Search results for query: *

I keep my rooster indoors at night in a store room so his crowing doesn't disturb the neighbours. Today I discovered a sizeable infestation of mites in the room including in the cupboard there where I store the chicken feed. Since the mites were all over the feed tubs and everything I left them...

This is more of a rant than a question. I'm 5 days into incubating a dozen Chinese painted/button quail eggs, which I candled yesterday and all of them have embryos inside - and my incubator just blew up.:barnie By blew up I mean it made a little popping sound, powered off and started emitting...

A few weeks ago I found a couple of tiny crawling bugs on eggs that a hen was sitting on. This is the first time in four years of keeping chickens that I have encountered what I suspect to be either red mite or Northern fowl mite (in the past I've had small problems with scaly leg mite and...

I have this one chick who will be 8 weeks old this weekend and I am really tearing my hair out trying to decide if its a girl or a boy. It is a bantam, half sebright and half Pekin Bantam. Its comb started pinking up around 4-5 weeks and wattle lines appeared so I really started thinking roo...

I've had a lot of bantam chicks over the years and have found that some of them can be sexed as early as a few days old, and the majority by four weeks. Then there are those tricky few that keep me guessing longer. I have two at the moment I'm unsure of. They are now 6 weeks and 4 days old...

I need advice on whether I should assist a chick to hatch. On day 18 I went to lockdown the eggs I have incubating, candled each one and was surprised to find one with the air cell drawn down and the beak visibly moving inside as if just about to internally pip. The others were not at this...

I have an 8 week old male coturnix quail who was hatched with some severe skeletal deformities and unfortunately his problems are getting worse. I had intended to keep him as long as he was able to get around to eat etc but I don't see much hope for him long term, although he is still active and...

I am new to quail and have 4 coturnix I hatched in December last year. Well I finally decided to move them outdoors to their enclosure which consists of a 6ft x 6ft run on grass with a 3ft x 3ft hutch on ground level attached at the back. The hutch is insulated wood and has a lockable door so is...

I have one Italian coturnix quail among a mix of colours I hatched from ebay eggs. He/she will be six weeks old tomorrow. Until today I thought it was a female for sure. The colouring/speckled chest was a definite sign according to everything I read, plus she was the largest of all her hatch...

Can anyone tell me if these colours of coturnix quail can be sexed by feather patterns/colours? I know the brown colour in the top left of photos can be sexed and I believe it is a male based on the golden/reddish chest feathers coming in. But I'm not sur eof the others. There is an Italian...

I have a quail chick who hatched with a tiny bit of what looks like intestine sticking out of its belly. It does not appear to be yolk sac. I tried to push it back in but the belly seems to have closed around the top so it won't go back in. The chick seems otherwise healthy and active but the...

I have a quail chick who hatched with a tiny bit of what looks like intestine sticking out of its belly. It does not appear to be yolk sac. I tried to push it back in but the belly seems to have closed around the top so it won't go back in. The chick seems otherwise healthy and active but the...

I just thought I would share some interesting behaviour of my 6 month old gold sebright pullet, Pumpkin. She was raised in the house in a brooder with a few other chicks but we rehomed all but her and her sister by the time they were ready to move outdoors. Since then the two of them have been...

I have a two week old Dutch bantam chick who is constantly scratching at his head or ears area. It is literally every few seconds and both sides of his head. I have attempted to check inside his ears but they are so tiny I can't see much. The other chicks in the brooder with him are not...

I recently got some day old chicks and I noticed one of the silkies has a beak with the top part noticeably longer than the bottom. She is five days old and appears to have hatched this way. Is this normal and will it grow to be more even?

There was an accident involving part of my chicken run and long story short, one of my 3 month old pullets has a broken leg. :hit It is the bone below the knee, halfway down. There was a little blood and wound at the site of the break but the bone is not protruding through the skin. I have...

One of my hens is broody so I gave her some eggs. Only one turned out to develop to full term. I noticed a lot of the time when she would get off the nest each day for her break, she would return to the wrong nest. I have four nest boxes and have never had a problem with broodies not going...

I've noticed that my lavender Barbu d'Anvers hen, who is almost two years old, has frayed and ragged looking feathers all around her torso. Her head and tail are less affected. The individual feathers are frayed and somewhat dirty looking but she is not missing feathers. She had quite a hard...

I recently hatched out 4 Black francolins chicks (now 3 weeks old) which are a bird I have no previous experience with. I know that as adults the males have very different feathering to the females and was wondering when it is possible to sex them. Since they were born, they have all had very...

One of my hens hatched a couple of frizzled silkie x Pekin Bantam chicks who are now 7 weeks old. The biggest and slightly braver of the two always seemed like a cockerel to me, but it's comb hasn't really grown in the last few weeks, so I'm now stumped about whether it really is a boy or not...