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  1. Portalguy

    Stainless Steel waterers, fire concerns from heaters

    Folks, Have been searching and reading, no good answers as to the availability of stainless steel waterers. The question's been asked several times, is there really no answer? https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/97649/waterers/10#post_1086922 ...also saw some great DIY designs to heat...
  2. Portalguy

    broody forever, eggs missing, is she eating them?

    Folks, We have a broody Sussex that started sitting on about a dozen eggs at least five weeks ago. None have hatched. Now there are just five eggs left. I am wondering, what happened to the other seven. Did a search and learned some things about caring for a hen that is broody beyond six...
  3. Portalguy

    Which Heritage Breeds can actually breed?

    Just that... if they don't have the instincts to breed, what's the point? Having chickens that lay (and eat expensive grain) like there's no tomorrow, is not a sustainable practise. It would be cheaper to simply buy eggs locally. We are raising Sussex and Australorps, which are on their...
  4. Portalguy

    Where can I get a post-death exam to determine cause of death?

    G'Day, I am disappointed, no replies to my enquiry of yesterday: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=3027104 Today this chicken is listless and declining. Would really like to find out what has caused this. How would I find an agency or agricultural vet, competent to...
  5. Portalguy

    Yawning, Malaise, Sneezing, Sleepiness

    G'Day Experts! Hope some of you have seen this before. One of our 23 chickens, a Sussex about 5 months old, is sick. Last night I saw her 'yawning' on her perch, thought she was tired, this morning she was definitely sick. Vent looks normal. Occasional sneezes, I can't hear any gurgling in...
  6. Portalguy

    Compact Fluorescent as good as Incandescent for Egglaying?

    G'Morning Experts ! As the daylight grows shorter and the days & nights chillier, our chickens get up on the sleeping roost early. They were hatched this past May and have not laid eggs yet. My wife has a light in there. To save cost (electricity here is quite expensive along with everything...
  7. Portalguy

    Aggressive Rooster, should I soup him ?

    G'Day Experts ! It's 5:55 AM and I'm about to let my flock of 24 out; about half Black Australorp, half Sussex, and an odd adopted Barred Rock who follows me about. Two are cocks, one huge Black Australorp and one Sussex. It is the B. A. I am concerned about. He's very alpha, and goes about...
  8. Portalguy

    How to acclimate a smaller chick to the flock?

    Hi, Should have wrote about this earlier, but anyway I have one chick that hatched out of a batch of my neighbour's fifty eggs, living all alone in my brooder box after my son (6yo) adopted it. We call it 'Senator Hatch'. Senator is about six weeks old, appears to be a Barred Rock, and is...
  9. Portalguy

    Are three Roosters too many ?

    Just that... someone has offered us a Sussex rooster about the same age as our flock. My wife who is from eastern Europe and knows some of the traditional chicken wisdom says that three males are better than two, two often clash but three provide distraction (she actually heard some wisdom...
  10. Portalguy

    Are three Roosters better than two ?

    Just that... someone has offered us a Sussex rooster about the same age as our flock; my wife who is from eastern Europe and knows some of the traditional chicken wisdom says that three males are better than two, two often clash but three provide distraction (she actually heard some wisdom from...
  11. Portalguy

    Food Cost: An Input/Output Analysis

    Folks, I've got a hypothesis... which says that feed costs (manufactured feeds containing subsidy corn plus non-foods that chickens today somehow 'need') are artificially marked up to transfer away from us --- any cost savings to be gained from raising chickens on our own. Input == Output...
  12. Portalguy

    Galvanised Steel Waterer rusting

    Folks, Picked up a galvanised steel waterer at the 'might-still-be-good' shed at our local dump in Middlebury. My wife opened it and saw that is was a bit rusty on the inside. We're thinking that whoever threw it away, may have known something that we didn't. Thoughts? Cheers Rob in...
  13. Portalguy

    What do we feed them when commercial massproduced petro-feeds go away?

    Folks, At the tail of another thread I asked, I can only wonder what our grandmothers around the world (genuflect now) did, most of whom did not have access to specialty feeds and the entire fragile chain of dependencies (petrochemical, cheap transport) that get this mash or that crumble from...
  14. Portalguy

    Vermont Coop & Run Done !!!

    Here's a picture of our chicken run, lower vegetable garden and a bit of the riding-mower palace that I converted into a chicken coop: Today we had a fierce hailstorm! It looks like snow... I made a portcullis-type door for the coop that I can raise and lower with a rope pulleys from...
  15. Portalguy

    Sussex, Australorps or Plymouth/Barred, available anywhere?

    Folks, As this is our first time keeping chickens, we got everything ready, and then... no chicks until mid June, sometimes later (this means that they won't start laying until Winter)! Checked the major sites that I found though googling and here, nothing. Anybody know of a hatchery selling...
  16. Portalguy

    Can I keep these three breeds together?

    Hi, Just finishing our coop, wife is a bit late ordering chicks, and has found most backordered though end of June. She wants to mix the following breeds together, 20-24 chook total in a 4' x 8' coop: - black australorps - plymouth/barred rocks - sussex Does anyone have experience or at...
  17. Portalguy

    Height, diameter and placement of roosting pole

    Yesterday in the woods, while searching for a suitable nesting pole to thin from the many maple saplings that we have, I discovered a maple that a trespassing someone had half cut down. As it swayed in the wind, it was splitting up the trunk, so I 'euthanised' it. I have two straight poles...
  18. Portalguy

    Hello from Ripton, Vermont

    G'Day ! Writing is Rob in Ripton, Vermont; a mountain place with good soil but lots of rocks; good people but bad roads and no money. We moved up here recently from the lowlands near Lake Champlain, and are very happy, the climate is better and the air cleaner. Am converting the previous...
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