Interesting to read about all the work most people go through in cleaning their coops. I only clean mine once per year. Dirt floor and deep litter. Pine shavings and/or raked leaves are added occasionally as needed. I feed treats & scratch on the floor and the chickens take care of stirring up...
I have been feeding scratch grain for many years but I only provide a hand full first thing in the morning as a treat and another hand full in the evening to get them to come inside the coop so I can lock them up for the night. There is no better way to get them to come in for the night. No...
This is a very long thread and I am getting here late. I didn't read all of the posts but I see a multitude of posts saying to do this or do that.
To solve the problem of chickens not wanting to return to their coop at night the most important points are #1: They need a coop that is large...
If you don't mind having a brand name on the cartons you can provide used cartons from the supermarkets. All our customers save them for us and return them to us when they come to buy eggs. The price of egg cartons is reduced to $0.00. We do print sheets of small Avery return address labels and...
I didn't take this photo but it was sent to me via e-mail. This has got to be a "one of a kind" pic. It looks like the chick on the outside may be having a hard time finding a parking space.
Found quite a surprise out in the hen house today. 30 years of raising chickens and I never saw one as big as this. The egg on the left is a standard size large egg. The big one weighs 1/4 pound!
Charlie Chicken
This is one of the reasons raising chickens is so interesting. We are always trying to come up with ways to get them to behave as we would like them too rather than how they think they would like to behave. I can understand why they would prefer laying their eggs on the floor in self made nests...
This is the original Jiffy-Way egg scale that everyone likes. Someone should talk to the folks at Jiffy-Way and tell them to haul this design out of storage and start making them again.
It looks like we are down to one manufacturer for new egg scales and they sure are some ugly! The original old Jiffy-Way scale that was sold for so many years was a perfect, nice looking, well designed scale but for some strange reason they stopped making them.
They could have been laid on the floor to begin with which could lead to rough treatment and/or breakage. Sometimes hens will scratch around inside a nest box to arrange things to their liking or some do it just for the heck of it. If you noticed that the nest box bedding was rearranged that...
Washing eggs is OK. It's a shame that advice on not washing eggs has been circulated as much as it has because it is bad advice. It doesn't harm the eggs and it does remove any possibility of salmonella bacteria which can cause food poisoning getting inside the shell. A good washing provides...
If I were a Buff Orpington chicken and was subjected to light 24 hours per day I would be so totally screwed up I probably would quit laying eggs altogether!
Yep, they sure do. They will poke their head in and check it out and will shortly head on in. Chickens prefer a private dark place to do their thing and a curtained nest gives them what they prefer. The beauty of of all is that while in the nest they can't see the eggs so the egg eating stops.
You can try all the crazy things that are suggested to combat egg eating, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I do know the one thing that works for me every time is to hang a curtain at the nest opening to darken the nest. I have never had a single egg eaten after using the curtain...
I just assumed it was a rooster because if his size and I doubt they include any hens with their "Rare Exotic Chick" that they always throw in. I have never received a female in any shipment in the past. I have an idea the hatchery puts all the surplus roosters into a big box and throws one into...
Wow, that was quick! Four minutes after the post I get an answer. Thanks a bunch.
Now the next thing to do is figure out what to do with the darn thing. He is in with a flock of five varieties of female Rocks. I guess I could just keep him as a curiosity & conversation piece.
Can anyone identify this chick? It is the "Rare Exotic Chick" that McMurray Hatchery included in my chick order and I can't figure out what breed it is. I checked the catalog many times but can't seem to match him up with anything. He is 7 weeks old and has a muff on his head, no feathers on the...