The big rat could be a pregnant one & hungry for nourishment. Hope you can catch it. Sounds like you have more than one rat ~ not surprising ~ they can breed as young as 3 months old. Weird that it's in a stall? Probably scoping out the territory discovering droppings from the other rat you...
First time introductions ~ a bit of dominance is expected. When we introduced our last three Silkie pullets our Dana (Dominique) wasn't bothered w/them. Barred Rocks & Doms have a shared ancestry & both have good temperament reputations where I wouldn't IMO expect overly violent aggression from...
Any info involving roo/hen activity is out of my league/forte/knowledge/experience :idunno.
Love her name... she's a smart Cookie. She's probably giving him advanced notice to leave her alone if he gets frisky😉
You GO girl! 💕 The smaller gentler breeds are busier/smarter than we give them credit! I LOVE the gentler breeds... just as clever & forage-savvy, if not more so, than layer breeds without the unpredictable temperament of bigger breeds. For bigger breeds our best have been White Leghorn, BBS...
That is so incredibly sweet❣️ I always thought about adding gentle Polish & Bantam Cochins to our Silkies but the timing was never right to do so & now what we have will be our last birds due to our own advancing age & poor health. We are enjoying this last peaceful flock.
...layers in the past & found them generally way too bullying to keep around gentle Silkies. Silkies like Polish are great without the excessive b*tchy moods of layer breeds. I only found the White Leghorn layer sweet around Silkies ~ the Buff Leghorn (had BO cross) was aggressive & it started...
Pretty roo ❣️ I like your deer fence & posts too. It's what we used to separate our yard & it's standing up still after 6 yrs. Some bows & dents but still sturdy.We have paver steps on most of the fence line so maybe that helps keep our fence ground posts secure? All I know is it's been good...
Yesterday I was so bummed about our friend's passing I totally forgot it was my birthday! But sweet DH didn't forget & got me surprise ~ soft Chinese food & Chinese sweet desert (my dental surgery work last Monday).
Again... my last birthday party I was 21... so that makes me 22 for this year too?
Good info... my motto when deciding on safe plants was to use the poultryhelp.com website as a guide for planting since we have a very small yard... we even researched trees & garden & herb plants before deciding... again... only because we have no forest or field vegetation for chickens to...
From website pics I really thought Cookie was going to get bigger ~ she must have bantam somewhere in her breeding history. She is just too precious to be the only small breed... maybe that's why Tassels watches over her brood to make sure all stay safe around Cookie? In a way its Kismet that...
Thinking back to your neighbor who owned them... that's probably why he kept them caged to prevent them fighting. Just thinking...you may need to bite the bullet & have a separate enclosure/run for the aggressive breed/birds to save your gentler birds from grief. That will enable you to gather...
@Ponypoor
Outside of a climbing rose bush already on the property we never planted any bushes, flowers, or trees that might be harmful to chickens. I know Oleander is deathly toxic if ingested but other than that I'm no expert...
So sorry... but I'm really really bummed today... found out a good friend passed away. He had been President of the Union Rescue Mission on skid row in the '90's... but more than that... he was our neighbor one street away, his kids & mine were all in school together, did activities together, &...