One of our girls laid an egg yesterday that was covered in horizontal ridges, in sort of a swirl pattern up to the top of the egg. I've seen eggs with one or two ridges before, but not entirely covered like this one. I thought, well, that will be a good egg to feed to the dog...but when I...
A couple of weeks ago I posted about my 3-month-old chick, Peep, who was walking on his hocks. (I say "his," but not sure on gender yet). threehorses kindly helped me out with her vast knowledge, and we fixed Peep right up with Poly-Vi-Sol baby vitamins and B-complex. After about 10 days, he was...
It was really hard to get a picture of, but I have a chick (I call her Peep) who is doing some very distinct goose-stepping on tippytoe when she walks. Her walk is very wobbly and she falls down every few steps. When she stops and sits, she rests on one knee, but it seems to alternate (it's not...
I have an existing flock of 13 chickens; 10 hens and 3 roosters. 2 of the 13 are silkies - one hen and one roo - but the rest are standard size. They have a good-sized coop (12' x 12' x 9' high) and huge (70' x 130') outdoor fenced-in pen.
Recently I segregated the silkie hen because she was...
Our broody silkie, Mellow, has hatched 2 of the 3 eggs she's been sitting on, so we have homegrown chicks for the first time. Yay! Of course, I have a hundred newbie questions now.
We brought Mellow and her nest of eggs inside after about the first week of the broody cycle, because the other...
Our broody silkie, Mellow, has been sitting on eggs for a little over three weeks. Sometime last night, the first of the three eggs hatched. Here's our first homegrown chick ever! It looks like a lavender/grey silkie, just like its mama:
Mellow seems to want the chick under her, so I think...
Mellow, my Silkie, is on her second broody cycle (the first time she gave it up after about a week). She has one of her own eggs under her and two green EE eggs. She made her own nest in the coop and sat on it patiently, but after a couple of weeks I was concerned about the other chickens...
I have a broody silkie sitting on a nest of mixed eggs - a couple of her own, and a few green araucana eggs. This is our first time - Mellow was broody back in December, but gave it up after about a week. It's been almost two weeks this time, and I can't wait to see if we'll get some chicks...
I got a couple of little bantys from the feed store the other day, along with my regular-size chicks. They couldn't tell me what kinds they were since they had gotten an assortment. They are three days old today. Can you help?
Banty 1 is pale yellow and featherfooted. She has black feet and a...
I'll apologize up front, I'm fairly new to raising chickens, so I'm sorry if this is a noob question...
Mellow, my little 9-month-old silkie pullet, was laying adorable little eggs almost every day until last week. 4-5 days ago she stopped laying completely, and now she's spending almost all of...
I'm so pleased with our first 7-egg day, and you guys are the only people I can share this with who won't think I'm insane. Aren't they pretty?
I've got ten pullets plus a silkie who could be laying - 3 EEs, 2 BRs, 2 RIRs, 2 SLWs and a Cornish X. I have no idea who's laying what (well, the...
I'm in the process of creating a separate rooster pen. We have 6 roos to 11 hens, which is way too many. It creates constant drama (I'm bigger. No, I'm bigger!), plus several of them like to tag-team Lucille, my poor Cornish X, repeatedly. I'm too squeamish to cull them in the usual sense, and...
Dwight Schrute is one of our 23-week-old Buff Orp cockerels. He's been making trouble for the girls in the coop, so in the evening I've been scooping him up (along with a RIR roo) and putting him in our small isolation pen and coop. Normally I just pick him up, stick him under my arm, and walk...
I have three cockerels who need new homes, one Buff Orpington and two Rhode Island Reds. They are about 22 weeks old and they do crow occasionally, but not nearly as much as my BR roo. These boys are handsome fellows and have been raised around people so they aren't mean -- six roos are just too...
We had our first egg from one of our chicks today!
Lucille, our older cornish cross, has been laying pretty regularly since June. But this is the first egg we've had from one of the girls we've raised from 3-day-old chicks, who are now just under 21 weeks.
In the pic below, the two eggs on...
Leroy Brown is our Alpha male. He was the first to crow and the first to try to mount a hen, both at the ripe old age of nine weeks. We know he's a boy.
Our other buff orp, aka Leroy's Brother Or Sister, we're not so sure about. It looks a lot like Leroy, but is slightly smaller and has a...
Lucille, our cornish x, has been laying pretty regularly, every other day. When the weather got really hot here a couple of weeks ago she stopped laying, and it's been kind of off-and-on since then.
However, we've found a few slightly smaller eggs in the nest box over the past week, and at...
My chicks are about 4 months old and have been out in their coop for about two of those months. They go out to free-range (in a large fenced area) during the day and then go back into the coop at night all on their own. We go close the coop door when it gets dark, and open it back up and let...