Okay- I just tried to proofread this and realized I'm writing a book. I hope I'm not rambling.
I have made some horrible mistakes with the chicks I got in February. I've lost a good chunk of my chicks. They are all Rhode Island Reds and will be 10 weeks old Wednesday. I'm mad about losing...
My Rhode Island Red chicks are 8 1/2 weeks old. They are out of the brooder, no heat lamps, hanging out with my hens. Last week I lost 5 chicks in one night. It looked like the chicks huddled up with the hens, sleeping on the floor of the coop, and some of them got trampled. Today I went out...
The rest of the family went on vacation yesterday. After the circus of getting them out the door, and to the airport, I came back and did my morning chores. I grabbed the eggs in the afternoon and then made supper. Then I enjoyed a (very rare) quiet evening- and forgot to go back outside and...
I got 50 Rhode Island Red chicks to expand my flock. I haven't lost any in 8 weeks. I merged the flock, everybody is getting along. Everybody has food and water. The chicks have been keeping to themselves a lot. At night they have their own little corner in the coop. They still like to...
I now have a multi-generation flock. 9 month old Rhode Island Red Hens and 8 week old chicks. I bought two boxes of 16mm plastic leg bands- blue and yellow. They fit perfectly on the 9 month old hens. But, since I'm chasing around all my hens, to get the leg bands on, I'm wondering if I...
My chicks will be 7 weeks old Wednesday. I've had them in a brooder, in the coop. When they were 4 weeks old I shut off the heat lamp and opened up the brooder. They've been separated from the hens with chicken wire. Last Friday I took down the chicken wire and they started mingling. The...
I've got a flock of Rhode Island Reds. Half of them are 8 months old. The other half are 5 weeks old. I want to get new feeders. The ones I'm looking at are 7.75 inches tall. The hens have met the chicks, but are separated by chicken wire. I was planning on integrating the flock at about 8...
My hens are 9 months old and consistently lay medium, large, and xtra large eggs. But, in the past week I've gotten a small egg and fairy egg. How does work? Could a hen stop laying and start over? Is it possible I have a hen that took 9 months to start laying?
My hens are 8 1/2 months old. About a quarter of my hens have a light spot like this on their sides, above the leg. A couple of hens looked like they were missing feathers on their backs when they were out in the rain. I didn't get a pic and I looked for them this morning, but I couldn't...
I've read a bunch of stuff here and other places on molting but I'm specifically wondering about Rhode Island Reds. This is the first year I've had chickens so I want to make sure I do it right and take good care of my little girls. Plus, we got them to lay eggs and I want to keep my egg...
I have 43 Rhode Island Red hens. They're 8 months old. I typically get between 38-40 eggs a day. But for the past 3 days I have gotten fewer and fewer eggs. Today I only got 25. I have a light- regular not heat lamp- that comes on in the morning so they get a total of 14 hours of light. I...
I'm in the pacific northwest and have a small flock of almost 50 hens. They're Road Island Reds and started laying about a month ago. I know it's getting colder and darker so I'm only averaging 18 eggs a day. I figure that will go up when we get to spring.
The thing that worries me is the...