Recent content by meags163

My flock has being living unscathed in their outhouse-turned-chickencoop for 3 years now. Yesterday I came home to find 2 dead hens in the run....their necks broken or bitten. Our run collapsed during a snowstorm this year, so I figured something got in through a space, although I couldn't...

Great website...thank you!

I feel so awful....my hen hatched 2 adorable chicks a little over a week ago and I'm keeping them in a big dog cage on our porch. I wanted to clean it out and give them some outside time today so I took the tray out and put the cage on the grass so they could peck and still be protected. I am...

My broody hen has hatched 2 successful chicks so far in the past 3 days. She is doing a wonderful job raising them! But today I found her pecking at a broken shell in which I can see chick feet sticking out but I'm pretty sure its a dead chick. I thought I might have seen it move but now I...

Her back is kind of bald....looks like a lot of fluffy down but she always looks like that. There is one spot that has blood which makes me think there's pecking going on. The good news is she stood up on her own for a minute and now she is resting comfortably after drinking a good amount of...

I went to check on the chickens tonight and one of my buff orpington hens was laying on the floor while everyone else was on the roost. I thought she might be broody but there was no egg under her. I've brought her into the house and she's in a box eating and drinking which is good. I can't...

My coop really is an old outhouse. Hard to see under all the snow.

I let my chickens out to free range while I cleaned their coop today and stepped in the house for 4-5 minutes. When I came out I heard lots of noise and saw a hawk trying to get them! There was a lot of feathers so I thought one was gone but she came back a little while later. One hen is...

I have 2 sets of birds (3 in each) that I ordered as chicks and they are 4-5 weeks apart. The older group is 9 weeks old and one is a barred rock rooster. He is twice as big as the leghorn who is the same age. I am going away next week and planned to have all my birds in the coop by the time...

I agree.... the roosters will all be meeting their doom this weekend. For now I'm trying to keep the 2 hens away from them. I'm just wondering if the fact that the roosters aren't interested in the RIR hen is because she is not a laying hen....I think I read that roosters begin mating a hen...

I have 3 RIR roosters (not by choice), 1 RIR hen and 1 leghorn hen. The leghorn is the oldest and my only layer so you can guess why she is my favorite. I have only seen 1 rooster mate with only her, and he grabs onto her comb when he's doing it so it has all these little cuts on it. (Of...

Get some mineral oil from the pharmacy (for humans, not the kind for paint)....soak a q-tip in the mineral oil and then gently dab the chick's bottom with it. The use your fingers to gently crumble off the dried poo. It takes a minute or so but one the mineral oil starts working it crumbles...

He's a rhode island red and I've had him since July. I've only seen him mate with one hen and she hates him. He does mate in front of me so I will knock him off next time and try to be more assertive....what can i say, I'm a chicken I am starting to lean more towards getting rid of this guy...

My rooster makes me nervous when I go to the coop. Yesterday he pecked at my feet and luckily I was wearing closed toe shoes for the first time! I assume he is following me for food, but he gets so close and I feel like he wants to attack me! Today I started running from the coop and he...

I have a dominant hen too....she even bosses around the rooster.....and she is the only one laying.