Recent content by MaggieMoo21

The chinchilla gene blocks yellow colors from being expressed so that’s why your expected harlequins are magpies. Magpies have the ej gene and Cchd gene. Harlequins only have ej gene.

Love it! Zoo animals have enrichment standards so why shouldn’t backyard chickens?

Girly went to live with the neighbor who found her and one of our mild mannered hens. Our neighbor is now a freshly minted crazy chicken lady. I mean that in the sweetest way possible. ❤️

Our neighbor found this chicken in the Home Depot parking lot today. She has some kind of deformity, possibly valgus. Her thigh bone and joints feel fine. Her leg bone feels quite literally twisted. She is eating and drinking but having a hell of a time taking more than two of three steps at a...

Love all these beautiful eggs! Five day egg count from 4 new layers (2 started this week) and 4 old layers in their third season. Still waiting for the EE to show us what color she is hiding. One of our old girls gives us brown eggs that sometimes have a full purple bloom and sometimes have...

I scrolled through Hoover Hatchery and the closest coloring, that I saw, was the cream legbar. However, the CL has a crest and regular comb. Can we get an up close picture of her comb?

It looks like dorkings have 5 toes and the pictured chicken has 4 toes. https://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Baby-Chicks/Silver-Gray-Dorking-p1265.aspx

Yes, I am aware that dog and cat poop is best to avoid. Like I said, the birds must have reached through the chain link to get it. They can reach almost a foot outside of the pen while stretching their necks. I have a friend that runs her pet pig and chickens together so yes, I also know that...

Growing my second fall garden this year in USDA Zone 8. All the guides say to put in the fall crops in September. Well, I tried that last year and nearly everything burnt up and had to be replanted in late October. Realistically, when do you put out your fall/winter broccoli, kale, cabbages...

Our girls love Nutrena Feather Fixer. They actual refuse Layena. Guess they like what they like.

I have a pet milk snake and sometimes she doesn't eat her frozen/thawed mouse. That mouse gets thrown in the chicken pen and the girls love it! It's like a million dollars just rained from the sky. They run around the pen squawking and taking it from each other before it's finally eaten. I...

I teach composting class and have a PowerPoint that I can email to you. Let me know if you're interested.

It would depend on what size you wanted. I have done raw fed whole prey. For me, it would be most convenient to grow the chicken to a meal size so that one chicken equals one meal. I had a 9 pound and 12 pound dog when I fed whole prey so I raised quail to around 4 to 6 ounces before butchering...

In Texas. We have an automated water system. Best addition ever! We have a 100 gallon goldfish pond that is filled with a float valve from a 300 gallon rain barrel. The pond pump pumps the filtered water through pvc into an in-line trough in the chicken pen. It has been amazing to not have to...

The veg garden and yard trimmings get thrown straight in the pen. Kitchen scraps get dumped into a glass 9x13 baking pan. I somehow ended up with like five 9x13 pans so giving one to the girls wasn't a big deal. I usually feed kitchen scraps after I finish dinner prep. The veg garden and yard...