I too have had a dirt floor coop for about 5 years, but didn't have a problem until about 4 months ago. Got a couple with rat traps placed where the chickens couldn't get to them. But the rats got wise. I flooded their tunnels with a hose then shot them with .22 bird shot as they scrambled out...
My birds are eating well and have plenty of water available. I bought some "Feather Fixer" 18% protein and mixed it in with my usual 16% 50:50 and added some Manna Pro Omega Egg Builder vitamin mix with the above feeds. I don't feel that my birds are sick in anyway or not eating well.
I feed Natures Best or Dumor Organic layer pellets. I've always had crushed oyster shell available as free choice. The egg shells became fragile before the heat of summer. Not all of the eggs have fragile shell, I have several varieties of chicken breeds. What sort of vitamins/electrolytes do...
When I first started with chickens a few years ago, all the eggs were very hard shelled. Almost never had a broken egg. Now I'm losing eggs to breakage like crazy and several are thin shelled. I have always had free choice oyster crushed shell and feed a good quality organic layer pellet feed...
When I built my coop a few years ago, I built it with four nesting boxes and started out with 8 hens. Of course the laying hens only wanted to use one or on occasion, two of the available boxes. I never had a problem with eggs laid outside of the nesting boxes or in the run. I now have 20 hens...
Looks like chicken food to me! But your litter should be dryer. Add more litter. Actually the whole idea behind deep liter is to have a healthy biomass of decomposing litter with creepy crawlies living in it for the chickens to eat and help decompose things and mitigate odors. It should not be...
I agree with "hunting", in my case trapping and shooting, so not really hunting in a sporting sense. I am also against poisoning for the same reasons you cite, but I don't believe in relocation, to me it is just passing on your problems to someone else and may be illegal in some instances.
What is this "coop cleaning" you speak of? I use the deep litter method. At most I help turn the litter with a hoe every once in a while, when adding additional litter material. I remove most of the litter, but not all, once or twice a year and add it to the compost pile.
My coop stays open 24/7 these days since I have had it surrounded with electric netting fencing. I have live trapped numerous possums and coons and dispatch them with a .22, so there are plenty of predators in the area, but none have ventured past the electric netting so far.
The other problem with free ranging is them getting into places you don't want them, eating garden or ornamental plants, pooping every where, dust bathing in flower or garden beds, etc. Particularly around the patio, courtyards and the pool.
Looks like it could be a roo, hard to tell without seeing it's age mates. It will stand a little taller with a longer neck, have a bit flashier feathers, longer feathers on it's neck and tail feathers.. Did it develop a comb and wattles before it's age mates? My first roo did that, it is a...
I free ranged when home until I lost one to a predator. At that time I only had 7 hens. I now have twenty with a young rooster. Currently they stay within 200 feet of electric netting. When my roo gets a little older, I may try free ranging again.