I noticed a day or so ago that one of my Speckled Sussex pullets was keeping her eyes halfway closed. She seemed to get around fine, eating and drinking with the other 7 in her flock, but today she wasn't doing as well. Still eating and drinking, but moving very slow and not flinching at all...
Got my first egg, was not expecting it!
So my oldest pullets are 19 weeks, 1 day (Speckled Sussex) and just shy of 19 weeks (3 CCLs).
I think this one is easy, but I did not expect it!
Small egg, light brown (not a hint of blue).
SSes start laying at 16-20 weeks, and CCls are 5-6 months...
So I hatched some supposed BCM eggs earlier this year. Only 2/12 hatched, and I got male and one female. The female is some type of egger because while she has some BCM markings, as well as lightly feather covered legs, she also has a crest.
All of the eggs were very dark brown.
Now here is...
I have one Speckled Sussex only with some type of spots on her head. They are not in her mouth or on unfeathered parts of her body, but under her feathers on her head only. I thought they might be some type of scabs but the growth appears to be white with no signs of irritation or redness...
I'm new to chicken keeping. All of my chickens (too many to count now, I lost my mind) with the exception of 3 are hatched from Ebay sellers and my first chick was hatched on March 12th 2025.
I have 4 main flocks (by oldest to youngest):
9 - 2 JGs (M), 1 Bielefelder (M), 5 CCLs (3F, 2M), and 1...
Granted, they are my youngest flock @ 10.5 weeks, but they don't move around much when I let them have free range time. Usually I will find them all bunched up, hiding behind something. The last two times I found them all hanging out under the coop which is only about 12" above the ground. Now...
Ugh. So I thought I had 5 pullets and 1 cockerel in one of my 15+ week old flocks: 2 Welsummers (F), 2 Barnevelders (F), 2 BCMs (M&F).
Now I think I have a late maturing cockerel. I say that because for most of its life, its comb and wattles were not very large and lighter colored. Now, over...
There's a saying around my parts: "She never met a stranger". What that means, basically, is that person can be relatively open and friendly in the company of people they've never met or are rarely around.
But I've found that none of my chickens are like that. When my daughter and granddaughter...
Assuming it is not a result of genetics, in your experience what causes crooked toes in chickens?
I have a few birds with crooked toes. All of my chickens were raised from hatched eggs, and I typically keep them on pet pads and paper towels for their first week. I had not seen crooked toes on...
My son's fiance's grandfather passed away and he was a big time prepper. Had hundreds of bags of dried beans stowed away. I took several bags of navy and great northern beans, and black-eyed peas. I like the latter so I'm going to eat them, but not really a fan of navy and great northern.
That...
So I have a 9 y.o. mini schnauzer. He's been crazy trying to go after my chickens since the day they were hatched. Always in the past he would lunge at them in their runs, with fence separating them. He goes all shaky when he sees the smaller ones, and sometimes lunges at their brooder as well...
I'm new to chickens, just started in February (technically).
Most of my chickens have simple chicken behavior (imo as a newb) but I have one pullet that is much different.
She was my first hatch, and she was alone for several days until her current flock mates joined her. They are a mixed...
So question: what happens if they see hens but can't get to them? Will this just make their hormones rage and want to fight each other just because they are sexually frustrated?
My one "problem" subflock (Black Australorps) of 7 cockerels and 2 hens got a bit of division last night. I allowed...
Would love to rehome seven Black Australorp cockerels. All are human friendly and get handled personally several times a week. No signs of aggression. Fed mostly non-GMO starter feed since hatch, with some free ranging and occasional scratch feed for the last month or so.
Located in Central...
So I tried to get rid of my way too many roosters on Facebook and Craigslist. Not a single inquiry.
At one time, I had considered a bachelor flock, but with time, I realize I don't really care that much about the birds as I thought I would (I am a big softy when it comes to all life. I even...
So in two different threads I mention that I got two mystery chicks hatched from a batch of what was supposed to be Bielefelders. The eggs were all roughly the same size, so my assumption is that the hen is a Bielefelder (barring gene) and somehow a Silkie or d'Uccle rooster (the only other...
Bought 14 Bielefelder hatching eggs from an Ebay seller. 9 hatched, but only 7 are Bielefelders. The other two are certainly not. So I reached out to the seller, who told me they have Bielefelders, Silkies, and Mille Fleur d'Uccle. Would you say these two chicks are Mille Fleur d'Uccle or a mutt...
So in order to get my Bielefelder flock up (lol, only have 1 rooster!), I wanted to add chicks. I had picked up 4 chicks from a local breeder, but two died, so against my better judgement, I went the Ebay hatching eggs route again.
I put 14 eggs in on 6/10. I actually had 3 power outages (we've...
So my last subflock of 8 Speckled Sussex chicks (7 weeks) are 1 week longer in the inside brooder than I planned, but I was not able to get their space finished until last night with plans to move them out to the coop today. When I went to feed them this morning before the potential move, one...
To me most of this chick screams cockerel to me with one exception: it has the band, albeit not dark, around and behind the eye. But it is lighter than the 3 others I just got, it really does not have the tell-tale chipmunk pattern, and finally it has a small white (yellow?) dot on it's head.