Recent content by the chicken doctor

16 weeks is early but not unheard of. Prior to laying full eggs they start practice laying. Shells without eggs yolks with no shells, as long as your sure nothing (shell) is broken or stuck inside of her. Heat stress would see your hen panting, outstretched wings as well as the tail movement...

Waving her tail up and down is a good indicator of an egg bound hen. If you approach her from the rear and gently feel her pelvis does it feel at all hard. In Egg peritonitis if you turn her over you would see yellow substance over her vent perhaps.

The British hen welfare trust remove the hens set for slaughter at 78 weeks by the battery hen farmers. This is when the chickens come into their first moult and are deemed non viable. Any hens removed, usually 20,000-50,000 at a time not rescued within 24 hours are culled. We can’t save them...

Hello, can I ask is this an aggressive attack or does he have a particularly long and nasty spur, sometimes treading a hen his balance can be off and one slip and his spur can pierce her. You need vetricine a violet spray, it’s an antiseptic which colours the abrasion violet. Non red so other...

I place a large bowl of water in the centre of my sitting mums, each time one leaves the eggs to eat or drink the moisture in the air covers the eggs, also by providing a large receptacle of water this allows mum to wet her feathers and sit back on the eggs. Mum knows best,

I’m proud of my hens but not as proud as the three skinned super warm Cree I built for my elderly ladies, my 6 year old girls need somewhere less draughty in our minus -10 degree winters. Fully insulated inside with double glazed windows, complete with nesting boxes roosting poles and all the...

I love Baking. I’ve loved everything. Bread if I need a stress work out ha.. Cakes are my technical specialty. I can spend hours icing or decorating a cake. Like my daughters 18th Birthday cake. She wanted me to buy her a car, I made her one. A Peugeot 206 convertible. Complete with private...

BBRRRRR, we are forecast to break the U.K. world heat record on Friday, 101 degrees. That’s our hottest and it’s affecting hatching rates in England. There’s no moisture in the air so the chicks cannot break from the solid egg shells.

Google electrolytes and find the best recipe you can get ingredients for, make them some up. Feed scrambled eggs and add some dried mealworms it will make sure that the little they eat will have plenty of protein. It’s all about protein for hens, even more so for poorly chicks. Keep them safe...

Hello, I’ve had chicks with similar symptoms in the past. Firstly chickens don’t yawn, they do something called gaping. Gapeworm is fairly common and easily treated, simply adding some A.C.V apple cider vinegar to their water will solve this. Secondly the sneezing, chickens can and do catch...

Hello, I’m not sure how old your hen is and without more detailed information on her, stools etc, I would say for now you have done well to isolate her. When my old hens are lethargic I give them electrolyte drink and I feed them scrambled eggs with meal worms, the extra proteins in mealworms...

The only stupid question is the Question never asked. Quoted from (Raymond Bautista)

my knowledge is for sharing, however I’m still learning too, like what makes chickens, well chickens. I studied the respiratory section of a chicken for an exam once. The reference book, which I still own has 411 pages. Just on the respiratory. That’s a lot of work on a chicken breathing.