It's well into fall here in Maine and a walk across the lawn means walking through a LOT of downed leaves, inspiring my question: could leaves be used in place of shavings in the coop?
I bought 12 chicks the first of May. They are several differing breeds (Leghorn, Brahma, Buff Orpington, Silver-Laced Wyandotte, Welsummer) with two of each breed, except for the Welsummers, I bought four of them. Last week my wife found a very small white egg in the coop where the older birds...
Early this morning I check on my new babies and noticed a lot of shavings in their water so I decided I should change it (I usually do that when I get home from work). The waterer is one of those plastic domes that hold a gallon or a gallon and a half and has the red bottom where the chicks...
Lately we have been letting the girls out for a few hours i evening while we are home and working outside. Today, however, I let them out when we got home about 4 pm. Then we went to the store and to deliver some eggs and were gone 60-90 minutes. When we got home again we saw none of the girls...
Went to TSC today to look for something and discovered 2-week old bantam chicks for 50 cents. Showed my wife a couple of the cuter ones...and four of them came home with us. We picked them based on how cute they were, but now I'm curios if anybody has any idea what breed they might actually...
Last Thursday I went to TSC to get some food for my now year-old girls and my wife went with me. She likes to look at all the decorative stuff for the garden there. Anyway, we went to look at the chicks and they had Amerucanas. I told my wife they lay blue eggs...next thing I know, we're going...
My grandson got some babies at TSC yesterday and most look like Silkies with their black skin and extra toe, but two of them don't have the 5th toe, though they do apparently have black skin. These are the only two black ones they got. Do any of you know what they might actually be? They are...
We were looking at the girls tonight and my wife noticed that one had an injury. I picked her up and looked and it is kind of gross. We rinsed it with peroxide and put some antibiotic cream on it. Then I built her an isolation cage to get her away from the others. I don't know what else to do.
My flock consists of 11 birds that I got this past March, we're getting a half-dozen eggs per day on average now. The breeds are Golden Comets (4), White Leghorns (2), White Plymouth Rocks (2), RIR (2), and Silver-Laced Wyandotte (1). I'm thinking I should add another six chicks in the spring...
I didn't get many eggs yesterday and didn't find any broken shells, but I did notice that one of my white Rocks had a very dirty breast, and one nest box had a wet floor. I blocked that box off to keep them out of it until it's dry. Today I did find a broken egg, and three birds VERY interested...
We had our first "visitor" today. From my wife's description, I thought it was a fox or a coyote so I showed her some pictures of both and she says it looks like the coyote pictures. My girls were all in the run, piled up in one corner and screaming so loudly that my wife heard them and looked...
At first I thought this spot was on one side of my chick;s head and was a flake of a shaving,so I looked closer. It's on both sides, and is in her feathers. Looks like an "ear" spot. Is this a normal feature of what' supposed to be a silver-laced wyandotte? She's about 6 weeks old.
I'm curious if anyone has had two coops using one run. I'm wondering if the girls would pick one or the other to stay in, and if it would end up being a bunch of hens that didn't get along well.
It got to the point that 2 minutes after I changed the girl's water one of them would poop in it, and that got tiring! So, this evening I went out to my shop and made a poop-proof waterer. I had bought the nipples from TSC before I even had chicks, so I thought it was time to put them to use...
This little Leghorn has the biggest comb by far of any of my chicks, including 2 other Leghorns. So, naturally, I'm wondering if my "Leggy" is actually a roo. I've had her 3 weeks today, so she's maybe 3.5 weeks old I guess.
This is Cutie and she's the first chick to actually figure a way out of the brooder. I'll admit, she did have an accomplice...she was on top of the tallest waterer and I was petting her while she looked around. She was so calm I decided to see if she'd get into my hand so I put my open hand down...
My chicks are between 2.5- 3 weeks old, but two seem to be much younger. We bought two groups of six a week apart, and two of them look as old as the original six, two are almost as feathered and two only have feathers on the outer half of their wings. They are currently in a metal stock tank...
My chicks are about 2.5 weeks old and have a lot of feathers. They look scruffy, like their feathers haven't learned their place yet. They're also doing a lot of what looks like preening and some scratching. They are indoors in a metal stock tank with Koop Klean bedding. Is this scruffiness normal?
In the pictures of these babies, I don't see any with as few light-colored spots as mine. I only have the one and bought her from a reputable dealer. I tried for the last hour to find a photo editor for my phone that would allow me to just crop to the one bird, but I couldn't find one that...