Recent content by st4rgut

  1. st4rgut

    Chickens eat from bowl. Are they spoiled?

    thanks for your ideas! I'm using this old umbrella stand. I can't fill it all the way or else they'll swipe it out.
  2. st4rgut

    Chickens eat from bowl. Are they spoiled?

    Hi so it's not a big problem, but my chickens tend to waste a lot of food by scratching at and swiping their beaks in their food bowl. When the bowl is empty they'll complain until their bowl is refilled, even though there's lots lying on the ground. Should I keep filling the bowl or wait for...
  3. st4rgut

    Help Identifying Bugs in Vegetarian Feed

    Hi, I opened my chicken feed today and found a bunch of winged insects inside. The feed is all vegetarian . I am wondering if this is safe to feed to the chickens, and how I can get rid of these pests. There are no visible holes in the package , they must have got in through the opening. We keep...
  4. st4rgut

    Chickens Clucking Too Much, Will a Radio Help?

    there are two nesting boxes each with two divisions. However, they only use one nesting box
  5. st4rgut

    Chickens Clucking Too Much, Will a Radio Help?

    Hi everyone, we have a noise problem since our five chickens are fighting for the same nesting box. Our chickens cluck before and after laying eggs and sometimes create a chorus that makes my ears hurt. I read in a forum that one person played classical music to quiet down the chickens. Has...
  6. st4rgut

    Broody Hen

    In my experience you must disrupte the broodiness cycle as early as possible to avoid prolonged broodiness. What usually works for me is putting the broody hen in a dark place , maybe try covering the 'jail' with a blanket? that might quiet her down
  7. st4rgut

    Problems with Egg Laying Diet?

    Thanks, I will cut out the cabbage, and reduce the treats. I just bought 3 50lb bags of veggie feed for my 4 chickens, so looks like I'll be stuck with that for a while :( As a workaround, do you think I should add table scraps (chicken, etc) or stick to the feed?
  8. st4rgut

    Problems with Egg Laying Diet?

    Hi, our chickens are about 8 months old and since they reached laying age, they're have been major ups and downs in egg production. Some of our breeds are more productive than others (eg Rhode Island Red vs Plymouth Rock), but recently, it seems at times that the chickens collectively agreed to...
  9. st4rgut

    Will broody pullets still lay?

    How many days into her broodiness did you find the eggs? The reason I ask is that when I first catch broody signals from my hen (extended periods of sitting in the nesting box for instance) she will lay eggs for a couple days before going into full broody mode. However, once she starts sitting...
  10. st4rgut

    Chicken Butchering: Too much fat?

    I uploaded a smaller pic in case it was too big. We fed the chickens back crushed egg shells for calcium. This chicken had strange habits - it would lay soft shelled eggs while roosting, and then try to lay an egg during the day. The chicken actually was undersized, but when we opened it there...
  11. st4rgut

    Chicken Butchering: Too much fat?

    Hi, we just killed a buff orpington that had only been laying soft shelled eggs and noticed it had a lot of fat inside. At the same time, we noticed several eggs were forming in its ovary, and were wondering if the chicken's fat had something to do with its inability to create fully formed eggs...
  12. st4rgut

    Fat chickens wont lay

    Yes, I am thinking about confining them for the morning, but I think the problem may be with their diet. Though we let our chickens free range, they have picked the greens clean and our soil is baked from 24 hours sun, so it's probably not a good source of nutrients. I found a dead snake today...
  13. st4rgut

    Fat chickens wont lay

    It's what the employee at the feed store recommended, honestly I did not do much research in choosing the right chicken feed at their age
  14. st4rgut

    Fat chickens wont lay

    @aart It's spring here in California - the chickens spend a lot of time resting in the shade. Our layer feed is all vegetarian, so you're probably right that they're not getting enough protein, except from the seeds and bugs they eat. So far, there are only two nesting places we've identified...
  15. st4rgut

    Fat chickens wont lay

    Thanks for the tip, I will keep looking for the secret stash of eggs, is it possible they bury their eggs? sometimes we hear a chicken singing the egg song, but dont see an egg nearby
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