Yesterday a coyote got into our chicken run and killed 10 chickens. Some died of a heart attack and we'll eat those for sure. Others were bitten, but there's only one small tooth puncture or two. And their ribs were broken (from the mouth). We processed those but don't know if we should eat...
I got two 6-week-old bronze turkeys from a woman who ordered them through a feed store and raised them. One was killed by a dog, but the other one died from I don't know what - a disease or something. He was healthy one day, and then one afternoon he was standing in the corner of the chicken...
Hey folks,
I'm wanting to expand and diversify my flock of dual purpose chickens, but don't want to go the hatchery route. Everyone on craigslist just takes hatchery chicks and raises them and sells them, ditto the feed stores. Anyone in the greater Santa Cruz area breeding their own dual...
I'm trying to breed dual purpose chickens "au naturale" instead of with an incubator and brooder, but my hens aren't cooperating. I have Barred Rock hens (zero broodiness so far) and Dominique hens (just enough broodiness to fake me out, but they don't really do the job). I also have a...
I never tried it after all - none of the eggs in my incubator made it. I now have three determined broodies and DH is going to make them a broody mini-coop so we can let them sit on eggs. Hope we have better success than with the incubator...
Best of luck to you!
Hi all,
Out of 24 eggs in the incubator I'm only getting two chicks, looks like. Oh well. I happen to have a broody hen but she has only been sitting for a week. The chicks are due in three days (Mother's Day!) and I'm thinking of trying to put the chicks under my broody after they hatch (and...
She sounds like she is going broody, and has picked an odd place to decide to nest. You could move her on to a nest in the coop, on a couple of eggs (or not), and see if she stays. If she stays and squaks when you try to remove the eggs from under her, she has gone broody. Congrats! You can...
Now two of my 16 hens have died. They had similar symptoms: inability to walk (weak?), pasty butts, almost no pooping, and what poop there was was very green. And super, super nasty smelling. The pasted butts weren't green, that stuff was tan colored. We have not changed their diets, added...
After we got our roo and he was fertilizing the girls, I noticed many of our hens' vents were very poopy and they laid a lot of poopy eggs. That had never happened before. I never did anything about it (laziness, I admit). So our poor roo was killed by a bobcat last week and suddenly there...
Well said, Wingless! And may I add that while I was living in the closely-packed suburban-type area of a big city I successfully had three hens in a very small back yard with NO smell at all. We cleaned their run and coop regularly (it made wonderful compost for our little garden!) and even...
Thanks for all the info. After trying a little with treats and holding, he's still problematic so he is headed for the crock pot sometime this week. And it might have just been his true nature coming out, since he's now 6 months old. Ah well, wish me better luck next time.
Here's the story: I found out after the fact that my animal-sitter couldn't come close up the coop after dusk on Saturday, so she went early and "shooed" them in. But my roo thought she was attacking the girls, so he tried to attack her. The next morning, he did it again as soon as she let...
Here's a great article in the Long Beach Press Telegram about the proposed changes:
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_20886089/residents-want-long-beach-allow-livestock
I used to live in Long Beach and am rooting for all of you in LB!
Don't know if this should be under Meat Birds or Diseases, but we lost one dual-purpose to (most likely) Marek's Disease, and were wondering if others show symptoms should we just cull and bury them or could we eat the meat? I know humans can't catch Marek's but it seems wrong to eat a sick...