Recent content by WhitneyMarie13

One of my White Leghorn girls laid her very first egg today! She'd started her little chicken squat dance a couple of weeks ago and had been making little 'nests' in the coop during the day so my husband and I had been eagerly awaiting an egg and today was the day! I noticed she wasn't out...

My lil ones are starting to do the same and they're about the same age (1.5 weeks). I use a big rubbermaid container for a brooder and I place some wire grates on top to keep the boogers from flying out. I happened to have an old dog crate divider that worked perfectly...so that solved the...

Thanks! A fan sounds like a great idea and I was thinking about making a PVC pipe type tent to hang tarps from so that the chickens stay safe/dry during our lovely monsoons and so that we can leave windows/doors open to allow ventilation...crazy rain, crazy wind, and crazy heat/humidity out of...

Here in Tucson it's been climbing into the 90s for the first time this week and past weekend...it was nearly 97 yesterday! I read a lot of good ideas on keeping chicks/chickens cool during the summer a few days ago, but I wanted to see if anybody has any new, fresh ideas. I'm also hoping...

I've heard that as well. It would make sense...cooler means the chick needs to get feathers faster in order to survive. I feel that we don't give them much credit for being pretty tough, even when they're just chicks. Can't say that I don't worry about them more than I should...but I thought it...

Thanks ButchGood. They were kind of overly warm at that point but I opened up the laundry room door, got a small fan going and the temp dropped and they seemed much happier. I had a feeling that 100 degrees and dropping by 5 was probably not entirely correct! When they first came home they were...

Thanks! I have a temperature gun that I use to check the temperature in various spots in the brooder. I had a temp gauge for my tortoise, but have no clue where that went. I had the light on yesterday and it was making the entire laundry room about 98 degrees...at one point it was about 101 in...

That makes me feel better...and if that's the case I feel like I can just let them free range our entire yard, which is a pretty good size and has plenty of weeds, bugs and good stuff for them to scratch for. I'm there with you on the poo picking up. Usually, when it's nice and cool I'm on it...

I feel like most of the questions I've posted have been kind of silly, but us newbies have to learn somehow right? Anyways...I want to let my older girls free range in my yard in areas that have weeds. They have had the chance to do so in the past and they really enjoyed it. The only thing...

Thanks! Yeah, my older girls got poo stuck to their foot on occasion but had no problem scratching/pecking it off. Guess I'm just being overly paranoid with my lil ones!

So, I love this forum and the fact that so many people ask questions that I would have never thought to ask OR that I was thinking of asking! So, my silly question is this; I have 2 almost week old (will be one week on Saturday) chicks, 1 Silver Laced Wyandotte, and 1 Buff Orpington. Their...

I fed my older chicks asparagus and at first they kind of looked at me as if they were saying, "you want me to eat THAT?!" Then after a few minutes of them not going for it I mushed it up a bit and they went crazy over it! I ended up wedging the ends that I cut off into their suet feeder and...

My older chicks never had much interest in dust bathing in the pine shavings, but once they moved to their coop with a dirt floor they absolutely love to dust bathe. The couple day old chickies that I picked up this weekend are very different...they LOVE to dust bathe in the pine shavings! :D...

Thanks! Good feedback...you know how it can be...you feel like you're doing everything right then you read some article that makes you think, "wow, I'm doing it all wrong!" Just have to take things with a grain of salt I suppose...I think I'm going to invest in a small bag of grit and perhaps a...

So, my two older White Leghorn girls have been outside for nearly 2 weeks now and everything seems to be great. I just had a quick question regarding grit. The girls are in their coop/run all day, and occasionally I'll let them free range (right now there isn't much but dirt in our backyard)...