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  1. NatJ

    Stray Rooster

    The important thing is that they can get the calcium when they do need it, and it sounds like you've got that covered!
  2. NatJ

    6month old rooster survived a bobcat attack but won’t eat or drink

    Thank you for updating, so we are not left wondering :) But I'm sorry to hear that he was not able to recover :(
  3. NatJ

    Bielefelder mix chicks- auto sexing?

    If the hen has the barring gene and the rooster does not, then the color-sexing should work, no matter whether the hen was a purebred or a mix. She just needs to have the barring gene, which the one in your photos does. If you want a more involved explanation of how it works: Male chickens have...
  4. NatJ

    Skipped molts - trying to figure out why

    I don't really know, so I started poking around online... I looked at the wikipedia article on forced molting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_molting Then I checked some of the sources that were referenced in the wikipedia article. There was a link to an online version of the book...
  5. NatJ

    Skipped molts - trying to figure out why

    That is a good question, and I do not know the answer for sure. But what you described (not eating, weight loss) sounds like a recipe for forced molting (usually caused by the person withholding food, not the hen's choice.) So I could easily believe the molting is the effect, and the rest of...
  6. NatJ

    Progeny from heroic rooster

    I have a slight preference for everything being in this one thread, rather than skipping some things or splitting among two or more threads. One thing that affects my preference: this thread is in the section "Pictures and Stories of My Flock." It is still a story of your flock, with a...
  7. NatJ

    Are They Eating Too Much Calcium?

    Chickens usually like wet mash, too. It's just their normal feed with water added, but they act like it tastes really great! Nutritionally it's the same as when they eat the same feed dry, so it is a good choice when you want the fun of giving the chickens a treat, but don't want to worry about...
  8. NatJ

    First time flock owner, thinking about hatching out some in the spring. What will i be looking at with these breeds i have?

    You could hatch eggs from your Easter Eggers. Some of their daughters will lay green eggs. You might even get green eggs from all of their daughters, depending on how many blue egg genes each Easter Egger hen has. In later generations, if you hatch green eggs from the daughters of your original...
  9. NatJ

    Artificial Lights v/s None During Winter for Egg Production Poll

    And of course all of those are dark for 16+ hours in the middle of winter, which is why you are adding some light. When you add light, how many total hours do your chickens end up with each day?
  10. NatJ

    Free range vs feed

    There are some places where chickens can provide all their needs by free ranging, and many more areas where they cannot. The climate matters, along with the amount of space available, how many chickens are trying to live there, and what other things are living there (plants, animals, bugs, etc.)...
  11. NatJ

    Is there such thing as TOO MUCH protein for chickens??

    Where I live, it is cheaper to buy chicken food than to buy the ingredients to mix my own. It's interesting how different things are cheap or expensive in different places.
  12. NatJ

    The "Ask Anything" to Nicalandia Thread

    I wasn't trying to suggest that you mate siblings with each other, more that you pick a female whose brothers do not show black, and mate her with some male who does not show black (may or may not be her brother.) It's a way to guess about which hens have the genes to suppress that black. I...
  13. NatJ

    My Bunny Story Continues…

    Are you planning to buy another female, and this time check for yourself? Or wait a month, and if bunnies are born you can keep a daughter as company for her mother? Mark your calendar. Delivery is most often 31 days after mating. It rarely varies by more than a day or two either direction...
  14. NatJ

    The "Ask Anything" to Nicalandia Thread

    I don't know which specific genes you're working with. I wonder, if Dominant White is one of the genes, could it be that some of your birds have just one Dominant White gene and some others have two genes for it? If so, you could use test mating to sort out which group is which. (Choose a...
  15. NatJ

    Green eggs and beards rooster selecting

    It's great to hear that it's going so well!
  16. NatJ

    Why so few eggs???

    Is there any chance that they are hiding their eggs? Or eating the eggs? Or something else is eating the eggs? (Snakes, rats, dogs, etc.) Have you tried looking at each individual hen to see who is laying? https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/who-is-laying-and-who-is-not-butt-check.73309/...
  17. NatJ

    Enrichment for baby chicks??

    Good point: yes, it will definitely be covered in poo!
  18. NatJ

    Enrichment for baby chicks??

    I tend to go for the same things I would offer adult chickens, and let the chicks practice the same skills they will use as adults: Lots of space Things to scratch in (bedding, clods of dirt, and so forth) Things to sit on (pieces of board or bricks or anything else handy) When feasible, trips...
  19. NatJ

    Feeding late at night instead of early morning?

    If you are just trying to provide extra calories, it doesn't much matter whether you provide starches, fats, or protein. Any of those can work. If you are specifically considering the heat produced by digestion, protein will generate more heat than starches. When broiler chickens are raised...
  20. NatJ

    Six different breeds 2 weeks old - pullets and/or roos?

    What I really meant was, Why are they calling it a "Black Rock" if it has white barring? Most private sellers do not have the correct pens set up to produce any kind of sexlink chick. And some people think (wrongly) that if they breed a male and a female of some kind of sexlink, they will get...
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