This morning my husband noticed our hen was laying down and didn't run up to him like she usually does. I thought maybe she's just being broody and went on about the day. By afternoon I noticed she still hadn't moved. I went out to check on her and noticed she was rhythmically trying to "push"...
We have 4 hens...we were thinking of adding 4 more to our flock but were unsure what the 12 week old hens we already have will do? Will they accept them as babies? or peck at them? or ignore them all together?
Looking for advice before we get more.
I live in a residential neighborhood and I have 6 chickens in my good sized backyard. actually my backyard is SO big I have 2 extremely large pens, one for the chickens, and one for the dogs. I let the chickens out at about 2pm to free range around. At about 4pm I went to check on them and 1 is...
ok my chickens squak every morning at about 7-9 while they are laying...it's usually only a minute or two each and thats it....well today they all layed and then while I was out there feeding them one starts up...now - 3 hours later she is still at it...she is just walking around...pecking at...
I have a huge fence around my chicken run that looks so bare, I was thinking about planting some vining tomatoes to climb the fence this summer....but will the chickens just destroy the plants and eat all the tomatoes?
If so is there anything they won't go after? VINING/Climbing vegetables...
since our chickens were chicks we have always kept their feed bowl full.
they are 6 months now and lately have been making a huge mess with it. We keep it in the hen house and now I'm wondering if it should be moved into the yard because in the hen house they waste SO much of it!.
what does...
I was out collecting the eggs with my kids and my son dropped one. I saw it had a nice big crack in it so instead of trying to clean it up with the 3rd arm I don't have I just smashed it figuring it would just mix in with the dirt and that would be that. After I brought the eggs inside I went...
I wanted to get a few chicks this spring. I'm wondering If I HAVE to raise them separate or if I can just introduce then to the hens and see if one "adopts" them??
every once in a while I'll find an egg hidden behind something either in the yard or the hen house and I'll wonder how many days it's been out in the sun.
So far we have ate them all but my husband is always leary.
So how long is ok to be out in the elements before it's no good?
what about in...
I was just giving the chicken coop a good scrub down this afternoon and noticed a few tiny red bugs here and there...what are they? Anyone know? and should I be concerned?
cool eh?! Can't get that with store bought eggs.
I was making corn bread and went out to the hen house for an egg...I brought them in and washed off the biggest one...cracked it into my bowl and whalah - two eggs in one shell....my kids thought it was super cool
I was a little worried how it...
I'm a very "backyard" with my chickens, i only have 6
I have to move into a small apartment due to an impending divorce and figure I'll be having to process my chickens within the next 3 months.
just wondering what the ideal age of a chicken for slaughter.
mine are now 23 weeks old...so I...
obviously I've never done this before...I have 5 chikens in my backyard in a very suburban area ( my neighbors think I'm crazy lol) So I got our first egg and know more are soon to come. I'm a bit nervous about eating them though. Can you get sick from them if there is something wrong with the...
I just found our first egg and it was in their pan of food ( we just use a casarole pan) SO I put in a milk crate and pit some straw in it. We had a large box with straw in it before but they didn't seem to like it. Do you think a milk crate will be ok?? It holds 4 gallons of milk side by side...
we got our first egg yesterday *yay*...it was on the small side, but had a nice hard shell, even color...my daughter accidently dropped it a few minutes later but before that it looked perfect. There was a little glob of redish brown blood next to the yolk...but I assume thats ok??
So when can...
A friend of mine posted these pictures on another board hoping that someone would be able to tell her whats going on with her chicken....but no one is answering.
So I'm reposting on her behalf here in the hopes that someone has seen this before and can shed some light on the situation.
Thanks!
I was talking to my grandma about my chicken's injury about a week ago. She had an interesting idea. Because the wound is so large I can't stich it closed, she told me if I was planning on culling a meat bird to transplant some of the skin on my injured pet chicken. Would that really work?
I'm...
...his head around looking for an opportunity to bite. It went rather quickly and wasn't as traumatic as I thought it was going to be.
To do list * buy pruning shears*
At this point all the kids are at the window curious as can be...they know full well "mommy is killing the chicken" and they...