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My process requires a bit more work, but I’m retired so I can do it. New chicks go in the garage with a brooder plate and in a giant dog kennel/cage. I have to get to floor level to clean, feed and water (my knees hate me, but … whatever). When they feather out, I set up an x-pen and half-crate...

I use 3 gallon buckets from the feed store for water. Biggest problem I have is freezing in the winter. I overcome that by checking 2-3 times per day when air temps get down below 30-ish. I bring out fresh water every morning, regardless of season (two buckets in rotation). I also make sure...

When I started my flock, I ordered 2 males and 14 females. I did this to guard against missexed chicks. As it turned out, the hatchery tossed in one extra female, but that was offset by a missexed female in the batch. Eventually, one roo was too rough w/the females, so he was rehomed. The...

Fourteen hens, three pullets nearing 6 months, no eggs for almost a month, now. My suspicions: age - hens are four, pullets not quite old enough; season - my days are about 10 hours long now; weather - we had an insane week not long ago where it went from 60 to single digits in two days...

When I started my flock, I had three roosters and 14 hens - one of the roos was mis-sexed. Three very different personalities from the same breed. The largest and most aggressive was rehomed. The #2 rooster became dominant while the third developed respiratory problems that made me put him down...

The idea of free-ranging definitely appeals to me. But predators (juvenile bobcat showed up just last week) and daily egg hunting don’t rank high on my favorite activities list. So, my flock has ~ 800 sq ft of yard and a coop that is closed nightly. I do plan to expand their yard to about 2,500...

Unless you have a way to separate them into different yards and give each roo his own flock, you may have to choose one.

Be careful what you wish for. My pullets deposited their first egg on 1/16. Today, I collected eight and put two dozen in lime water; and I still have nearly two dozen on the counter. I need an egg victim ... um, recipient. 😳

She did. It’s on the south side of the coop and under sage and sumac shrubs. There are about five depressions in that area where everybody does their bathing.

She didn’t roll all the way over, although I waited for several minutes thinking she might. I suspect she didn’t because her butt’s too wide.

Thank you. These guys (Buckeyes) are characters. You could laugh at her. I did.

I’ll grant there are good dachshunds out there, but I’ve not met many. In this particular instance, the male in question was alpha in a fairly large group and had been used in a breeding program. While good with people, he constantly tried to exert dominance with other dogs. Dachshunds’...

We are enjoying warm, if somewhat windy, weather this week. After some nasty freezing temps last week, the birds are catching up on scattering hay bales, killing shrubs, and dust bathing. In particular, this girl seems like she would roll in her tub all day. Get situated just so ... Fluff...

This. I know someone who had an Australian Cattle Dog bitch, in a chain link kennel, lay down with her butt against the fence so a miniature dachshund dog could reach her. By the time anyone realized what had happened and ran to the fence, they were tied. Finding homes for the pups was almost...

As a few have mentioned already, it depends on the dog and the owner. From my research of a few years ago, the recommendation is to allow larger breeds to go up to two years before spay/neuter for physical development. I believe @NatJ described it well in his post. As a keeper of...

Since you asked .... Sebastian, 16 y/o

I understand your obsession. He’s quite a handsome fellow. My boy doesn’t do nearly as many interesting poses, but I have a butt-ton of photos of him sleeping. Yeah, I get it. 😉

I’ve seen a question or two about frozen eggs. Someone said frozen eggs crack. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I’d share what I found this afternoon. For context, we were down to 0*F last night and up to 25* today. I check for eggs w/morning and evening feeds and mid-day-ish...

O. M. Goodness. Do you have any idea how long it is going to take to get that mental picture out of my brain!? 😳

I’m thrilled you found the information useful. 👍