Recent content by VaticanChickens

Well, what finally worked in the ended was good ol' Mother Nature. A BIG red tailed hawk has been hanging about so much that no sparrows (or any other birds for that matter) are coming near our coop. Unfortunately it also got one of our hens, so they're all being kept in the run from here on...

The plastic owls scared them (including the chickens!) for a few days. No longer.

My gals are all free range birds. They have full run of our yard/compost pile and garden. Typically they eat very little of the grain I keep in their coop. I recently purchased a new brand (Brown's Layer Booster Feed), and they LOVE it. I mean... they are eating it like it's going out of...

I 'solved' this by putting out a bird feeder. They like wild bird seed better than the Chicken grain.

I've got 2 nipple waterers - I'll rotate them daily. Storing one indoors overnight should get it warm enough to keep from freezing by night time. (I hope...) I'll let you know how it goes.

I put one of those plastic owls on top of the chicken run to scare off the sparrows (which is left open during the day as they're free range) - but the chickens saw it and wouldn't go back into their coop. I just figure that feeding all those wild birds is good Karma.

My hens are getting VERY close to egg laying age (16 weeks). They have a coop and a run, but during the day I let them free range until dusk. Will they 'automatically' lay in their nesting boxes in the coop? Should I keep them in the run until a certain time of day until I know they've...

Hi all! Just a quick introduction here, 2 Musicians in Boston, and we're prepping our backyard for 4 or 5 R.I. Reds. This site is highly recommended everywhere I look, happy to be a part of it. I raised Chickens as a kid (we had 40) but that was a long time ago, so I'm starting anew. We've...