My husband and I have kept chickens for the past five years. Recently, we lost one of our two hens, which brought us down to one. Since chickens are social animals, a lone chicken simply won't do. At this point, we are deciding between getting out of the chicken "business" altogether (really...
Until 3 days ago, my neighbor had 2 Buff Orpingtons. At 3pm on Sunday, she noticed that one of them wasn't moving and was having a little trouble breathing (opening her beak slightly with every breath). Earlier in the day, the same chicken was acting totally fine, just grazing in the yard doing...
I checked her vent yesterday and didn't see anything out of the usual. No swelling, no bleeding, no egg shell. Honestly though, I could only get a good look at the outside. I held a flashlight to her vent but still could only see maybe 1 centimeter inside. She seems to be doing fine this morning...
This morning I observed that my Barred Rock Hattie was making a bigger racket than usual when laying her egg. After a while I went out to make sure she was okay, and I hand fed her some mealworms while she was sitting in the nest box. When she jumped out of the nest box I saw that she had been...
Several neighbors have recently informed me that Midge, our young Barred Rock, has started helping herself to walks around the neighborhood while we're away at work! The good news is that she always comes home (we had no idea she was doing this because she's always in the coop at night), but now...
pips&peeps :
No, it probably means one of your hens is eating eggs.
I didn't see any broken shells or anything. Is it possible that a hen has been eating eggs, shells and all?
I'm kind of stressing here. This evening I noticed a bit of dried yolk stuck on the outside of an egg. Does this mean somebody is an "internal layer" or whatever?
Oh bother. One of the resident chickens at my local community garden has a crop problem. Her crop is feels HUGE, tight, and bloated. Kind of like a really full water balloon. I do NOT really feel anything solid in there. Anyway, this evening when I went to check on her it was obvious that her...
I've noticed that a lot of people say they give their chickens oatmeal to help them stay warm during the cold months. How does this work exactly? Are people thinking that eating warm food somehow has a lingering effect on body temperature? Or does it have to do with providing extra calories in...
N. Virginia :
Can you put a flat panel dog heater in the coop next to the roost? That way your banty could cuddle up to it if she is cold. A flat pannel dog heater costs aroud $60 and could be pluged into an extension cord if you don't have power.
I googled dog heater and came up with this...
My chickens LOVE their flat panel coop heater. When it's really, really cold, they stay inside their coop even when given access to the yard. To me, this means two very important things: (1) chickens CAN get cold, and (2) they don't like being cold! Our girls LOVE free ranging, so for them to...
I love that chickens can't see where they're scratching, so it's: scratch, back up and look, scratch, back up and look, scratch, back up and look
all
day
long.