My cuckoo Marans Big Bird has an injury I guess from our alpha hen MaryAnne mounting her and digging in with her claws. The feather sticks out at an odd angle and after I gave her a bath I could see the skin around the feather shaft is swollen. Should I pull the feather out?
Turn your heat up to about 90 degrees and make sure there is always a carrot and fresh wheat bran in it, and your colony will just explode! Your temp of 72 is way too low and there is your time problem. Also try tossing in a handful of chicken feed, I sift out the dust from my crumbles and pour...
We've never been to the Kiln, but I know it's as hot there as it is here. Right now for a mister we are using one of those hose handle sprayers with 8 different spray patterns, one of them is mist. We pound an upside down L shaped piece of pvc into the ground, and hook the handle on it, and...
I live in Saucier MS so I am sharing your pain! We just integrated our 3 BCM hens with our 3 RSL hens, we've been putting it off because the first 3 just came off being broody and were underweight. We wanted everyone to be laying eggs and healthy and now we get 4-6 eggs a day. When we give them...
Yes it's just 50/50 powdered sugar and boric acid you can get from Walmart. Make sure it is mixed up really well and sprinkle it around where they are coming in. Kills roaches and ants, they eat the sugar and get killed by the acid. We get ants coming in from the rain, and also from our parrot...
The chemicals they use will absolutely kill your beetles! Take the colony outside for at least a week to allow the chemicals to get out of the air. Better yet, don't pay those killer companies to poison you and your bugs and pets. Use safer/natural means to get rid of pests like boric...
We had a surplus of tomatoes from our plants so I freeze them and give them to my birds, and also give them frozen ears of corn from last year's harvest. They like it when I spray down the side of the run with the fan on it, even though they run away at first. As soon as the water spray stops...
If you don't overfeed them with fruit and vegetables, keeping the bedding dry, you should not have any odor beyond a very faint wheat-y scent. Smells arise from mold, and rotting/decaying food. The bugs (all life stages) dry so fast upon dying they don't produce any smell themselves. At least...
Stop putting fresh wet food in it. Put the colony in a very warm dry place And if you can, shine a small desk lamp with a 60 watt bulb about 8 inches from the surface on one end of the box. Make sure there is a stack of newspaper or brown paper bag a few pieces thick on the spot the light shines...
This afternoon I locked them all out of the coop for 3 hours to clean the nest boxes of the ice water, and when the light started changing I went outside and opened the door for them. They all climbed on the roost as fast as they could, and I put their boxes back and filled them with shavings...
Big Bird, MaryAnn and Ginger are only 7 months old, and have been laying about 2 months. BB is a cuckoo and BCM mix and the others are full BCM. BB broods MaryAnn, who is also broody and just lays there. Ginger is just mad she doesn't have anyone to talk to out in the run. Ginger is the only one...
You can give them a carrot and some chicken starter/grower/layer right now. I put the chick food in a pile and watch it level out during the day. I put a carrot on newspaper, several sheets thick and about 4"x8" that is lying on top of the wheat bran. I have also ground up eggshells and made a...
bbsnooks, you don't need to wet the paper at all. Just lay the carrots on top of the paper and that will be plenty of moisture. Otherwise you will have a serious mold problem and also mites.
onafixedincome, I agree! I have been quietly chuckling over the folks counting each pupa and waiting...
We are supposed to have bluebirds but I haven't seen any yet. I think I will hang up some bluebird houses by winter for next breeding season, maybe they will come if I do! The worms went under the rock because it was really warm under there, they are mostly still there today. The squirrel and...
One of my bins was wall to wall worms, so I took a huge cup outside for the song birds. After I poured them into the tray that catches the seeds that the woodpecker spills, I realized the worms I put out yesterday were not eaten, but had crawled under the rock that holds the tray down! So there...
They don't treat the water in any way, not even a particle filter. It can come out clear and smell-free, and it can come out yellow and stinky, and it can come out clear but let it sit and it has sediment anyway. Sometimes it's just the hot water and sometimes it's both. It has clogged my washer...