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I bought chicks in April and Frances was one of them. "She" has recently developed lots of pretty plumage and a wavering crow, which indicates that "she" is actually Frank the Rooster. I live in Seattle and City laws don't allow us to keep roosters. My husband and neighbors are not very big on...

I need some help ID-ing a predator. I've lost 4 chickens in the past 6 months. I have been assuming that it was a raccoon, but as I read more about predator MO's I'm wondering if it might have been something else. Here are the facts... In March, the coop and run were left open over night and...

Hello, chicken people! I am in a sad place. Thursday night a raccoon snatched two of my chickens sometime between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm. I now have one lonely chicken left, and both of us are pretty depressed. LuAnn is jumpy and nervous and droopy. She also seems very lonely - she's never been...

We thought that our new girls had stopped laying for the winter, but it turns out that they just decided to start laying in a secluded corner near the shed. My son found the cache on one of his rambles around the yard and we brought all the eggs (18!) inside and I rinsed the dirt off of them...

My hen Daisy is not looking well, and I'm concerned. It started with a limp, and I figured I'd give it a day or two to resolve before I started really worrying, but she's not looking very perky. It mostly seems like a mobility issue. The other odd thing (to me) is that she has always been my...

It must be spring, everyone is talking about building coops! I'm expanding my flock, and that's going to require expanding my coop. I have a great coop that someone built for me. It's 3'4" x 4'3" (about 14 square feet). I have four hens, which is technically too many for the space (going by the...

I live in Seattle and we are already down to about 10.5 hours of daylight a day, temperatures still mild. I have two hens laying and have seen a VERY slight decline -- 4-5 eggs a week isntead of 6-7 per hen. I'm wondering if there is any hope for the other two. My Ancona laid three eggs the...

My Ancona started laying about a week and a half ago. She laid on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. And she hasn't laid since! She's acting normally, so I don't think she is egg bound, but I don't know... She's about 26 weeks old. Any ideas? Do you think she's just getting her machinery on line, or...

My chickens do not seem to be able to get up onto their roost nor into their raised nesting box in the coop. I don't know if this is a physical issue or a mental one. The first one to start laying did so in the corner of the run, in a big pile of straw that my 4-year-old son constructed. She...

Daisy started laying about two weeks ago and after a short break of 3 days, she started laying on a daily basis. Saturday, Sunday, Monday... and today, Tuesday, I found TWO eggs. I checked the nest because I'd seen her sitting, and one of the eggs was warm. The other was cool, though. She'd laid...

I have four pullets. Once has been laying for a little over a week, and the other three are about to start, I think. The first to lay made a little nest in the corner of the run instead of using the nest box (which for whatever reason my chickens can't seem to figure out how to get into and out...

Daisy started laying! Whee! I have two questions... First, of course she is NOT using the nesting box. I've tried putting her in it so she knows it's there, but she can't seem to figure out how to get out of it (it's built into the coop). She has been laying all her eggs in a corner of the run...

Last night I noticed the chickens constructing a dust wallow in the back yard. One of the chickens, Daisy, spent a lot of time bathing and then just laid still. I started getting concerned, so I went out to see what she was up to. She was hunkered down in a little depression; every once in a...

I'm starting to think that the chickens are smarter than I give them credit for. The other night I was hanging out in the living room and it was creeping up on 9 PM, which is when the chickens generally put themselves in the coop and wait for me to come close the door. I was surprised to see...

Two of my chickens are right around 4 months old (a Black Star and an Ancona) and I am anxiously awaiting my first egg. I have tried showing them the nesting box in their coop, but they are not interested. They don't use their roosts, either. So I will be surprised if the eggs wind up in the...

Anyone know where I can find pictures of Australorp eggs versus Black Stars? I know they both lay brown eggs, but I'm wondering if I'll be able to tell the difference when they start laying.

My chickens spend a fair amount of time puttering around the backyard, sitting under shrubs, eating spilled bird seed, etc. But they spend quite a bit of time standing in a little mob on the back step, peering in through the screen door. I can't decide if they want me to come out and play, or if...

My chickens free-range whenever I am home, and I enjoy watching them putter around the backyard. But the poop, by gosh! In the grass, fine, no troubles, but there is a lot of poop that winds up on our back patio. I've been sweeping it off every night and then sluicing it with water, but there...

My chickies are not free-ranging yet (they've been out in their run for about a week and we need to repair a spot in the fence before they can run free without fear of them getting out into the neighborhood) so I've been trying to give them greens every day.... but I'm wondering what is meant by...

I finally moved my chickens into their coop and their completed run. They spent about 24 hours in the coop, and then I put them out at about 4 PM yesterday. I was impatient to have them admire our hard work on the run, so I picked them up one by one and put them down in the run. I tried to show...