Recent content by drmchang

Our SLW's lay medium brown eggs with dark purplish-brown spots on them, very fine. They are very shy layers, too! And not a peep from them while laying, unlike the RIRs and the BO's.

We caught her in the act this morning! That's 2 days in a row, good girl!! It was the barred rock who's been squatting for use, and now two more are doing the dance, too. We're so excited!!

Thanks! We are very excited, these birds were all hatched on/about June 6th. So now, how can I figure out whose it was? All our hens will be laying brown eggs; there is one BR that has been "squatting" for us for about a week, but there are two RIR's and one SLW whose combs and wattles are...

Went to open pap door this morning, and I see that one of the hens pushed the golf ball into the coop. When I went to put it back, there was a small but absolutely perfect brown egg!!! Whooppeee!

At our house, it's called stress relief, just to go out and sit with the chickens. After a bit, you will find yourself covered with them, they love to sit and cuddle. Very Zen. Hard to stay upset when one is covered in chickens!

We thought our run was predator proof, and weren't in the habit of locking them up; the first night a predator proved us wrong (slipped in under the tarps/run cover although the fencing is 6 feet high) we had fortunately decided to shut the door that night! If we hadn't we would have had no...

If they had access to the run from the coop they can decide which they'd rather be in. My chickens would rather huddle in the mud under their coop than go back inside during the day, no matter how nasty it is. And if we open the run for them to free range, they always go out no matter what.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think my DH will be framing up a proper roof over the run and covering is with "corrugated" fiberglass for better light, as the entire setup is under tree cover and I don't like that the girls are all in the dark so much. Too bad it's snowing this weekend...

Fluffy? Who you calling fluffy?

He is so beautiful!! Makes me wish we could keep roosters!!

That is so funny!! That poor cat!!

Got a dozen chicks of mixed breeds this last June when my oldest graduated from high school. One succumbed to illness, the rest are huge, fluffy and we're looking for eggs any day now. Can't believe how easy they have been!!

We have a yellow lab/greyhound mix, and she is the BEST chicken watchdog EVER. It doesn't take a "special" breed of dog, just a dog with a good temperament who learns to like the chickens!

So tonight my dogs were barking and wouldn't come in, and when I went outside to check, they looked like they had "treed" something in the chicken run, on top of the coop and under the tarps we have to keep the run dry. It was a fisher cat, which we have tons of here in Mass. We have the coop...

Thanks for all the thoughts. We are up and out pretty early in the morning, kids on bus by 6:45 and we're usually right behind them, so I'm thinking the girls probably won't have laid by that time. Hopefully, though, we won't have too many frozen eggs by the time kids get home from school...