell. When the egg thawed it shrunk and the shell went back together. The crack is still there, the sides are just touching now.

Maybe try making it easier for them to get into the nest boxes. Mine wouldn't use the top one very much until I made a small perch for them to jump up onto. Think like a chicken, it would be annoying to have to land on that small lip while flapping your wings and having them hit the opening...

I assume the same test for if an egg is hard boiled or not would work.

My coop is sand in the roost/coop area and shavings down below in the run. Poop gets scooped every other day or down into the shavings and the shavings are changed 3-4 times a year. The shavings get composted. I have tried shavings in the coop but that didnt work out well and I ended up with...

I personally would put the main door to the coop on the inside of the fenced area so that you can toss the poop down into the run. This assumes the coop isn't being placed in a larger unsecured run.