I'd be a little concerned about the bottle rolling over them. Maybe create a couple of U shaped pieces of wood to brace the bottle and prevent rolling?
Chicken eggs do change over time, but not that drastically. I had one that started by laying light blue and since then she has slowly shifted to pure white.
Fairly sure the two eggs in your hand came from different hens.
If you are really curious and willing to do a bit of searching, could do...
It depends on what you mean by "good." For meat production, they are leaps beyond ANYTHING else on the market, they will bulk up to insane proportions in the matter of 8-10 weeks. This is something that no other breed comes anywhere close.
However, this comes at the cost of being a genetic...
TBH, it's all about driving the water away from the coop. If you are able to move the coop, one of the best solutions is move the coop off the spot, build up a pile of dirt that is 0.5-1 foot higher than the current grade and put the coop back on top of it. My current big coop is a converted...
I'm not seeing any clear vertical supports in this thing. I suspect that the plywood may be a good deal of the existing support. That being said, I would probably add some 2x4 studs on the inside for support prior to cutting anything. May not be strictly necessary but will make this far safer of...
Something else that might be worth considering is your neighbors. I know you said that you have 3 acres, but I assume that this butts up to other 3 acre lots that have other people living in them. If you are were max out your production here, the production of waste will absolutely be offensive...
TBH, I would probably not start with "What can I do?" but rather "What do I need?" This being said, if you were to max out your 3 acres with 150 Cornish X AND have brooding going on while growing (starting more chickens when your existing batch is about 5 weeks so you have new birds to...
Not seeing blue/purple in the comb, so I think we are in the clear on that piece at least. And yea, with it being 80 outside and none of your chickens looking overheated in that video, it doesn't look necessary to bring this one inside.
As for the poop, I think this might be the best direction...
Blue/purplish comb is a sign of lack of oxygen in the blood. This is very unlikely to be connected to the molt and probably the most urgent issue at hand. I suspect this is connected to the head-dropping as lack of oxygen in the blood can cause intermittent blackouts.
Initially, if at all...
It's a hard lesson to learn, but sometimes reality just needs to slap us down to educate us. It sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders and you are learning from this experience to make sure that it doesn't happen again. This is really all that can be done and I feel like you are...
EEs are a genetic gamble where the goal is to get a specific egg color where ALL other traits are irrelevant. This results in wildly different bird colors/size/ect. I highly doubt these birds have any sexlink feathers. At this point, I would really only be looking at comb and wattle development...
Fairly sure that is the same model that I use, but mine has a black finish on it. It's not perfect as the odd shape for eggs can sometimes get stuck in the track, resulting in a backup of eggs near the top, then potential slamming down when the backup releases. Just be mindful of this and you...
Still a little early to tell, but definitely trending toward being a boy. I'm betting that comb will get a decent amount of red in it in the next 1-2 weeks.
I've had a couple roos start "crowing" at about a month or so. It's usually a disgusting raspy rubber-chicken kind of crow, but is definitely a crow. The one I have in the yard, I'd even swear it was a pullet by looks alone, but nope, it crows in the morning.
There also is the rare event where...
By feather alone, unless you bred for sexlinked offspring, feathers don't really mean much. And yea, the easter/olive eggers are already so much of a mixed bag of genetics that these could look like pretty much anything at this stage and still be 50/50 guess between male and female.
I'd wait...
Green stool is typically associated with not eating.
Just to rule out potential bullying - when you presented food to her, was she alone or were the other chickens around?
The suggested rule for treats is that it should be no more than 10% of their diet. With her dropping gallons of yummy treats, the standard food is probably not getting much attention. As a result, your hens are probably running low on protein, fats and calcium, while bulking up on the sugar of...