Recent content by cluck love

We have two RIR hens that may have an illness. One has lost quite a few feathers. This happened about a month ago and it was not from a predator. She has kept to the coup and only comes out occasionally. Since she lost the feathers she does not socialize with the other chickens but has an...

Hello, We have 4 RIR hens and one BR rooster. We make a point to grab the eggs from the hen house in the early morning after the hens lay them. Sometimes we can't check or there are no eggs found before we leave for work and we check after we get home from work at 6PM. Of the 4 eggs layed each...

12 weeks ago one of our 4 hens hatched two chicks, was devoted to them for the first 9-10wks, and has since abandoned them (one hen and one roo). The mom has rejoined her flock of three other hens and one roo. The grown-up flock does not allow the youngsters to join them, and also will peck...

Thank you! This mom in particular, has 2 babies that are two days old and two more eggs soon to hatch (I hope) and has left her nest in order to train her chicks. She is taking her time with the chicks, which is great she is an amazing mom, I'm just a little nervous about those eggs, shes...

My chickens go in automatically at dusk, I think it is instinctive for them to do that. Although if I really need to get them in before that, I coax them in with food, that always works!

How long can a broody hen safely leave her nest of eggs, in other words, how long can fertile eggs be left alone?

Our chicks are starting to hatch! One is out and the others are still working on it, mom has been with these eggs for the past three weeks only to leave them for only a few minutes a day. We are new to this and need to know what happens after they hatch. Does mom feed/water them or do we? Mom...

We have 4 RR hens and a BR rooster. For the last 3 weeks a broody hen has been sitting on the eggs and so far nothing has happened. She started off sitting on 3 eggs and now there are 5 there. She comes down to drink and eat and then goes back to sitting on the eggs. We figure at least one egg...

I have my first broody hen who I never see leaving the nesting box. I am worried she is not eating or drinking, what do I do?

I have a very happy little flock with one broody, I am going to try the ice!

We have 4 Rhode Island Reds who are 5 months that just started laying about a week ago, 2-4 eggs a day ! The eggs are rather small, do they increase in size with time?

The BR roo is very nice to the RIR hens, so far. They have been pecking at him a little bit and that is most likely a dominance issue as clayhill mentioned in a reply to this thread. He is a newbie. Maybe that is the origin of the term "Pecking order". LOL

Quote: From researching this today I have found: BR rooster X RIR hen = all chicks barred RIR rooster X BR hen = black sex links

This afternoon we integrated a 24 week old Barred Rock rooster to our existing 4 RIR hens that are 16 weeks old. We got him from a neighbor who had a RIR rooster and a Barred Rock rooster. I was told that the Barred Rock was not aggressive and liked to be picked up. The RIR rooster bullied the...

I went out to the coop this morning and this is what I found. I have 4 RIR who are 12 weeks old.