Well, I got a surprise this afternoon! I apparently lost track of the date (stupid COVID) and wasn't expecting my chicks to start hatching until next week. When I looked at the date I had written, it was tomorrow! But the chicks apparently didn't read the calendar, so they started when they were...
I have a little Silkie hen who is not quite 6 months old. A couple of days ago we noticed that she wasn't moving around much, but didn't see anything wrong with her. Yesterday morning I brought her inside when she refused to go out into the yard with the others, preferring instead to huddle in a...
Delete if this is not the correct forum for this question. I am looking for a source for decent quality pulp (cardboard) egg cartons to use when selling my eggs. I don't want to pay $1 a carton, and I'm leery of ordering 250 to get cheap ones, not knowing if they are any good.
Hello. I went out to feed my flock this morning and found one of my hens dead on the floor inside the coop. She looks as though she just laid down and died. When I examined her body, I found to my horror that she was VERY thin. I was shocked by this because my hens get handled quite a lot, she...
I purchased 10 RIR hens that were hatched this January. They have been with me about a month and have settled in nicely, but have not yet started to lay eggs. Is this normal? When should I expect them to start?
I also have 2 Cinnamon Queens who are over a year old, who I rescued from a laying...
I spent about a week this month building this coop and run for the chicks I hatched and bought this spring. The run is built from two dog kennels and has been lined with wire to keep the chickens in and the predators OUT. The coop is built on a foundation of treated landscape timbers, fastened...
Hi all,
I have a rooster who injured his wing a few weeks back. Not broken, we think just bruised or sprained. It has improved but he still seems very tentative. He doesn't flap his wings or strut like he used to. He is only about 6 months old and not crowing yet. We got him a whole bunch of new...
Hey everyone,
I wanted to share some success stories from the past week in case what we've discovered is helpful to anyone else. WARNING: Graphic pictures.
We have been doing pitched battle with a family of raccoons for the past month. We have lost 8 hens altogether. One raccoon was trapped...
Chicks from my second batch of incubated eggs hatched yesterday - 8 lively babies and 1 who sadly didn't make it. I had set 18 eggs. This morning I checked two that had pipped yesterday and made no further progress. Both had died in their shells. This evening I found an egg that was leaking...
Hi everyone. I'm back in the hatching/raising chickens game for the first time in about 30 years. Right now I have 4 grown hens and one nearly-grown rooster, 15 heavy breed laying chicks that are five weeks old, a couple of guys I hatched in my new incubator who are 4 weeks old, 4 half-grown...