I found Alice, a 4 year old Light Brahma, dead yesterday. There was a pile of feathers where she had been attacked and her body was about 6 feet away up next to the coop. She appeared to have a large wound in her side (the body was stiff and it was see. also super gross.) but the most prominent...
I found Daphne, a 3.5 year old Red Sex Link dead in the run today. No injuries. For about the last 7-10 days she has been coming and hanging out by the house, just lying next to the patio door. The birds are always around the house (the food comes from there!) so I didn't think much of it, but...
Original thread is here. It's been a week since Penny's right foot was found dangling off her leg and I amputated it. Her leg was healing rather nicely. Eating, drinking, pooping, being spoiled living inside and whatnot. I didn't pick her up at all yesterday.This morning I picked her up to check...
Penny is a six year old bantam Belgian D'Uccle who we inherited from another family. Before we got her, she had problems with her feet and some of her toes were crooked and she had lost all her nails and whatnot. She has never moved around very well, but has thrived nonetheless. Today we noticed...
I have long suspected I had an egg eater. I will frequently find eggs with dried yolk on them, but have never caught the culprit. Usually only one a day goes missing, so I wasn't too worried about it.
Last night I gave Carrot the Broody Brahma 9 fertile eggs to replace the infertile ones she's...
We've been finding our eggs covered in yolk when we went out at the end of the day to collect them, yet it didn't seem anyone was eating eggs. No shells or yolky beaks or anything. Today I went to dump poopboards and collect eggs (didn't get them yesterday) and found two very very soft shelled...
I'm getting six chicks today from a teacher at my kids' school after a class hatching project. They will be either BO or BO crossed with Dominique. I read in a different thread that the BO/Dom might be sex links? Anyone know if that is true? And if so, how do I tell?
Also, I know what the BO...
We added a light to our coop and put it on a timer. It comes on at 3am and goes off at dawn then comes back on at dusk and stays on til 10. We started this about a week ago. We are still getting only 1-2 eggs a day from our 12 girls. During spring-fall we get 8-12 eggs a day.
Nearly all of...
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/csw/zip/2533051754.html
It's a dog house, but it would be perfect for 3-4 chickens. Looks to be about 24 square feet. Look at all that ventilation! On wheels. FREE. I'm on the other side of the cities or it would be mine already.
These two are about 5 months old. They are skittish little things and it's hard to get pics. One has a slight bit of pink on his/her face, but I'm not seeing anything that screams roo. However, they are silkie mixes. Mom was a black silkie, dad was a light brahma. They have a sister who is a...
For quite some time now--maybe a couple of weeks--I've been finding yolk residue on the other eggs in the nestbox. It's happened every day during the last week. No sign of the shell, just dried yolk in the nest box and on the outside of the other eggs. I haven't seen any signs of egg eating on...
Our dog passed away last night. He was 12, but has been healthy. It was pretty sudden. Sad day around here.
How does this relate to chickens, you ask? We have quite a bit of soft dog food left and I'm wondering if I can feed it to the chickens. They love meat when I give it to them as a rare...
Sorry, I'm using you all for free therapy.
Our roo had become incredibly violent and was totally ruining our chicken experience. He was also rough with the hens. After hemming and hawing about what to do (I had a post on here about it) our neighbor, who is an excellent hunter, took him into...
A friend of mine and her next door neighbor lost 30 chickens in one night. I am not sure how secure their coops are, but I do know they have not had previous trouble with losses. Most of the chickens were chicks that I think were about 2 months old. The birds simply disappeared. There is no sign...
I've read a lot of posts about culling. Our 15 month old roo has turned really really nasty to both us and the hens. He has to go. We have tried to rehabilitate, but he is very violent. I don't think he's living a very happy life either. So, he's done.
I have never killed anything bigger than a...
We have two coops in the same very large run. The main coop houses the "big kids" and our smaller grow out coop has 2-month-old teenagers in it. Last night when my husband locked them up, one of the chicks must have been inside the big coop. We found her dead in the corner. No blood, but an eye...
Broody was sitting on 4. Kicked one out of the nest the other day. One seems like a dud, one is pipping as we speak. The weird thing is one of the eggs was crushed with a fully formed dead chick in it. Mom's beak has yolk on it.
Other chickens use the nest box and just climb in with the broody...
Total cost is about $7.
We got the playhouse for free from some friends. The wood base was built out of scrap from another friend's lumber pile. The hardware cloth was left over from the big coop. I only paid for screws and washers to attach the hardware cloth. I still need to put a lock on...
I have 3 Silkie pullets that I have because they were a rescue. They are the broodiest things in the world. Two are setting right now. While they are cute as can be, my coop is a bit crowded and the constant broodiness is making me nuts. Once the eggs they are sitting on hatch (I'm only letting...