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One of my hens died yesterday, during the day. In the morning, she was still alive and fine, in the afternoon, dead. She was 2 years old and a full size chicken, no Bantam. I found her wedged into a hard to access corner of the run. The other hens were alright. She was lying on her side in a...

I couldn't collect eggs for 2 days. One of my hens is broody and it seems she sat the whole 2 days on all the eggs that were in the nest box. They are not fertilized. Are they still edible after more than 48 hours of constant "cozy" warm temperatures under a hen? I would boil of fry them well of...

In recent weeks, I've noticed that one of my Japanese Bantam hens lays fishy smelling eggs :sick. They are practically inedible. She lives in an aviary together with the second Bantam hen. The second one lays eggs that maybe have a very faint fish smell but are still edible. I can't compare to...

They are kind of a Middle East and Africa problem. Hyraxes/ rock dassies, brown rodents who live between rocks and are excellent climbers, including tree-climbers. They themselves look like ear-less rabbits and they make trees look as if a swarm of locusts just came through. In the last few days...

While some people on this site get blessed with gigantic "dinosaur" eggs, I've got the opposite problem: One of my Baladi mixed breed hens has taken to laying tiny fairy eggs. Lots of them, something like 10 or 12 over the last 3 weeks. Every now and then she seems to lay a normally sized egg as...

About 3 months ago I got two Leghorn hybrids. They were supposed to be 7 months old and 1 year old. They live together with my 2 Baladi hens and eat the same layer food. I do not use artificial light in the coop, but the Baladi hens have already gotten over their winter break and are now laying...

About a month ago I combined two pairs of hens into a small 4-chicken flock. They could see each other through wire some time before and there wasn't much aggression when they were united. They are 2 smallish Baladi hens and 2 Leghorn hybrids. The Leghorns immediately took command, being No. 1...

Two weeks ago I bought 2 fully grown, laying Leghorn hens to boost our egg yield. They are still quarantined in a makeshift coop an run. The dominant one is a bad human-pecker. As soon as I get my hands anywhere near her, when refilling food and water, she pecks me and tries to rip the food bag...

A few nights ago I woke up from loud crashing noises behind the house. It was a feral dog trying to break into the chicken coop. Luckily the coop is quite sturdy and didn't get damaged (yet). When I yelled at the dog at the top of my voice, it ran off, came back and ran off again. I've seen it...

Due to losses and changes in my flock I have 3 hens that have been alone, each in a separate cage/coop for a while. I want to unite them and make them into a new mini-flock. Housing them together is kind of urgent because one of the coops is absolutely not predator safe and un-fixable...

I made the big mistake of buying two sick Leghorn pullets from a bad source a week ago. They are suffering from a severe disease of the upper respiratory tract - it's either infectious bronchitis or infectious laryngotracheitis. I first thought especially one of them was about to die but so far...

My mistake, I know... I bought today two 4 months old Leghorn pullets from a disreputable source. Turns out that one of them is severely ill. Symptoms: Wheezing and gaping for air. Hardly eating. Hardly moving. No discharge from eyes or nostrils Not paralyzed Poop yellowish What could that be...

So I'm planning on getting a few Leghorns to enlarge my mixed flock. In principle I want hens but as my two Bantam roosters died this summer, I'm toying with the idea of getting a Leghorn rooster as well at the same time. But I read that they are often quite aggressive. True? Anyone out there...

Because I don't have enough time lately, I have switched from feeding my chickens twice a day to once a day. The one time feed is of course double the amount and I do it around mid-morning. There is always some feed left from the previous day, so they can't really be starving, but they sure...

I had 4 chicks that were 8 weeks old in a wire cage. Last night something killed two of them. The two were lying on top of each other on the cage floor. Both had a lot of their feathers stripped off from their back and chest. One was almost "naked". The other one had a broad superficial scratch...

One of my remaining hens (after a disease that killed the majority of my flock, I posted about that in another thread) has hatched a tiny baby chick this morning. She had raised chicks with the flock before successfully. When I came back in the evening, the chick was lying in the middle of the...

I might have an opportunity to get some 1 or 2 weeks old white Leghorn chicks almost for free. Is there any reliable way to tell their gender that early? I would obviously like to avoid ending up with a bunch of cockerels.

So I've got these 4 chicks that have lost their mother this week. They are 5-6 weeks old and in a cage of their own. They roost on a board at night. One of them tries every evening to roost on the backs of his fellow chicks. They sit on the board, he sits on top of either of them. They wriggle...

3 of my hens have died within one week. The body of the third one is undergoing necropsy, I don't have a result yet. The main "suspects" are Avian Influenza and Newcastle. Now, if it turns out to be AI, the remaining flock will have to be culled and I wouldn't resist that because there is at...

My flock has been decimated a lot over the last week or so, I've lost 2 broodies that were with chicks and another hen to a weird disease (necropsy is under way). A very determined stray cat has made an all-you-can-eat buffet of the baby chicks of both groups when their moms died (my fault...