Recent content by Eggthusiast

  1. Eggthusiast

    Optimal flock for henhouse

    Your post was enlightening. Thank you much.
  2. Eggthusiast

    Optimal flock for henhouse

    A year ago, I built a 10-foot by 12-foot henhouse. Right now, I have 16 hens. There hasn't been any problems with that size flock. But I would like to double that number next spring. I'm concerned, though, about overcrowding. Would that size henhouse handle 30 hens? What do you think is the...
  3. Eggthusiast

    Hen with diarrhea

    I will try that. Thanks for your help.
  4. Eggthusiast

    Hen with diarrhea

    We spotted a hen last night with her whole rear end soiled. Didn't notice any blood. The previous evening, I tossed leftovers in their run and wonder whether that may have caused havoc on the hen's digestive tract. The other 17 hens appear fine at this point. Any idea about what caused the...
  5. Eggthusiast

    Update: Rooster with issues

    >> How old is your rooster and how old are your hens? << Both the cockerel and the pullets will turn 14 weeks old on Sunday. We also have a trio of 15-month-old hens. >> Glad you could take the rooster down a notch. Like everyone else said, often times the hens just need a vacation. << He was...
  6. Eggthusiast

    Update: Rooster with issues

    >> A rooster will keep at pullets until they learn to submit. << Thank you for that perspective. We've been looking at the situation in the wrong way, namely, that the inexperience of the cockerel was the problem when it could just as validly be argued that the inexperience of the pullets was...
  7. Eggthusiast

    Update: Rooster with issues

    >>"Are you sure he wasn't trying to mate them? They will grab their head, neck, feathers and get a good hold of the hen so they can mount them. That is why hens looked tattered and roosters have to be sorted out for a while to give them a break after the peak of hatching season is over."<<...
  8. Eggthusiast

    Update: Rooster with issues

    Arrived home from a meeting last night only to have my wife greet me with: "We've got to do something about that rooster!" She and my son had been outside watching them in their penned run area and observed him attacking pullet after pullet. "He pulled a whole clump of feathers from one of...
  9. Eggthusiast

    Rooster with issues

    Thanks for the welcome, Bill and Bri, and for your comments. You're probably right in attributing the rooster's behavior to youthful inexperience. He is 13 weeks old today. I suspected that might be the cause of the aggression. The vicious extent of the attacks, though, surprises me. On the...
  10. Eggthusiast

    Rooster with issues

    One would think that a male surrounded by 15 lovely chicks would be quite content with his lot in life. But nooooo. Rather than offering a buss on the beak, but this young cockerel prefers to peck the back of every pullet passing by. And these don't appear to be mere love bites. He really...
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