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The first eggs my flock laid were pretty small, yeah. Now they're big enough that sometimes they don't quite fit in commercial cartons! Give it time. They'll get bigger. :)

I've got four. During summer, we definitely had lots of 3-4 egg days. Once the days started getting shorter, though, that started dropping to 2-3 egg days when the EE decided to go on hiatus. I'm told this isn't unusual. The other three -- a Buff Orp, a 'Lorp, and a Barred Rock -- have...

Today's treat was a cup of BOSS scattered in the run at breakfast. I'll probably have some greens for them this weekend, or maybe some squash guts. Mmm, squash guts.

One of my chickens laid this oddly textured egg today. The shell doesn't seem brittle, and the little bumps are like tiny craft beads glued to the surface. The color is consistent on the whole shell. I've had one or two rough eggs from my flock, but nothing that looked like this. They're...

I've got a small flock -- four with an ultimate cap of about six -- and I currently use a smallish plastic one gallon waterer outside of the coop. As we're getting closer to winter, though, I'm looking at ways to make sure that my flock has fresh liquid water instead of a block of ice. My...

I found our first tonight when I tucked the girls in. Guess it's time to install that nest box a couple of weeks earlier than I'd planned!

A variation on the ice-in-the-drinker theme: At night I've been making sure to put a half-full gallon drinker reservoir in our big freezer. The result in the morning is that the top of the drinker reservoir is one big cube of ice. I fill it up the rest of the way with water, screw on the...

This makes sense! I'm not sure why she went back into the coop, but she was in there alone, and -- I feel terrible saying this -- maybe got confused about why she was suddenly by herself? She'd quieted back down by the time I came back to find her with the rest of the flock. So.

Hey all! My flock of four turned fourteen weeks old on Monday. That's a little young for laying -- the rule of thumb I've heard is around 20 weeks -- though I'm guessing it's not entirely out of the question. They've all got their grown-up voices, and generally cluck quietly to each other...

A little, though my run has a solar gray SunTuf roof, ventilation is good, they can get into a shady spot under the coop, and I'm making sure to ensure they have access to cool water all day. They were panting a little when I came in tonight, but anything with a pulse will be panting most of...

Water freezes at 32*F, ice water is warmer. The thermometer that reads 32*F reads four degrees low. You should add 4*F to the one that reads 32*F. You might check at some other temperatures as well to see if the difference is consistent. I suspect it will be, but it couldn't hurt to confirm...

How much light, if any, would this require? We've got a similar rack in the basement, and I'm sure I could find some trays. Plus, with a flock of four, I'm guessing I wouldn't need to have a whole lot going all at once.

My chicks (who are now out of the brooder and in the back yard coop/run, hooray!) were quick on the uptake with mealworms, but not so much with bugs initially. About a week or two before we moved them out, I happened to spot a big, round brown beetle, which I caught and put in a shallow bowl...

When I bought the lumber for my coop, I was careful not to choose treated wood for most of the build because I'm aware of toxicity issues with the sawdust, and wanted to minimize risk. I did a pretty good job at this overall, but a couple of things did sneak in, including some wood sheathing we...

New trick: spoons! They'll eat yogurt from spoons. Crazy, crazy chickens.

Oh, their tiny faces. N'aww.

I bought a bag of "Chick Grit" at Orscheln, and it's apparently a reasonably common product. I've also heard of folks using construction sand -- at least one person in that thread made it sound like play sand is too fine? -- and that it pulls double-duty in the dust box, but I've never tried it.

My EE makes little trilling noises! I don't hear the others doing it often, and had been putting it down to her odd genetics, but it's cool to know that others have chicks that do this.

Treats definitely helped in my case, too, though I also take time to handle all four of my chicks daily. Only one of them is still really resistant to being picked up or touched; the other three let me reach in, scritch their chests, then carefully scoop them up. Overall, I'm really careful...

I hadn't thought of doing sneaky yogurt "drops" here and there -- I think I want to avoid the poop-and-shavings effect there -- but I am going to try a shallower dish, and possibly combining it with a sprinkling of other goodies, like maybe a mealworm or fruit "garnish" to get them hooked...