One of my RIR Hens will be 3 this spring and has suddenly come down with an illness. I went to go close everyone in and water/feed for the evening & this one hen stood in one spot, kind of wobbling, while everyone else ran around from the water dish, to the food dish, to the treat dish. She had...
This is not my first broody hen, but she is the first to NOT get scared off her nest. Today marks 21 days that she's been laying on her eggs. In the beginning I allowed her to have 12. After a week and a half I checked her progress and she had 8 left. I don't know if she accidently broke...
I've got a 1 yr. old BLRW who has gone broody. She started sitting on eggs Friday and I figured I'd give it a day or two to see if she was a true broody (some of my girls seem to just enjoy sitting there for a whole day, and the next day they have no interest).
When she was still there on them...
I'm looking at getting a Little Giant Still Air Incubator and have read mixed reviews where some people do great and others do better with a cardboard box.
I have no problem turning the eggs myself, but does it make THAT much of a difference to have an auto turner? Have people tried it both...
This poor little girl has had an issue with her toe for a few weeks. I first noticed it when she jumped off the roost one morning and had left a bloody spot on the roost. Her middle "toe" was swollen and the blood seemed to be coming from around her nail. I immediately separated her to keep an...
I have a 2 year old RIR (1 of 3) that has recently started to lose some feathers. Within the last week, however, I noticed it was more than a few lost feathers as she has balding areas on her tail, both wings and her back and there is blood from where the feathers have been ripped out. In...
A few pictures of the new accommodations for everyone (well, almost everyone). I think my 4 adult hens were jealous at the new space that all the teens & babies were getting today!
Our coop is 10x10 (because any bigger and the town adds taxes to your property!) and was originally designed for...
I've got 4 hens - 1 2yr old BR and 3 1yr old RIRs. For the most part they're fairly productive as I generally get 3-4 eggs each day.
In the past 5 weeks I've been getting an egg that has an extremely soft shell. It's one hen, (I suspect one of the RIR girls) because she always lays in the...
I originally started a thread on the "incubating forum" as my original question pertained to incubating. The circumstances have since changed and am now curious to get the opinion of the "behavior forum".
The Background: One of my hens went broody about 11 (or so) days ago. I have no rooster...
One of my hens has been broody for about 13 days. I finally got her some eggs to sit on 3 days ago - she was very happy. I was away tonight for longer than normal and when I got home and went to close in my hens there had obviously been a tussle and she was missing with 1/2 of her eggs broken...
I really have no preference either way - breaking her, or encouraging the broodiness...I just need advice on both. I've been doing some reading on here, but some of my questions are still unanswered.
My first thought was to buy her some fertilized eggs to sit on and hatch - that would be fun...
My hen is officially gone broody. We, however, have no rooster.
I'm not sure how (or if I want) to break her, so I'm looking at getting some fertilized eggs for her to hatch.
Any BYC-ers on here from Maine that might have or know of some eggs I can get for her to hatch? (Just taking a shot...
All right, I've got 1 RIR hen who has been sitting in the same nesting box for about 3 days now. I know she's not moving because two of the other girls usually lay in that same box and have now been forced to lay in a neighboring nesting box. She looks flattened out and keeps an eye on me when...
All right, I've got 1 RIR hen who has been sitting in the same nesting box for about 3 days now. I know she's not moving because two of the other girls usually lay in that same box and have now been forced to lay in a neighboring nesting box. She looks flattened out and keeps an eye on me when...
I have 1 Barred Rock hen that was an '08 chick and 3 Rhode Island Reds that were '09 chicks. I've consistently gotten 3-4 eggs each day from my girls. One girl temporarily had an issue laying outside the boxes, but that only lasted for about 2 weeks and was remedied by adding an additional...
My 1-yr old Barred Rock has lost A LOT of feathers in the last couple days.... A LOT. Being fairly new to chickens, I'm not sure if this is normal (I'm thinking molting?) Is this something that happens after they're a year old? Should I expect it to happen every summer? More often? Not at...
I've been reading around to get some advice and decided I might as well join-in and ask, just in case I missed something!
My husband and I got our first flock last year - 5 hens & 1 rooster - all barred rocks, all free-ranging and we had no problems whatsoever. The chickens were housed in a...