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Kimberly Avenue? It amazes me how stupid people can be, especially about getting close to cubs. Even if you don't see mama, you know she's close.

Both of our destruction bear attacks were during the day. Prior to that we had a yearling snag one of the girls off our deck when they were out free ranging. We're only 10 or so miles from you. Let that Plott hound (great breed!) tree the bear a few times. The bear will think twice before coming...

Google "guillotine chicken door". Ours is a variation made with 2x4's and 2x6's bolted onto the steel mesh of the run and the side of the coop. Our door is also thicker than most. There's nothing quite like losing your whole flock to a bear to make you adept at over engineering a chicken fortress.

Ex We've considered the bacon option. We haven't done that so far though it's a very common tactic with all the beekeepers and chicken owners in this area. Our bears come out mostly in the spring and through the summer. We have enough population density in both people and bears that the bears...

Thanks! Our youngest hen was about 4 or 5 years old before the bear. All of them had been rehomed from folks in the area who wanted to retire some older birds. Those girls were definitely pets! Now we've got a bunch of little girls with what we hope will be years of tasty eggs ... starting in a...

We've always had black bears. This year was the first time we had one do serious damage to our coop and run and kill all of our chickens. Yes, that's a heavy gauge aluminum roof that was bolted to the welded steel run. We now have a 5/8" plywood roof with 2"x4" ribs and supports covered with...

We just got several new 8 week old chicks. They're all pretty skittish right now. I've been going out and snging to them (no heavy metal :)) and talking soothingly. Little by little they're calming down when I come in. Before long they'll be quite accustomed to me and will let me handle them...

Our girls get a break in the winter. There just seems to be a natural rhythm to the egg bounty of late spring and summer followed by molting and the rest of winter. All of our hens are a bit older (like their owners ;) ).

When we take our two year old grandson out to collect eggs, we have him put the eggs straight into a carton.

How many hens do you have? Girls free ranging? Anybody molting? We have eight hens. Right now, four of them are molting. That means our maximum egg count per day would be four from the non-molters. When I factor in the age of our girls (all two years plus) and the shortening daylight, I'm happy...

I wouldn't eat an egg that was cracked before it was brought in. The whole shell is designed for keeping bacteria out from the incubating chick. Of course, it protects the non-fertilized egg as well. As for keeping the bedding in, have you tried fresh bedding? Is the "lip" on front of the...

This last go 'round with Myrtle we didn't get her in the box until nearly a couple of weeks in. We had tried a small tractor coop we held onto when we built our permanent coop and run. We didn't have any bedding in the tractor coop and couldn't really nest except on hard ground. That works with...

For ours, the issue seems to be not being able to nest. I think that's the main benefit of our broody buster "box" with the wire bottom. It sits inside our 8' x 16' run so whoever is in the box is safe from predators.

We have an Australorp who's a tough one to break when she gets broody. We put hardware cloth in the bottom of a small dog crate, put the crate up on some landscape blocks, put food and water in, and lock her in for a few days. That way her tummy gets cooled off, she's just enough uncomfortable...

The light brown eggs are fine from an EE. As for looks, EE's vary widely. Most of the ones I've seen have telltale "beards" that flair out to the sides of their faces. Perhaps you have one of the famous BarnYardMix hens?

No worries. Our Australorp routinely lays what we call torpedo eggs. They're longer and narrower than any of our other eggs. It's just her style.

You'll likely want to put a barrier of some sort on the front to help keep the nesting material in the bucket.

We are keep the bloom, store the eggs on the counter folks. We give our eggs a rinse before using them but not before. We've found egg skelters to be helpful in keeping the rotation by date laid in order.

Our nesting boxes are 14"x18+" with three solid sides and a completely open front. The nesting boxes open into the coop. The smallest breed we have is a Speckled Sussex. Our others are all pretty big girls. They like the extra space in the nesting boxes (we had standard 12"x12" that weren't used...

I tried this today with great success. Thanks for passing this along.