Recent content by Mellowmalt

hello everyone, so back in january I showed little runty. Today he is grown up and my aim the past 2 years has been to breed chickens in the aim of finding the quietest male. So surprisingly there are quite big differences. They can either be louder or quieter. crow a lot or crow little, crow at...

I took a picture to commemorate the moment since nobody will believe me otherwise but yep there he was tapping at the floor this morning, showing me to check

good news (or bad as it is still a male) but it turns out my dog never ate him. He alerted me there was something behind the fridge this morning so I checked and there he was. Must have been out for a good 24 hours, is still only a 4 week old bantam. I'm just glad to know my dog didn't eat him...

some sound advice so far. 1. An aquarium is sealed on 5 sides. Very draft proof so the lid needs to stay completely open even if that lets heat escape. 2. Heat plates are safer than heat lamps because they do not dry the air excessively. 29% humidity is too low. 3. A new lamp should be used...

good evidence never to help a chick out of the shell. If a chick can't hatch by itself then it's chances of suvival are very slim. I know it can be done but for the 1% of cases where a chick survives it isn't worth it for the other 99%. Once you have dealt with a sick chick crying for a week...

Just wanted to share my very bizarre and maybe a bit nasty story. I don't know what exactly happened, I'm just glad it is one of the males I wasn't planning on keeping that is missing. So I went to check on the chick this morning and one had escaped but it was a male, I was very tired and...

can't keep them all unfortunately. Another one was born this morning with just a white patch on the front of its neck but this is at least well placed and looks really interesting. Well thanks for the interest. He isn't small and doesn't get bullied even if he might look a bit small. It's just...

it is possible for chicks to drown and it is possible for them to suffocate in the egg but drowning is ridiculously rare. Out of these 23 none will have drowned. I can see I won't get any upvotes to that statement yet if I said they all drowned I would get 5 likes. I will still say it! The...

Currently breeding out my pair of cuckoo bantams. This one is one of my reject males. I am going to keep him to see what he turns into but he's a male, not as strong as his siblings and he has a really strange face marking. One side is grey but the other side is white. Unfortunately I lost my...

Nearly one year ago I posted my little dutch cuckoo male. Time flies. He is all grown up now and is my main breeding cockerel. He has now officially become a dad and this is his new offspring, one of them is a week older than the rest

So what you are saying is human beings should be as disrespectful to each other without breaking the law? Anything is acceptable as long as you cannot get in trouble for it no matter how many people you end up upsetting? This logic is something I just cannot understand... There is no law...

what with a butchers cleaver?

my solution would be to use a cable half the length, so not 150 yards but 75 yards, then place the pole 75 yards away from the house. That way the dog can get to the woods and the house, not slam the cable into pant pots etc while chasing birds and the pole would be much further from the house.

my first egg was covered in blood this week, must have been quite a strain for her, she's a little bit smaller than the rest and laid a full sized egg first time round. Little trooper, still doing fine.

Ok so a bit of backstory, this year I got into chicken keeping again and I hatched 5 hens from eggs. While they were growing up I decided to get a group of adult hens that were already laying eggs. So I got 3 dutch bantams to join my other 5. These 3 new ones were sold as 1 year old. They...