We just got home and one of our chicks was collapsed in the pen, absolutely no signs of something wrong, last saw them about 5 hours ago and all appeared fine. He's warm, not stiff, but we can't really tell about breathing (too shallow???) we seem to feel a slight pulse. They had knocked over...
So...should we separate the broodies and give them chicks? Right now they are sharing a nestbox and have been for 2-3 weeks, and when one gets up the other covers her eggs until she gets back. I think they've bonded a lot, but I'm nervous about leaving them together. They are both in a coop...
Yesterday, I was checking on our chickens and noticed that our Barred Rock, Sweets, has an injury to her beak. I'm not sure what could have caused it. A fox came in our yard this morning and scared them, so maybe she jammed her head against the wall of the coop? It's walls are part wood, part...
We're going to be chicken great grandparents! One of our first chickens, aptly named Mama, went broody 1.5 years ago, and hatched a few chicks, one of which we kept and named Baby. Mama's sibling, Brownie, recently decided to go broody, and a couple of days later Baby joined her in the nest...
One of our birds didn't report to the coop last night, and we couldn't find her anywhere. They free range on our property and the nearby woods (we're on 3 woods enclosed acres). We've seen an occasional fox but never had them attack. Yet. But this morning we were looking over the other...
We've got a chicken that has had various amounts of blue comb for the last week+. I put them on antibiotics (oxytetracycline) for a week, thinking that it might be like the blue comb in turkeys. There was one day I thought a couple of other chickens had slight blue tips to their combs, but...
Oh, I'm so worried about our girls!
Early last week, I noticed our Ideal production white had blue tips to her comb. We researched what we could, and it said contaminated water was part of the problem, or not enough water, so we scrubbed their water bucket and checked her the next day and it...
I hatched four welsummer chicks and they are now about 7 weeks old. They are being raised by a friend, and we're trying to figure out their genders. As far as chick color, one was noticably lighter colored. Then that one developed its feathers much more slowly. Now, I went to see them after...
It's still moving! We can tell there's a chicken doing okay in there, and because we accidently killed one yesterday (feel horrible about it) we're especially glad to have a chance to save one.
I put it in my bra (fairly well endowed with a nice big pocket there). Should we set up a brooder...
Our very sweetest chicken is the lowest in the pecking order, and it shows. The other chickens don't let her sleep near them, and during the day she is often by herself as well. Our chickens came in three batches: 3 sexlinks (now two), 2 leghorns (joined us as laying hens), and then 5 mixed...
I swear when I was researching chicken laws at some point in the last year, I saw a place that allowed up to 2 chickens per resident. But now I can't find it. I thought for some reason it was either Miami or Chicago, but now that I look back, it isn't. Has anyone seen anything like that...
Our sweet Rascal, one of our first three chickens, a red sexlink, died today after being hit by a car. It was all so sudden and we're still sort of accepting it, my kids especially. And I'm full of a lot of mixed emotions as well... It's a strange day filled with death and life, as we also...
She's a good girl, very determined, and I think she'll follow through. But we've been wondering about her sitting on both serama eggs and full-size chicken eggs, about the different incubation periods, about whether she'll be gentle enough, etc. Any thoughts/suggestions/words of wisdom?
Yay! I'm so excited, I've got a broody!
It's Mama, appropriately enough, our alpha-chicken and the first to ever lay an egg. She's a little over a year old. She's a red sex link, and often pretty bossy. Very determined, though. So far, we were out of town a couple of days and came back to...
I just put together my BYC page, and wanted to share, especially as our coops have been relatively easy and very cheap to put together. Here's the page, let me know what you think! We hope to have the coop done tomorrow and then are using some more 2x3s and more of the free 1x12s to make a...
After our citation, and our (successful!) plea to city council, a local news channel did a story on our chickens:
http://www.baynews9.com/VideoPlayer/?Gulfport_Chickens_716
Enjoy a chicken victory!
We got a citation yesterday for our chickens :irked:
The local ordinance says that poultry, as defined by the Florida statutes, are not allowed. And the Florida statutes defines poultry as domesticated food birds. Elsewhere, it distinguishes "live poultry" as birds prepared for slaughter...