We just brought home some lovely little silkies, only to discover they brought along some hitchhikers. I can't believe we didn't notice these when we were going over the birds, but we weren't thinking about parasites at the time.
Anyway, I think they're lice, based on the masses of eggs on the...
Some pullets jumped the fence into the puppy play area and Faithfull wanted them out. The rest of the year, however, she is expected to protect these little rascals so she uses just the right amount of force to harrass them into leaving the puppies alone until they finally jump the fence.
We had a guinea hen show up after I thought she was long gone. We had a run of attacks and I thought I lost four guineas, however one showed up three weeks later and a week after that this one showed up wtih a baby behind her.
She seems to be doing a good job. It's been wet and nighttime...
Our English Shepherd Faithfull just had a litter of 12 puppies!
Mom and dad are both great with our poultry and the puppies will be raised with the chickens, ducks and geese to help teach them to be gentle around poultry. We also have a pen for them in our pasture so they can check out...
I had 11 ducklings from Holderreads, 6 females and 5 males (I thought from bill color upon arrival) but a rat killed most of them. I have five survivors and am trying to figure out the sex. I thought I had two males (the smaller ones) due to the darkening of the necks, but the bills seem a lot...
We had tornadoes go through Saturday night and we lost power for some time. Now one of my ducklings is not acting right. She's wheezing, staying separate from the others and is lethargic. Her eyes are also only half open.
I hand fed her some yogurt, added ACV to the water and placed her under...
Thinking golden campine or golden penciled hamburg, but I'm not sure the difference between the two, other than comb, and I am not good at distinguishing comb type before they develop.
Of course, she could be something else entirely.
Thank you!
We received 17 chicks in the mail yesterday. All but one seemed healthy. That one was smaller and seemed sleepy. Went to a funeral, came home to two dead chicks and one that was limp. It died. Now we have three more in that condition. They act like they're sleeping, but you can't wake them up...
She hissed at me for the first time in her life and I've never been so happy to have an angry goose! She's laid a few, but this is her first year laying and the first ones were small. I set up the incubator with plans to take a few from her then leave the rest to see what she would do.
I guess...
We just got a beautiful Indian Runner drake to add to our little flock of three. I've read about introductions and have introduced chickens, but our ducks run with our geese. Is there anything special I need to do to protect him from the three hens and the three geese?
I was thinking of...
Though the breed probably doesn't matter.
I have two males and a female which is not the best breeding ratio. Should I separate one of the males or wait until Green Bean chooses one and then separate? And what should I do with Mr. Left Out? I hope to get him a mate eventually. Maybe from the...
I went out at sundown to count my chickens and see whether the ducks and geese had gone in yet. The ducks were all on my porch drinking from the dog's water so I put my hands on my hips and said to them in my mother of six voice "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"
Well, all three looked up at...
We have three Indian runner ducks and when they get excited, they walk around bobbing their heads up and down and to one side. What does this mean? So far as I know, they are all female.
Trying to figure out the relative likelihood that one of our chickens laid two eggs today and that our ducks started laying.
The last couple days we've had an odd looking egg. A little longer than a normal chicken egg but about the same width. We have a chicken that occasionally lays them...
At least I think that's what we're dealing with. It hasn't attacked anything, yet. Well, except me and my husband (sort of).
Something's been down in the soybean field just beyond the hen house twice when I went out. The first time it made a sort of weird squawk at me, and it answered with that...
I need to deworm my chickens. I have one I'm pretty sure is not going to make it if I don't hurry. But I can't find anywhere that has any. The feed store doesn't have anything and the vet says he doesn't have anything for poultry.
I'm wondering....I'm in farm country. There are a gazillion...
How often do the eggs get turned in this incubator? Everything seems to be working properly and we hear the motor, but the eggs don't appear to be turning at all. I've gone through the instruction manual, but it doesn't really address this as far as I can see.
I can hand turn, but so long as we...
I don't even know for sure what they are, just the eggs we had laid this morning. It's sort of practice so that in the spring when we have more valuable eggs we will have hopefully learned how to do this.
But I'm excited! Even if they are (probably) mutts!
One of my pullets didn't come out to eat this morning with the others so we caught it to take a look at her. She seemed fine, though it concerned me that she was so easy to catch. I had thought it odd that for the last week she roosted away from the other birds, on the floor in a corner or...
It started with a young cockerel. He didn't show up at bedtime. Then one of our best laying hens. Then our cat went missing. Fairly sure we were dealing with a predator that decided the edge of our property made good hunting grounds (fox?), we locked down the chickens.
But we were really sad...