I sprayed some Mighty Mint Rodent Repellent (peppermint oil solution) in and around my coop to deal with rats.
I know some say it’s not effective - well, I’ll find out. But that’s not my question.
I started to worry that the “fumes” from the product might be hazardous to the chickens due to...
I just cooked my first backyard chicken, an older hen that a friend culled from his flock when she stopped laying. No idea whether the bird rested before being frozen, but I had it thawing in the fridge three days. I made coq au vin, thinking that would address the bird's age (several years I...
Today our 15-month-old Americauna died suddenly.
She seemed fine earlier in the day and was showing no sign of illness. Then all of a sudden there was a ruckus in the coop and we got out there just in time to see her thrash around on the floor and die.
I examined her and sure enough there...
Cannot keep this healthy Buff Orp cockerel, as he is becoming increasingly aggressive toward/protective of the hens and causing them stress. We have our birds in an enclosed run in our city back yard, which does not seem to be a good situation for this rooster. He would probably do well...
Anyone want a free rooster? I have a 4-month-old Buff Orp cockerel who I am looking to rehome. The only catch is you must pick him up on the west side of Chicago, as I do not have a car.
He is healthy and beautiful and full of character. But he is starting to be aggressive toward the hens, and...
One of our chicks turned out to be a rooster, and he's starting to get aggressive with the hens so we would like to re-home him.
We are on the west side of Chicago and do not have a car, so you would have to pick him up.
He is healthy and beautiful, we just don't want a rooster in our flock...
Thanks so much for the input. I hope that I will be able to read the signs if it is time to cull her.
I have read a lot on here about checking the crop, but I'm not sure how to do it. Where do you feel them? What does a full crop feel like?
OK, don't see this question here yet: How do you know if you have mites in the first place???
Today I spotted a red mite on the outside of the coop, but it seemed bigger than chicken mites are described as being - I could clearly see its legs. So I'm thinking it might have been a spider mite...
A couple months ago I posted here about one of our chicks that developed a scissor beak. The chickens are three months old now, and she has seemed to do OK, eating and acting like a normal chicken, except that she is much smaller than the others.
We provide "feed porridge" along with the...
So, I guess I was wrong about roosters being illegal where I am! At least according to an article in the paper a few days ago... But we are still trying to rehome Loreen, due to noise and space concerns. I do enjoy him though.
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Yes, we do want to rehome our roo (who was supposed to be a hen but these things happen), for both noise and space reasons - the chickens are in an enclosed run and I understand that roosters can get aggressive. But I had thought we were going to have to hide him in the basement until...
Hahaha!!! Just after posting this I went out for a twilight visit to the coop, and almost everyone was roosting enthusiastically! Talk about nervous newbie...
I have lived in the city my entire life, and frankly I don't know what planet people are living on if they expect the city to be quiet. Between sirens, blaring music, motorcycles, barking dogs, mating alley cats, garbage trucks, ice cream trucks, kids playing, and on and on, I am stunned that...
My birds are three months old, and yesterday we moved them from their brooder in the basement to their brand new coop. They seemed to acclimate pretty quickly - they're eating, scratching, preening, and all the normal chicken stuff.
The only thing is that they don't seem to be using their...
Anyone else see this from yesterday's Sun-Times?
http://www.suntimes.com/6942644-417/raising-chickens-legal-in-chicago-and-people-are-crowing-about-it.html
According to the article both roosters and raising birds for meat are legal in Chicago! This comes as news to me as I thought neither was...
Any chicken can become a 'meat chicken'. Extra roosters, old hens who don't lay anymore, etc.
I had thought it was illegal to raise birds for slaughter in Chicago - until today I thought anything besides laying hens were illegal here. I guess either the law changed recently, or I had bad info.
Whoa, the article also talks about where you can bring birds for slaughter... which I had believed to be totally illegal in the city (raising birds for meat). Now I am completely confused and wondering whether the paper really has it right!
If anyone knows about this please enlighten me!
OK, the article also says that there are places in town you can bring birds for slaughter and butchering. I *definitely* thought raising meat birds was illegal here. Now I am totally confused!
My apologies for posting this same article before I saw that you'd already done so.
I always thought roos were illegal in Chicago, but this article says not. I really want to find out the details, because if it's true it means we don't have to hide ours in the basement until we can rehome him!