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    Nest found now what?

    If you have any type of predators in the area DO NOT put any food or water in or near the nest as you will only be drawing the predators right to nest to investigate the smell of the food/water. I would also not put anything underneath the nest to "catch" the chicks when they jump. That...
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    Can't break a broody, please give me ideas

    With my determined broody hens it didn't seem so much a choice as a total obsession, something that MUST be done. It's like asking a child with chicken pox not to scratch or a parent not to pick up a crying child. She just cannot help herself. So rather than trying to completely stop her from...
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    White Mite Infestation - Please Help 😭

    If you don't have permethrin and want an emergency treatment for your birds, I can strongly suggest using a Dawn dish soap bath for your chickens. It is effective but nontoxic. Wildlife rehabbers like myself have been using Dawn for everything from fleas to mites on everything from infested...
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    Official BYC Poll: Have you ever experienced a power outage during incubation?

    We have a gas stove so I heated up water, put in a jar, and placed in the incubator. Then I wrapped the incubator in winter down jackets (more insulating than a blanket or towel). Experimentation told me what size bottle kept the temp up without getting too hot (better not hot enough than too...
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    Chicken etiquette?

    You sound like a great chicken mom. I want to be your chicken in my next life! What BlindLemonChicken said is absolutely correct - chickens are prey animals and are always watchful of things coming from the sky to get them. Things (hawks/hands) coming over them can feel threatening. Thus...
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    Trespassers and ducklings...

    You might also consider Muscovy ducks. Muscovy's can have large clutches and sometimes the last few hatchlings get left behind as a way to be found orphaned. The other duck you may want to consider is Wood Duck. They nest in tree cavities and the babies have to climb/jump from the bottom of...
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    Help! Tongue stuck in the throat of a baby chick

    It was just a thought. I was a wildlife rehabber for 40+ years and my curiosity usually got the best of me to find out what caused a demise. As I said, not everyone has the time or ability to indulge that curiosity. I'm sure they did the absolute best they could to save her. I'm sorry you...
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    Help! Tongue stuck in the throat of a baby chick

    Just curious - after she passed did the rescue people attempt any type of cursory necropsy to see what exactly the issue was with her tongue? If they were able to open the area up after she died they might have been able to identify the cause. Not every rehab center has the personnel willing...
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    Extreme heat issues

    I found my girls also appreciated it when I took the hose and wet the dirt/sand in their favorite dust bathing spots. They would scratch down and set their breasts down in the damp soil where it was cool. Spraying the soil in the run with the hose will bring the temp of the run down a bit too.
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    Extreme heat issues

    I use kitty litter pans. I fill one with three inches and one with six inches of water (some girls like it shallow and some deep), place a PowerAde bottle of frozen water in the corner, and my girls will spend all day dipping in and out of it whenever they need to cool off. It is usually in...
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    Hey, Will Raccoons Eat My Chickens?

    The first and most important thing for you to do is to secure your coop and run so NO KIND of predator can reach your girls. One-inch chicken wire allows coon hands and arms to reach right through and grab and kill a chicken. Try to use either 1/2-inch hardware cloth or solid wood or metal...
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    Oldest Hen Age and Breed

    All of my longest-lived hens were crossbreeds, quite a mix and match. The two oldest were half sisters and inseparable: Sue (buff laced wyantodotte/partridge rock) was 17; Pam (golden laced wyandotte/partridge rock) was 19. She laid almost until she died (granted, five to eight eggs a year...
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    Is this to big 8x7

    As an aside to Stinky Acres: Thank you very, very much for your message of SAVE BIRDS - KEEP YOUR CATS INDOORS In my experience as a wildlife rehabber for over 40 years a HUGE majority of the injured or dying wildlife brought to me had a cat somewhere in the story. People's pet cats as a...
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    Ramp question: Can chickens hang a right? (90° turn)

    All my perches are high off the ground so I used a straight long ramp to reach up to the perches, not a problem when all my chickens were young and spry. But as they started to age, those steep ramps were more difficult for them to navigate both up and down. So I went to using a switchback...
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    Is this coop worthless??

    Coops like this are pretty when you look at them but pretty worthless when it comes to housing birds that are ground dwellers like chickens and not flying birds like parakeets or cockatiels. All that space about three feet is space they can't use. So think floor space, not air space. With...
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    How to make nesting boxes more attractive to your hens?

    The vast majority of my hens through the years have preferred a box that was more enclosed (the privacy factor) and that were off the ground (the harder for those pesky rat snakes to find the eggs). And truth be told, as I got older I found it more challenging to get eggs from boxes on the...
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    Who here can speak chicken? Lol

    Because you have two to compare to each other, the most obvious sign is the difference in their wattles, those two sets of red fleshy things hanging under the jaw. I apologize for the non-scientific description but that's the easiest way to describe it if you don't know what 'wattles' are. In...
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    My chickens like sleeping up high in their coop. Should I change something here?

    My chickens like to be as high as they can possibly get. It's what they would do in the wild and even though they are domesticated now they still have that basic urge to get as high above predators as they can. If they have choices and they choose to roost up high, I'd let them. They know...
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    How long can you store feed for?

    I'm in Florida and the humidity wrecks havoc with feed down here (crumbles and pellets). So I got a small chest freezer and I repackage my chicken feed or wild bird seed in gallon ziplock bags and store them in the freezer. That way I don't have to worry about my feed going bad from either...
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    The lesser of two evils

    I'm in central Florida so thankfully I don't have to worry about freezing weather except for rare occasions. However, I have found that on cold nights if I have very young birds who like to sleep in a nest box putting a towel over the front of the box (leaving about two inches from the bottom...
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