Recent content by Hands On Dad

Thanks for the responses guys. Looks like I have a fox to deal with.

On 9 acres. Only dogs are mine and they are inside dogs.

Lost 4/8 today. No blood, no bodies, just feathers. They were free ranging at the time. We have coons and hawks, but very very few foxes. The raccoons usually only come out at night. South Louisiana. Any ideas?

Corn, sunflower seeds, other goodies. Just something to keep them busy "scratching" at the ground. Comes in a bag next to the feed. They only get a little, because it's not very nutritious. Kind of like candy to a kid.

I have a flock of 8 that I let out for hours at a time. They wander all over the place, under the shed, in the woods, chasing each other around. I put their scratch in a old butter tub and as I'm walking out to the coop I just start shaking it. It didn't take long for them to know what that...

I don't think they are eating them. I've not found any shells or anything. I thought about something stealing them, but I haven't found any way something could get in or any signs of a predator. I'll keep an eye on them and pray for cooler weather!

So I have 8 girls, 7 buff orpingtons and one red star. They are 31 weeks old and have been laying for about 2 months. Once everyone started laying, we have been getting 6-8 eggs a day. Mostly small, some mediums, and a few large. For the past week, egg production has dropped to 2-5 eggs a...

Chickens are just like people, some are nice, some are not. If only we could cull people the way we do with mean birds!

A second egg waiting for me today. Same color but slightly bigger. The first egg seemed to get darker after a day in the fridge?

It's light tan and kind of small. From what I've read on here, the eggs usually start out small but get bigger. I'll attach a better picture for you when I get home from work. Hopefully I'll have another one to show you as well!

Thanks!

Got 8 baby chicks on Jan 14. Almost exactly 20 weeks later, we got our first egg. 3 of our girls have big bright red combs, so any of them could be the culprit. It's small and tan, laid in the nest box like it was supposed to! Guess the fake ceramic eggs worked. My 2 boys are super excited!

Thanks. I made some PVC feeders that go under the coop. They're painted red as well.

So I got voluntold earlier this year that we were going to get chickens. My wife has no idea about chickens or building, but I had chickens when I was younger and am fairly handy around the workshop, so the onus fell on me. My wife likes things of a contemporary rugged design (if that makes...

I'm finishing up my first coop now. I'm going to start a thread on it soon to get some ideas on improvements. I used old pallets. But I took the pallets apart first and used the crossboards as siding for the coop. There were obviously small gaps between the boards, so I used some old OSB...