I was holding my rooster this morning and whilst looking through his feathers I noticed some very odd patches on his skin, they were circular, and a dark purple colour. They were raised from his normal skin like a volcano with some white crusty bits on it, at the top of the "volcano" there was a...
I have 2 flocks, one bantam and one large fowl, one of the bantam hens has been pecking the feathers and comb on another bantam hen so she has been in isolation to let the pecked hen recover, i thought maybe we could integrate her into the LF flock where she wouldn't be bullying other hens due...
Our cockerel (10 months old) has been sitting in an unused best box in our tiny spare coop, and made growling/purring noises, it's pretty funny!! Is he broody? ;) can anyone suggest a better and more sensible reason than that?:)
One of my wyandotte bantams is missing feathers on her chest, this doesn't look like a broody patch as she isn't broody and the missing feathers are more on the front of her chest than belly, so many are missing that you can see her skin, which is (is this normal) fairly red, she also has...
I was wondering if there are any cheap incubators that are fully automatic and fairly reliable? I don't want to splash out as it would just be for a bit of fun. I wouldn't be too bothered about how many eggs it can hold! I live in the UK, not sure if that makes a difference.
not sure where to post this but:
We regularly mix ash from our wood burning stove with soil in the chickens dust bath, well, today I didn't mix it and some of the hens started eating the ash and especially small black chunks of burnt wood (that hasn't quite fallen apart yet). Is this a health...
So I have 2 cream legbars (Rees line) that I obtained from a local breeder, I believe the eggs they hatched from were from a breeding group of 1 rooster with 3-5 hens, so they could be siblings or half-siblings. I was wondering if I could hatch any of the pullet's eggs, or if this would be too...
My cream legbar pullet started limping this morning. She seems healthy apart from limping and preferring not to walk. As far as I can tell she has no bumble foot, and when I feel higher up on her leg she doesn't react (which you might expect if she had swelling or a fracture etc). Any ideas what...
My coop is fairly small around 1.2 x 0.7m base and 0.8m high (plus legs to raise it off the ground), it houses my 4 bantams. The coop is made of old pallet wood, so all walls are made of 10cm wide pieces of wood, between these (and in all other nooks and crannies) i have red mite nests, it's...
I have 2 broodies, one is an easter egger and one a cochin bantam. The easter egger has sat on a cluth of shipped eggs that all failed. today would have been day 23, the cochin bantam has been broody for roughly 1-2 weeks. I am going to buy some 1 day old cream legbar chicks to sneak under one...
I saw this little rooster on a walk in the countryside, his crow is as loud as someone talking quietly and he was lovely to his large fowl hens, what breed do you reckon he is (if hes not some sort of cross)? He had feathered feet but his legs seemed quite long compared to a cochin bantam...
This is just something I found in the National Geographic today, thought I'd make some more people aware of this!
Note the "53% of grocery store chicken sampled in a 2013 study had resistant E.coli."
This is my little hen i acquired today, she has clean, 4 toed, green (is the correct term willow?) legs, a little crest, tiny wattles, mainly blue earlobes and quite long tail! They lady i bought her (and the weslummer, who she thought was a barnevelder!!) from said it was an ameraucana, we'll...
Hi guys i hatched this SLW bantam last spring (end of april) she still hasnt started laying, her comb & wattles are as red as the roosters' (who is her hatch mate), shes now 9 months and the days are getting longer, when will she still hasn't started laying??
Can anyone guess the breed (is it a pure breed or a mix) of this little black bantam hen? I saw it at a farm park the other day & fell in love with it!!! (the ear lobes should be red i think, the white is just a fault)
they're 5 weeks old, and mixed colours of cochin bantams.
chick number 1, base of comb is slightly orange
chick number 2, the base of the comb is dark orange and the points yellow, im 95% sure its a roo
(left chick)
chick number 3
so I'm thinking of hatching some more chicks, I live in the UK so autumn is starting. I'm wondering if the cockerels i hatch will be harder to sell during autumn/winter than in say spring or summer? as i cant really afford to keep more than one borderline illegal cockerel in the city also how...
hi guys i was reading a chicken book this morning, and it said that it is better to let a hen hatch an odd number of eggs as it makes it easier/better for her to turn them?? does anyone know about this, i am very curious as i cannot think of a sensible explanation! :D