We have a warren hen, she was three years old last August. She seemed quite lethargic over winter and has had some weird droppings which smelt like bad egg. She made it through the winter though (it's spring now - northern England). She seemed okay for a while, but now she seems really...
Hi,
Could anybody tell me what is wrong with this hen's vent please? As you can hopefully see, it's not got many feathers on, and the feathers that are there are stuck together, and there are some droppings stuck to her rear end. She seems quite happy though.
Another hen in our little flock...
Hi,
This is the first time we've hatched under a broody. She is a great sitter - we only bought some fertile eggs because she was clearly determined to hatch something!
Yesterday was day 21 and I peeped in a few times when she was off the nest. It looked as if two out of six eggs might have...
Hi,
We have very little experience of hatching eggs - but the one hen we have kept which we hatched ourselves in an incubator is now broody! She has been broody for quite a few weeks, but as we were away for a week, I delayed getting her some fertile eggs until today.
At the moment, the eggs are...
Our one year old Bluebelle hen has lost most of the feathers from her crop. We thought it was impacted at first, but it certainly seems to be empty every morning. We've separated her from the other hens, but they can still see each other. She's normally top hen in the pecking order.
We...
My friend has offered me a sack of sawdust to use as bedding, but it's from a timberyard. Is it safe to use for chickens, or best avoided?
I'd be glad of any thoughts, thanks.
Our hens will be visiting a friend while we are away for about a month. Their house and run will be standing on concrete during this time. Should we put something down on the concrete to make it more hen-friendly? I wondered about buying a roll of turf so that we could cut a section to fit...
We have three seven week old chicks at the moment. We think two are pullets and one is a rooster. The one we think is a rooster seems to have had some trouble walking over the last week or two - almost as if it's too heavy for its legs. This morning my son said he thought it had an impacted...
Hi, our first brood of chicks are three weeks old today. There are four of them and we incubated the eggs, so there's no mother hen. One of them has got some bleeding this morning, just about its foot - not too much, but we think it's probably been scratched by one of the others. For now...
I got some eggs, via my cousin, there were a mix of colours, but the ones that hatched all came out of white eggs. My cousin had mentioned that his friend keeps white star, buff (but I don't know what kind of buff) and also marans. I've googled pictures of striped chicks, and come across french...
I have a book about incubation by Katie Thear, I don't know if it's well known, I found it online and it had good reviews. There is a formula in the book for checking the air sac development by weighing the eggs before incubation and at later times, to check that the percentage weight loss is...
I tried candling at the end of day 7, it wasn't really dark enough when I did it and I was only using a flash light. I couldn't see anything in my brown eggs, but in the white eggs I could see a dark, flat-looking area at one side of each egg, which stayed in the same position as I turned the...
We are hand rearing a 6 day old chick, who needs help eating and drinking. Now some of our family are sick (stomach upset). Could it be to do with the chick? Or could we make her poorly?
We have one little chick who needs special care, which is hard because she's our first chick ever! I'm worried she may not be eating enough - she pecks bits of chick crumb off my finger, but it seems such a tiny amount. Is there anything else I can give her? I've heard about supplements but...
Our chick was born with one leg splayed out. Thanks to lots of help from people on this website, I've now bandaged the legs together, and the chick is working really hard at standing, which is great! But its curling the toes of one foot in order to balance... I've just looked back at posts...
We've just used an incubator (hatching hens eggs) for the first time. We're on day 23 and only one egg has hatched. We (including our children) were delighted with our one precious little chick, but have realised its legs aren't quite right - one seems a little longer and is dragging, so that...