Careful trying to morph your chickens into children. They are voracious omnivores and eat things much more disgusting than pork fat when you aren't looking. Your MIL is right. The pork fat is just fine for your chickens.
It amazes me that someone who free ranges their birds and knows they'll...
My Welsummer update.
I bought a dozen eggs from bwalden at the end of May. My Barred Rock that was broody did a mediocre job of sitting on them, and I probably didn't help matters either, leaving her in one of the two regular laying nests. In the end, only 2 hatched, but it appears I have one...
Certainly hope that fshinggrl is wrong!
And, I am pretty sure she is. Photos proved to be difficult, but there's no question that there are black feathers coming in on the chest of the one I thought was a cockerel and no black, all red coming in on the chest of the one I thought was a pullet...
Will do. When born the one I think is a roo had a nearly solid white chest, while the other was nearly solid brown. Does that help?
I'll get chest shots later this afternoon.
So, I put a dozen eggs under a broody hen 21 days ago, and now I can see one chick and hear some more under Momma. I would like to know how many have hatched and clean up the nest, but I am a little reluctant to mess with Momma, in case there are eggs in the middle of the process that need her...
I have my cart before the horse, and I am literally counting chickens that haven't hatched yet, but I am wondering if anyone has crossed Welsumers with Barred Rocks and what the resulting chickens looked like and acted like.
I have a couple of Barred Rock hens, one of which has gone broody. I...
They're not being stolen, of that I am reasonably sure. I can't imagine stress. They seem about as stress free as an animal could be. They have about the same stress level as our lazy cats.
We did lose a flock-mate to a predator recently, so the pecking order has been disrupted, but that...
I have some unexplained behavior in two of my four hens. The two younger ones, born around this time last year, as best I can figure, have stopped laying. At first, I thought they were laying somewhere other than the nest boxes, but I locked one of them up all day yesterday, and no egg. The...
Did one of my favorite winter chores today. I started 6 kinds of tomatoes, tomatillos and 12 different peppers. About 8 to 10 weeks from now, I'll be putting them in the ground. Love to watch the seeds sprout and turn into plants.
To keep this on topic, my chickens watched and -- I swear --...
I've thought about turkeys, but guess I won't have to get any, they're coming to us! We have a flock of 26 wild poults that have decided our yard is their favorite foraging site.
Justine, I'm so sorry to hear about your devastating loss. I can only imagine how I would feel in your...
I can tell we don't live close to each other. "Draw deer" is not something you would hear anyone around here want to do. There are plenty. My experience with deer and apple trees is that they ate them down to the ground. Odd, since they don't bother most things in my garden...even the things you...
Sally,
I've not done this myself, but if you're working alone and concerned about your swing on a hatchet or axe, I've read that you can use a good sharp pair of pruning shears. You might be able to finish the job a bit quicker and will less worry.