After half a decade of chicken-keeping, I had never lost a chicken to night-time predation until now. I'd lost a few in the day while free-ranging (foxes, dogs, and hawks), but that's a risk I don't really take anymore unless I'm there 100% of the time to monitor them.
This time I stupidly...
I've integrated dozens of chickens in with my flocks over the years, but my experience with integrating turkeys is slim.
I currently have 2 turkeys - 1 white tom and 1 lavender hen, and want to add another 2 hens (a red and a bronze from seperate breeders). The 2 existing turkeys both around 3...
Does anyone know how much and how often Grey Goshawks eat? They'd be equivalent in size to the Coopers Hawk in the continental North Americas.
I just lost my great little rooster Robare to Goshawk this morning and am pretty PO'd. He'd been with us for a number of years after being dumped in...
I have a chick fresh out of the incubator with a broken toe.
It looks like it got caught in one of the small grates on the floor of the incubator. The blood stopped almost immediately, but evidently the toe is not straight.
It hatched 48 hours ago and is doing great otherwise, very mobile...
I have a young hen who is exhibiting some signs of sour crop, but need a second opinion. I can't get her to a vet until Friday at the earliest. Her comb is still nice and red and she's still flighty. She's not eating though.
I've been downward massaging her crop, as I understand inducing...
I'm reasonably new to Turkeys. I've had two turkey hens since October 2018 - Miss Jingle and Miss Kringle. They're penned with my chickens and get along very well with them. There have been no reports of blackhead in the area, so the risk of penning them together is fairly low.
Obviously, the...
I was just checking on the grow out pen before locking up for the night and noticed one of my Barnevelder pullets was standing in the corner with her eyes closed. On closer inspection, her eyes are quite foamy.
She's still feisty, standing, tail up, but doesn't seem to be able to see real well...
I had two hens go broody within about a week of each other. I normally just break their broodiness, but this time I set some fertile eggs underneath them.
The first hen to hatch chicks hatched 11 out of 14 eggs. It was a 7 day split between the first and last egg to hatch. Unfortunately one of...
I have 2 broody's on some 26 eggs in their own separate aviary, which apparently isn't quite as protected from the elements as the main open-air coop.
It has been raining pretty heavily here for the past week or so. The food I had out for the broody's got drenched, so I put it out of their...
It's spring down here in Australia and I seem to have a rotating roster of broody hens. While frustrating, I finally decided to take advantage and throw some fertile eggs under a couple of them.
My SLW is happily sitting on 12 eggs with plenty of coverage. She's on day 10 and is sitting strong...
I'm having some issues with one of my hens today. She's was in perfect health yesterday when I put her to bed, but seems way off today. She's still eating and drinking, but can't stand or walk. Her toes curl when she tries to walk and her tail and wings droop. She still has full colour in her...
I lost one of my favourites today. A splash Silkie X that I'd come to adore and enjoy. She reminded my wife and I of our rescue cat Cha Cha, so we named her Chicken Cha Cha. I'm not really looking for advice, I just wanted to get her story out. She's only one of two that I've lost to illness, so...
Just wondering how far chickens would normally roam?
I just had 4 chickens wander into my yard. I'm on 2 acres with no neighbours to the east or west. The neighbours to the south are surrounded by dense scrub and are fenced in, and the direct neighbours to the north are on about 20 acres and...
Free ranging our chickens has always been something we've done out of kindness for our fowl. Unfortunately we're going to have to be cruel to be kind for a while.
While I was out and about for the afternoon, 11 of my chickens were free ranging having a jolly old time; as they do! My wife...
My wife is a kindergarten teacher and her school participates in a school hatching program every year. The hatchery brings in eggs and picks up any unwanted birds at the end of the 4 week period. We ended up with 6 chicks, 3 Australorps and 3 ISA Browns. They're now 9 weeks old.
2 of the...
Hi guys,
We're new to chicken keeping and have 6 x 8 week old chicks. My wife is a kindergarten teacher and had 13 eggs brought in for the class, all of which hatched.
We ended up taking 6. 3 x Black Australorps, and 3 x ISA Browns; all at 3 weeks. Unfortunately, we didn't know that ISA's were...