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Sorry, typo.. it was 2013. We are serious chicken watchers and we can see them out out main picture windows of the house... no plucking. Take it to the bank! It's all six hens and they are our only ones. They are missing feathers randomly in all body locations. Really just looks like a molt...

In early 2014, we got six Golden Comets. As most of you know, they are hybrids bred for lots of egg production. They have turned out to be some of the best chickens we've ever had and not only from the egg production standpoint. They are good natured, with us and each other. We wondered about...

I want to correct myself above. My wife reminded me that when Bea went broody, Max chased here around a bit... apparently trying to drive her onto the nest. Ebony isn't really going classically broody, or fully broody shall we say, but perhaps she's given Max enough signals that he's now rather...

Yep, absolutely positive she is still laying daily. She and her sis are always on the nest first thing and we often get to watch them go in and come out, as well as collecting their still-warm eggs. Plus, I have learned to recognize each hen's egg by size, color and shape. The broody thing...

Some odd stuff going on here. Max, our Black Australorpe rooster, has suddenly started being aggressive with one of our youngest hens, Ebony. In fact, this BSL hen was the product of Max and our Buff Orp, Bea, and is barely a year old. Both Ebony and her sister Lacey have been some of Max's...

Don't know enough to challenge or confirm your ideas on sex but it's sure great to see the birds. We have two BSLs that are scratching at 9-weeks.

This is all very interesting to me. Ours are going on 9 weeks now and while Momma doesn't dote on them any longer, the chicks will still run to her when scared and they all seem to enjoy "hanging." They still perch by her at night... so far every night that I've checked. She makes room for them...

Our broody-raised started eating veggies as soon as Momma brought them out of the nest. These are our first broodies but I second what donrae said that Mom will teach the chicks what to eat. I've even seen Momma Bea break up big chunks and beak-feeding the chicks. Momma knows best most often.

It's not insulting to shoot a rampaging dog. I live in farm country and it's legal if they are molesting livestock. We recently had a whole series of incidents with dogs from a particular owner. Among other things they did, they killed one of my cats. I saw it. They finally got shot a day or so...

Lovely birds. And so much fun at that age. We have two 8-weekers right now as well. It's a fun time.Enjoy them.

Here are our two Broody-Raised Sex Links at 8 weeks. The nearer is Lacey, for her breast coloring, and the other is Two (no official name yet but we called her Chick 2 for a while). Some of the lastest developments are that they are roosting with the flock now. For a long time, Momma Bea nested...

I've seen chickens get mice a few times with our two flocks but was never able to see it happen and have my camera close when it did. This is Big Rock (aka Crooked-Comb when she is being obnoxious), moments after catching a rodent. It was still marginally alive at this point but Big Rock was...

I'm no expert but ours love crickets. It's good training and exercise anyway. We have a gob-o-grasshoppers around right now and the chickens are lovin' it... our two 2-month old chicks especially.They relentless little big-hunters They can squeeze thru the chicken fence now (they don't go far...

Nube question. At what point do you stop calling them "chicks" and start calling them "cockerel" or "pullet?" At the point where you can sex them?Or is there an inbetween word?

Well, I have to agree there has been a lot less angst letting Bea do the life training than when we agonized over the chicks. The pecking or certainly gets settled quickly. Side note: Bea has resumed sleeping with the kids in a nest box. We've had cool nights and that could explain it, but...

Rachel: I understand about not wanting to make pets of them. So much harder to cull when you have to. That is precisely why we didn't make pets of this flock as we did the last... as illustrated in my Avatar by Peaches and Phoebe, out two lap chickens of years past. You could say we had to learn...

Thanks. Great commentary. Our two broody-raised came from mature hens but Bea, the broody Buff Orp that hatched them, generally produces smaller eggs than the others (all heavy breeds, Rocks, Reds). She is a smallish Buff herself (very large with attitude, which accounts for her status as lead...

Ridgerunner gave you perfect advice above. We just went thru the same thing 7 weeks ago and had the same nubie fears. Turns out our hen Bea is a good Momma and has been taking good care of her brood of two. We assumed there was a chance Bea might be a bad Momma (it happens) and we prepared to...

The bigger of our two pullets stay consistently bigger than her sis and came from a much larger egg. Is this a correlated fact in the chicken world? I guess a bigger egg can hold a bigger chick but does the bigger chick stay bigger?