Recent content by PopVultureATX

Haha yeah, I gotcha... I'm definitely not scared a little poop on the eggs (hey, they both come out of the same place), but it was just sorta gross seeing an egg on top of a big pile of it.

Great – thank y'all so much! I imagined that blocking off the boxes and re-training them to use the roosts was the thing to do, so it's excellent reinforcement knowing that this is a common problem / solution. While we're on the topic, is there anything y'all would recommend for cleaning...

Also, I should note that even when the weather's warmed up a good bit (I live in Austin), they still do it.

Hello! I've got two hens that are happy and healthy, but due to the cold weather and despite the fact that I've got the coop well covered, they've taken to sleeping (and pooping, ugh) in their laying boxes instead of roosting. Naturally I don't want to eat their eggs when I go to collect them...

Hello everyone! We've been getting some pretty brutal heat in Austin this summer as usual. I've got a small sprinkler that I turn on low for a little while each afternoon so that my hens can enjoy some flowing water and peck around in the mud puddle. With the extra heat, however, I've been...

Update: when I went out to feed my hens this evening, it was exactly the same case. She was in the box, making the angry sound. I refilled their food and water, and then just to test and see what happened, I opened the egg collection hatch and, despite her puffing up and protesting, I could...

I just looked on here for this exact question... my Barred Rock is broody, I think. She used to be the liveliest of my hens (I have three), always chasing me around in the hopes that it was feeding time. Now she just sits in the egg box all the time and makes that crazy dinosaur (Jurassic Park...

Ok that makes perfect sense. Thanks so much!

Hi- I noticed twice this week that some of my eggs (I have three layers) had splotches of orange-y stuff on the outside. It was slightly sticky- the shavings stuck to it. I know that sometimes you'll get a little poop on the eggs, but this is something I've never seen before. Does this sound...

I have a quick fix question. I live in Austin and we're about to get a big cold snap tomorrow, just for a night. I think it might get down to 36 at the lowest. I know this is above freezing, but is there anything special I should do? I wasn't expecting this, and being such short notice at all, I...

Thanks, that's what I expected. Since she seems perky and happy, I figured it'd just take a couple of days for her to get back into her routine and adjust to the new feed.

And duly noted on the hay. I'll put pine shavings in the laying boxes

It's Coyote Creek Feed Mill Organic, and it's marked as layer feed. I still have a smaller bit of the old feed (which was Micobe, I think), so I mixed that in with her food when I refilled the feeder today. Maybe it's just a matter of adjusting to the new stuff? We'll see.

Hello everybody- My RIR hasn't laid eggs in a couple of days (she's usually pretty regular), and this morning I went out to find that she'd laid a sort of squishy, soft egg. It seems like the shell wasn't fully developed or something of the sort. What's more, she laid it obviously while she was...

Quote: Since you brought that up about my barred definitely being a hen, I've got a question... at what point would I be able to tell if the buff's actualy a rooster? I really hope she's not!