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Having had Rhode Island Reds for a few years now, we branched out and got 3 Plymouth Rocks, a Black Rock and a Delaware, to go with our 5 RIRs. After a bit of initial upset, most seem to be laying regularly, though we never get 10 eggs from our 10 hens in one day. I don't mind if they don't all...

Thanks john. They seemed to arrange themselves into a sleeping setup last night that everyone seemed to agree with. There was a bit more bullying today, but seems to be more about establishing dominance rather than cousin harm.

We have 2 RIRs that are a year old. Today we bought 2 more (around 3-4 months old). When we put the newbies in, the older ones went on the offensive. While I understand that some bullying is normal to establish a pecking order, but one of the older ones seems to have taken a serious dislike to...

I think I've come up with a solution. When I leave the chickens out in the morning, I give them a small pile of pellets, which they devour instantly (they seem to prefer picking them from the ground rather than from a plastic feeder). They then go off and forage for most of the day. Whenever I...

Thanks for the advice. In reply to Brandi, these rats are pretty big, and I doubt our chicks would be able to eat them! Will try moving the pellets. In reply to sumi, I don't think poison or traps are viable options. We are surrounded by fields and woods, and so I think more will come to replace...

We live in the countryside and so some natural pests such as mice and rats are to be expected. What I don't like is the fact that the rat (or rats) is stealing our chicken pellets. We let our chickens out in the morning to roam around as they please. We leave the door open so they can come back...

How do I stop our chickens eatin my wife's flowers?? We have 3 RIRs, and we are currently doing up our garden, so there is very little greenery around for the chickens to eat. My wife has flowers in pots ready to be replanted back into the garden once it's in decent order again, but the chicks...

Do chickens know they're not waterproof??? The weather's been pretty horrendous here in Ireland over the past couple of days.Our 3 RIRs have a coop and a run to move around in. I just checked them (9:30 at night), and a couple of them are out there in the run, scratching around in the driving...

Is this something that will resolve itself over time - will they all start laying every day? Or is it just that some lay every day and others don't??

Thanks for that - so could it be that I have one "everday layer", and 2 "every-other-day layers"?? i.e., chicken 1 lays every day, chicken 2 lays monday, wed, and fri, and chicken 3 lays tues, thurs and sat?? (I know it doesn't quite work like that, but as an example??), resulting in 2 eggs a day?

I have 3 RIRs, which I got about 5 weeks ago. The seller told me they were around 17 weeks old, and should start laying at 20 weeks. I started getting eggs 9 days ago, but the most I've gotten in any day is 2, and sometimes just 1. I think I know which 2 are laying - could the other one be a...

I have 3 chickens too, and am fairly new to the whole thing. From what I understand, chickens establish a pecking order (pun intended!), and so to my mind there are 2 possibilities: 1) the solitary chicken is the leader, and the others are giving her her due respect and space, or 2) she's at the...

We have 3 RIRs for the past week and a half, and all are around 18-19 weeks old now. They were pretty shy at first, but in the last couple of days, have gotten very brazen - 2 made a run for it when the door of the coop was ajar. We got them back in, but now whenever anyone goes near the door...

here's a pic of a similar coop:

Thanks Egghead. I can't lock off the upper section of the coop completely - the "upstairs" only has a dividing wall, on top of which the hens roost. I can close off the entrance to the upstairs part, but not the entire upper section. I'm probably not explaining it very well - if I can get...

Thanks for that Kelly. I should have mentioned that we have 3 RIRs, all around 18 weeks old. I am about to start putting together a run, to attach to the coop during the day, then remove at night so they are locked up in the coop.

We're new to chickens, and have a nice coop - a kind of upstairs-downstairs idea, with the nesting area up a ladder and the bottom area open, similar common triangular designs, but more of a cube than a pyramid. My wife thinks we need to put the whole coop into the garage at night to (a) keep...

We're new to chickens, and have a nice coop - a kind of upstairs-downstairs idea, with the nesting area up a ladder and the bottom area open, similar common triangular designs, but more of a cube than a pyramid. My wife thinks we need to put the whole coop into the garage at night to (a) keep...