I do not know how we ended up with a flock that hates each other. I didn't even know that was possible. It's awful. I'm about done.
We have built a larger, relocated run. It is brand new/neutral ground/toys/clutter for all of them. This is the 4th run we have built for them in 13 months.
There...
I'm guessing no but has anyone tried it?
Some of the material about using pinless peepers say you need to have open pans of feed and water and we can't do that here because of squirrels.
I have all but given up on trying to get our flock to get along. Mixed flock of twelve, one year old, all grew up together. They are bullying, egg eating, and feather pulling. They're currently split into three groups: eight, three, and one.
We just completed a new run in a different part of...
One year old Bielefelder, sitting in next box all day and night, blorped out (pancaked), ticking-clucking, for three days now. She is not aggressive and will allow me to move her and remove eggs. I removed all the artificial eggs.
She will leave the nest box to get treats and I have seen her...
I wish I'd known to put a sheltered table/workspace near the coop and run. I have one now. It's so handy for preparing food/treats, treating ill or injured hens, doing small repairs and cleaning and other projects. It's under a tarp so it's protected from sun and rain.
I also wish I'd built...
Some butts are poopier than others, I know. Usually they come and go as the hens clean themselves but one has had a poopy butt for six days which is unusual. The poop doesn't smell unusually bad, it's just poop. No changes in feed. She is moving, eating, drinking, behaving normally. She allows...
I can't remember where I found this, I think it was in an Amazon product review. The purchaser used conduit pipes to reinforce the frame of the run, which I think is a great idea and I'd like to do it, but I have no idea where to get those black connectors.
I'm setting up a water system similar to this:
but I can't find any tee-connectors that are BPA free.
Anyone have any ideas on where I can buy that type of tee-connector that is BPA-free? It can't be a regular PVC tee-connector because it has to have the threaded outlet for cups:
I had an older tarp over part of their pen. It started to fray and the chickens began shredding it into strings. They have plenty of room and stuff to do, I think they just did that because it was fun (?). I replaced the tarp with a new one because I was concerned they might ingest some of the...
We don't have a rooster. A 7mo white leghorn named Snow is our flock's alpha. She was sweet and timid but friendly as a chick, then adolescence hit and she turned into Sneaux: the Mean Girl.
She doesn't just peck. She jumps on top of a hen and holds her down and rips out her head and neck...
We have 13 hens, no rooster. Four Bielefelders, 3 Easter eggers, 2 RIRs, 2 black Austrolorps, 2 white leghorns. They are all 6-6.5 months old. They grew up together. They got along perfectly until adolescence.
The two white leghorns are the most aggressive, followed by two of the eggers, RIRs...
We found a 6.5 month old Bielefelder hen dead this afternoon. She was fine this morning, running around, eating and drinking and behaving totally normally. There was nothing unusual about her in the past few days or weeks. I saw her in the coop when I did coop chores this morning and also...
Started this morning, she makes a sound like a really loud sneeze, it sounds like the word "babble:" "BA-bul" (would be funny if I weren't concerned). She also makes a very quiet intermittent moan or growl sound. I haven't seen her eat or drink anything (she may have when I wasn't watching) and...
We've been getting one brown egg with blood on it for the past three days. We have 14 hens, 23-26 weeks old, they started laying on July 29th. The highest number of eggs we've collected in one day is 11. It's possible some hens aren't laying yet.
I checked everyone's vents and didn't find any...
Found this egg at about 11PM tonight when I went out to check on the flock during an incoming storm. The egg was not in a nest box.
The shell is softer than a regular egg but it was still shell-like, not squishy. Inside was just egg white. I didn't see a yolk but there were lot of pine...
I have some extra bags of sorghum sudan grass pasture seed from Texas (brand: Nature's Seed). I'm considering giving it to the chickens, as is or sprouted.
I know there are some issues with sorghum but they seem to be tied to sorghum from overseas. Since this is from the U.S. I'm hoping it's...
We bought two golden EEs together when they were one day old. They are 11 weeks now and both are supposed to be females but they look very different.
Sorry about the photo quality. My roommate's out of town and I didn't have anyone to hold her/him for me so I did the best I could from outside...
Our chickens are 11-14 weeks. We're thinking of leg bands to be able to tell same-breed chickens apart and for identification purposes in case one somehow gets out out of the coop and yard (we don't free range, there are a lot of predators around here and we're extremely careful, so it's...
Twice I've seen her open her beak and just drop out what looked like water, it's difficult to tell exactly because I saw it happen over the coop camera. I haven't seen any of the other chickens do that. She acts totally normal before and after and doesn't seem uncomfortable or distressed. Both...