If your worried about weight loss hand feed them 2 times a day. You need something with a little more substance than crumbles. Dog food canned mackerel or tuna fish works and bread too. Don't feed the last 4 days because you don't want her needing water or a bathroom break.
It's not so much the heat as it is the humidity!!!!!!!! How high is the humidity ? That's what will get them. 102 is not bad if it's dry there and a little breeze blowing.
If your selling eggs you have the wrong chickens!! Lol. Get you some sexlinks or leghorns if your wanting to sell eggs and then sharpen your pencil because your not going to make much besides feed money.
Can't help you on anything but the lice. I used to dust them with seven dust a couple times during the summer but have went to the cheap pour on ivomec. I just go in the coop at night and don't even pick them up just apply down the back side of the lower neck.
I don't know about that but I know a fresh free range egg tastes better than a store bought egg. The egg white being thicker is just a fresher egg. The older eggs will spread out in the skillet and the fresh ones will stand up.
I think the hatcheries have bred the broodiness out of the Orpingtons too. I know a lady that has 100 buff Orpingtons from cackle hatchery and she said none of them have tried to brood and they will be 2 yrs old this spring.
There isn't any breed that is foolproof. If you don't put them up at night they are easy Pickens for owls and raccoons, mink etc. But there is a big difference in your game breeds leghorns and some bantams. I was at a guys house this winter and I kept hearing chickens across the country road. I...
I live 60 miles from them and everybody around here orders from them and pickes them up from the post office. I never heard anything bad about them other than the extras you get might be some rare breed that you don't wont. A buddy of mines family orders 200 Cornish cross from them everyyear and...
I wouldn't be worried to much about what kind of bug is on them. I would get them treated PDQ. I know people that have had chickens all there life and get by with a wash tub of ashes in the coop, but if there infested already I would use something more toxic.