I have a 4 year old buff Orpington hen who just started crowing the other day....I am fascinated by the fact that she may be undergoing spontaneous sex reversal. Anyone who has witnessed this, I'd love to talk to you!
I noticed today that my 2 year old Ameracuna hen is walking funny. She walks around and then sits, gets up, walks, then sits again. She seems to be eating fine and while walking around in the yard it didn't seem to be bothering her, but I'm worried. She just molted, so feathers are starting...
I have a 17 month old hen show I noticed today was walking "funny" when the girls were outside grazing. She would take a few steps and then act like she wanted to sit down, but then get up to walk again. It looked like she was (possibly) favoring one leg, but it wasn't obvious. I picked her...
The last couple days it's been raining & high 60's. Normal temp is 80's ( I am in CT). I ended up bringing the silkies inside with the chick and hung a heat lamp. The silkies still seem restless and baby chick just follows them around. The silkies are scratching, giving themselves dust baths &...
So 3 days ago my 2 silkie hens hatched a chick from one of my other chickens. They sat on the egg together, left the nest for short periods of time, and did a great job for the time it took to hatch the chick. For the first couple of days after the chick hatched, the silkies again barely left...
So it looks like the 5 eggs in my incubator are duds, but there is a pip in the egg that my 2 silkies are sitting on! We are so excited but now what do I do? The silkies are in a small coop by themselves, but the nesting box is "upstairs". Do I move the nest? What about food and keeping the...
So exciting! I have 5 in the incubator due to hatch this weekend, but I am not very hopeful that anything will hatch bc of the power outage we had @ day 4. HOWEVER, our 2 silkies are sharing duty sitting on a surrogate egg that is definitely developing and should hatch in about 9 days. It's very...
Bad news....our power went out last night (a transformer blew) and the incubator was without power for about 6 hours. I just plugged it in at my neighbor's house. I know this is not good - any idea how long eggs can last like this? Today is day 4 & incubator read 77.6 degrees when I plugged it...
I have 2 blue Orpington and 3 blue splash marans. Also gave an egg from one of my other chickens to my broody silkie a few days ago (today is day 5) so we'll see what happens with that one, too!
So I got a Brinsea mini advance incubator and just received 5 fertile hatching eggs that I will be setting today. Anyone else setting? This is my first time hatching eggs and we are very excited. I followed the manual instructions and set the turning interval to 1 hour and turning "ANG" to 15...
Thank you to everyone for your advice and kind words. This is such a great forum with such helpful, caring people! This was our first loss (we got our chickens a year ago) and I have learned so much here.
Update : I have separated her from the other hens inside. She was eating a little but for the last hour has been hunched in the corner of the cage with her eyes closed. A few minutes ago, she released a large, smelly, bloody poop. Now she is sitting in the corner. It's not looking good - any...
I have an 11 month old hen who, while she has never been a good layer, has now stopped laying altogether and seems very uncomfortable. Last week I soaked her in warm water and was able to help her lay an egg that was very "cracked" looking, like it had been there for a while. She seemed relieved...
Another update.....today around 3:30 I noticed Pumpkin in the egg box - shortly after, she came out but no egg. Then I noticed her walking around, straining as though she wanted to lay. This went on for about an hour and then I brought her inside and put her in a warm bath for 30 min. No egg...