Recent content by switters

Thanks for your reply. Now that I think about it, they started attacking her while she was broody. We figured it must have been something hormonal. Have you ever seen that before?

Over the past ten days our flock has been attacking one of the Buff Orpingtons. They've pecked her neck behind her comb almost completely raw. She now spends most of her time in the run perched up high (while the others are out in the backyard), since that's the only place she's safe...

We put her in an old wire dog crate in the run, and that seems to be helping. She's acting less broody, anyways. But now another hen has taken over her job and gone into the nest! She went in yesterday and hasn't come out yet. She's all puffed up, just like the other one was, and making...

One of our Buff Orpingtons went broody about ten days ago. For the last five days we've had her in a milk crate elevated on sawhorses so there's plenty of airflow under her. During the day, we take her out and let her free-range in the backyard for a couple of hours (she can't access the nest...

Okay, we're considering two possibilities now: 1. Get some fertilized eggs and allow our Buffy to hatch them and raise the chicks. Then sell them when they become a little older. 2. Put her in a wire-bottomed cage as suggested in the other thread. Question: would either of these two methods...

She's a Buff Orpington. We don't have much extra space in the coop for a separate crate with wire bottom, but maybe we can reorganize things a bit.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. We're in an urban area that doesn't permit roosters, so the eggs are unfertilized. We already have nine hens, which is a stretch for our urban homestead, so we don't want any more. I searched for "broody" and read several threads, but didn't come up with...

Two questions here: 1) One of our hens has gone broody. She's sitting on eggs, or even just in the nest if we take the eggs, most of the day (and I assume night, since when I opened the coop door this morning at 6:00 she was sitting in the nest). Not entirely sure what to do about this. 2)...

We have an enclosed coop but we let our girls range. We've been thinking of keeping them in there the first half of the day until they lay, and then let them out to forage in the afternoon. However, our coop is not soundproofed in any way. So we'd have to get some foam insulation or something...

It's winter here in the SF Bay Area, and they're loud. I mean really loud. I love chicken noises myself, but if I were trying to sleep and they were right behind my house I might get a bit irritated. They are legal here, but we'd like to maintain good relations with our neighbors if possible.

Our 6-month old pullets just started laying. And they are telling EVERYONE in the neighborhood about it! Starting at about 5:00 AM they make a huge ruckus. I can hear it in the front of our house about 300 feet away, so I'm quite sure our neighbors behind us and on both sides can hear them...

Our nesting boxes are lower than the roost. However, the chickens have taken to roosting on top of the nesting boxes. What's the best way to prevent them from doing this?

Our chickens laid their first eggs today. Hooray! We have nine pullets that just turned 6 months literally today, and we found 5 eggs this morning. Problem is, we found them at the base of a tree in the yard, in the bushes, and in their run. We have two nesting boxes in the coop but...

We are novice chicken people. Our pullets are almost 6 months old. They free-range in a part of our backyard garden that is currently fallow. From what we read, our understanding was that chickens wouldn't eat things that are poisonous to them. It was also our understanding that rhubarb is...

Our chickens are getting close to laying age (about 5.5 months), so we're making sure our nesting boxes are in proper order. We realize they may not start laying until Spring, but want to make sure everything is okay in case they do start soon. Here is our current set-up: Question: the...