One red sex-link & 2 barred rocks. Not quite 3 years. No additional treatments. No new predators. Coop, inside a run, inside a pen, inside a 6' privacy fence, guarded by our dogs.
Yeah the timeline made sense. I was a little disappointed they didn't immediately start laying, but as it played out it made perfect sense. The First egg we got was tiny. All others have been normal.
And, I can buy "deficiency". 👍🏻
This 👆🏻
And I'll add:
Winter didn't start in June.
And I didn't flip on the sunlight switch, lol.
Zero eggs to daily eggs?? Pretty abrupt.
(Like changing feed.)
I'm an educated, middle-class, engineer and family man, and am usually averse to conspiracy theories. HOWEVER… I’d recently come across multiple stories about how backyard chickens weren’t laying anymore, and I could relate. We have 3 girls about 3 years old and they all stopped laying last...
You DO have predators. They will NOT be safe.
To your original point, if you're only getting a couple chickens, do whatever is most convenient for you. Reinforce / enclose whatever you do get with wire mesh.
Baby chicks are supposed to stay warm (90's if I recall) slowly reducing temp over the next few weeks. I kept mine inside, in tubs, with heat lamps. My mind was saying "that's too warm" but the little chicks would hang out right under the lamp. I'd think what you have there might work, if you...
I have one bucket with horizontal nipples, one bucket with cups, and one open bowl I refill daily. I see them at each type numerous times a day. I don't feel the water is being delivered at a good enough pace from the horizontals. But... they keep going back to it.?.
Congrats! The first eggs are so cool. I'm fairly new at this as well, but I can confirm I get the occasional smaller-than-normal or rounder-than-normal egg.
So, I bought what were labeled as 4 "Black Sex Links" and 4 "Buff Orpingtons" back in March. Since July they've been really consistent layers (7 of them, anyway) as we routinely get 7 brown eggs a day. They nearly all started laying at about 14/15 weeks. I was afraid my little "Black Sex...
Thanks to everyone. I ended up with 6 of my normal 7 eggs that afternoon, so my guess is one of my girls laid the unfinished egg, the previous night. And, we've had 7 each day since. The use their nesting boxes exclusively, even though they do get a few hours complete freedom on an acre each...
^ I agree with this. I solve every problem by projecting the information to extremes. E.g. if this run was 48' long by 1' wide, it'd be maddening. So, maybe back off the long and skinny proportions. :)
I'm new to chickenry so I hope I can bring an outsider's eye to this issue. Every day our birds lay 7 perfect eggs, between 7am and 10am. (Period.) This morning whilst feeding and freshening their water, I thought "May as well pop open the ol' nesting box and see if anybody's gotten at it...
Whoa... So apparently I have red sex links, too. (I thought they were Orpingtons, but they look a heckufalot like those.) Did the OP get them from Tractor Supply by chance?
Same here. Chicks all seemed in good condition, the associate that I bought them from checked their butts and the assumption was that they'd all been sexed and were female... The TROUBLE was; they were sold as Black Sex Links. BSL *roosters* have white spots on their heads... and mine...