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  1. Heathercp

    Will charcoal and oyster shell in bird grit hurt chicks?

    I've got chicks in a run with their mom and they're eating all kinds of stuff. I think they need grit. They're 9 days old, btw. I wasn't able to find chick grit at either of the places we buy our feed and regular grit, so I got bird gravel at PetSmart. They only had the 8-in1 kind with charcoal...
  2. Heathercp

    UPDATE post #10: What is my broody doing - I'm so bummed...

    She's been setting on four fertilized eggs since the afternoon of May 17th. June 7th was day 21. Today is day 23 and it doesn't look like anything is going to happen. I don't get it, really. It's not her first clutch and we've only seen her off the nest three times - although the first time we...
  3. Heathercp

    Suggestions on moving Broody & Peeps

    I'm nervous tonight. We just finished day 21 and I don't see any signs that the four eggs our broody has been sitting on are going to hatch. No noise. Nothing. But then again, they've got a fluffed up chicken sitting on them, so that probably muffles a lot of sound. But lets say they do...
  4. Heathercp

    Broody tries to hatch Tupperware container

    We got our first chickens this spring: five adults, plus one mom and her four peeps. Well, wouldn't you know it... the babies have all grown up. Two were roosters and have moved out to the country, and the other two have just started to lay tiny little eggs. Evidently, Mama Toes (she's got...
  5. Heathercp

    How to administer antibiotic capsules?

    One of our chickens has bumblefoot. It's not bad yet, and I've read that I can treat with antibiotics now and perhaps avoid having to cut the foot open. After I've gotten the antibiotic capsules, how on earth do I get them into her? They don't exactly look like cracked corn. Does anyone have...
  6. Heathercp

    How terrible is it if my chicks eat some of the hens' layer rations?

    I see from other posts that layer rations have too much calcium for chicks. It's supposedly not good for their bone growth, and there may be other reasons I didn't read about yet. My problem is that I've got a mixed flock of hens and four chicks that I think are about 6 weeks old. I've got...
  7. Heathercp

    How do I teach my wary chickens to use nipple waterer?

    I've had one full week with the ladies and so far things are going well. Next on my list of things to get the chickens to do is for them to start using the nipple waterers. These girls are almost a year old and aren't used to being handled at all. It really freaks them out. They don't mind...
  8. Heathercp

    I didn't know that chickens took naps....

    Today's the second full day with my first flock and it's just after 1pm. All the girls are napping peacefully. I had no idea they did that. I just figured they were always out scratching around looking for something to eat - on the move from dawn to dusk. Guess I might not know as much about...
  9. Heathercp

    My first egg!

    We brought the girls home yesterday from Maryland and they've already laid two eggs for me today. I brought 5 hens, and one mom and her four chicks. The hens were born last March and the new babies sometime in January we think. They just appeared all of a sudden it seems. Here's a link to a...
  10. Heathercp

    Going to get my first chickens today!

    I'm so excited and so scared, too . Driving from NC to MD to pick them up from a friend's boyfriend. I'm hoping to come home with one mom plus four babies and 5 other hens (or pullets - they're all < 10 months old). The coop is finished. Finished up the nest box yesterday, though I still have...
  11. Heathercp

    How many eggs eggs are fertile after separating from rooster?

    I'm going to pick up chickens from a friend this weekend. They're currently housed with a rooster and one has just hatched a clutch. My question: how many potentially fertile eggs are these girls going to lay before they start laying unfertilized eggs? Is it just one fertile egg per "mounting"...
  12. Heathercp

    Some MEDICATED chicken feed may be poisonous for horses

    I don't want to be an alarmist, but I did think this was interesting and wanted to share. One of the other chicken forums I belong to just posted a thread about medicated chicken feed being poisonous for horses and other animals. It started out with a really harrowing story about how two...
  13. Heathercp

    Worried about not having enough water in coop. Using nipple waterers.

    I'm having trouble concentrating because my two cats are trying to catch a mouse they brought in and let loose in the living room. It's under the couch, so I can't reach it. The darn fool things are just laying on the floor staring at it. Ugh!! At any rate, waiting for my chickens is really...
  14. Heathercp

    Spacing for treads on chicken ladder?

    The ramp is finished, but I still need to attach some kind of treads (those little wooden strips). At least I think do. All the other chicken ladders I see have them. But I don't know how far apart the treads need to be. Anyone have a suggestion? 8" apart? 10"? Less? The ramp is pretty shallow...
  15. Heathercp

    Can I put oyster shell & grit in the same dish?

    I'm getting set up to pick up my chickens (once the blizzard on the eastern seaboard ends) and I've already got bags of grit and oyster shell, but am not sure quite how I want to offer it to them. I've seen some pretty neat ideas, but I'm not yet sure what will work best in our setup. I'll pick...
  16. Heathercp

    Shout Out to Farmtek customer service *UPDATED*

    I'm not sure where to put this, but I really wanted to share my positive experience with Farmtek customer service. I ordered the nipples to make a nipple waterer from them based on a link from ChickenEllis. I know that some folks have balked at Farmtek's high shipping cost, but I wanted to...
  17. Heathercp

    Can I grow Black Oil Sunflowers in my garden?

    I keep reading about BOSS and know that I can buy seeds at the feed store, but can I grow the flowers in my garden? Can I just plant some of the seeds from the sack I buy at the feed store? Or is there some place I can get packets of seed for planting. Just seems like it might be fun to have...
  18. Heathercp

    What do I feed the mother hen while she's raising her babies?

    If I've only got one mom and her babies, what should I feed them? I think the mom currently eats layer crumbles, but from what I can gather, layer rations aren't good to feed to young birds. They need starter/grower or something along those lines. So do I switch the mom to starter/grower? These...
  19. Heathercp

    Getting peeps...can I take the mom too?

    I'm a soon-to-be first-time chicken owner. A friend wanted to give me 8 BA pullets. She just went out to the coop and found this. So, my question is: Can I take the peeps and mom? And maybe another pullet? When we started out thinking about chickens, we expected to get peeps. Then shortly...
  20. Heathercp

    8-month pullets or just hatched peeps- Help! What do I do?

    Note to self...If you've got roosters and don't want more chickens, you'd better collect the eggs. My girlfriend is downsizing her flock of 20+ Black Australorps that her boyfriend got as peeps last year from McMurray. Long story short, 20+ is too many chickens for her, so we've been...
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