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Yeah, you read that 5 degrees a week on here a lot but I ignore it. If you manage the 5 degrees a week thing you will be extremely safe as far as keeping them warm enough. Where are you located so we can have an idea about your weather and temperatures? If you modify your profile that...

Hi, welcome to the forum! Glad you joined! A lot of people make their own "cone", often out of a large plastic bottle so the bird fits. If I remember right, @Molpet has a nice photo of what they use. Or some people roll their own out of some materials. I don't know what material your cone...

The way I break a broody hen is to put her in a wire bottomed cage with food and water with no nest for 72 hours. The wire bottom allows cool air to hit her undersides. Many people use a dog crate up on bricks or cinder blocks. That's a wire dog crate without the liner that goes in the...

Hard to say. By day 20 the chicks are generating a lot of heat inside the egg. I don't know how long she was off of the nest or how cold it was. I had a hen do that somewhere around day 14 to 16, can't remember exactly. Her eggs were cold to the touch when I found her and put her back on the...

Oh, you are going to have fun. Personally I would not incubate them yet. A small part of that is that they were out in the rain so the protective coat of bloom may have been compromised. My main concern is that it sounds like they have just started to lay. You can hatch pullet eggs, I...

It sounds like she is breeding and feeding for show birds. Along with all the other breed requirements show birds are bred to be larger than the typical hatchery birds and are fed a specific diet to help them grow that large. The nice feathers are a result of breeding and a special diet...

:thumbsup I totally agree. You had evidence something was wrong. That's why you quarantine to start with. @aart some states do. For New Jersey, the OP's state, I found a Pullorum requirement. I found one online source that said Avian Flu was included. A different source said nothing about...

The hens were probably Golden Comets then but the rooster was not. They should be productive.

One of the tricks that some people that breed for show use to get shiny feathers is to put some oil on the feed. Mineral oil, vegetable oil, olive oil, whatever. It doesn't take much to make the feathers really shiny. You don't want to overdo it but some is not bad.

I've had several hatches under a broody hen and in an incubator where the last egg hatched within 16 hours of the first one hatching. I've had hatches where the last chick hatched into the third day (over 48 hours) after the first one. You can read a lot about what "should" happen but reality...

The egg laying process is pretty complicated. A lot of things have to go right for them to lay a perfect egg. Many pullets get something wrong when they first start laying but most of them straighten things out fairly soon. Don't totally give up hope yet but I agree, don't absolutely count on...

:lau Hopefully you take that as laughing with you, not at you. I totally understand on getting confused as to exactly how long it has been for some things. The critical temperature is your lows, not daily highs. A four-week-old chick should be able to handle 60 F as long as it is out of a...

Where did you get those eggs? What rooster is the father of those chicks? What can you tell us about his color and breed background? Gold Comet is just a marketing name. Different hens and roosters can be used to make them. All the hens that can be used have the Silver gene and all the...

Since your other yolks are fine then this is an individual hen issue, not something you need to treat the whole flock for. Yolk color is diet based. Some Layer chicken feed contains dried marigold flower petals to color the yolks. Yolk color has nothing to do with nutrition of the yolk...

Hi, welcome to the forum, glad you joined, I just wish it were for another reason. When incubating the eggs the air cell should be on top if the egg is incubated on end. That way the air cell stays here it is supposed to and the chick is properly oriented. You can also incubate with the egg...

Hi. Welcome to the forum! Glad you joined! What do you consider to be a cold climate? We have some forum members in the deep south of the US that think 50 Fahrenheit (10 Celsius) is cold for grown chickens. It is not. It can help if you put your general location in your profile like...

Your Leghorn and possibly Ameraucana may naturally be fairly "skinny". The Leghorn especially is bred to spend her energy on making eggs, not growing meat. The Orp, Wyandotte, and New Hampshire should be heavier. I'm not that familiar with Turken. I know it is June and you are in California...

I like to use poultry shears to cut through the joints and ribs around the breast. That keeps your knife sharper.

Depends on your flock and how you manage them. I almost always have juveniles in the flock so I have food and water in the coop plus two food stations and three water stations widely spread outside. If you have a small flock all the same age one food and water station is probably sufficient...

This is why it needs to go on the outside, to stop the ones trying to dig in. If it is on the inside, they dig under the fence and push up, easily being able to get in. I use about 18" and bury it about 2", under the sod. This holds it down and keeps it out of the way of lawn mowers and...