I have a small flock of 6, but I finally got tired of filling up my multiple 1-gallon waterers so often. Most ideas I've seen for larger DIY waterers seemed like more work than I was willing to put in, not suitable for freezing temps, or hard to clean.
I liked one idea using a standard 5-gallon...
One of my hens' face was covered in sticktight fleas and I'm seeing some on other hens. I'm in the middle of removing the bedding from my older enclosed run that had deep bedding. Do I need to dispose of it? Burn it? No chance of using it for compost anymore? 😭
I'm also feeling a little...
I would also like to know this, but I thought the breed played more a factor. Though buff orpingtons are supposedly known to go broody and mine haven't yet. Uncharacteristically, my buff is also the bully and not the friendliest.
I think not. She's the most flighty. She was the bottom of the pecking order and when I integrated two new pullets, she was the meanest to them (maybe because was always the lowest?). But she's the most broody chicken of my flock! She's already gone broody 3 times this year. And she's mean when...
I use a Google calendar for my beekeeping hobby. I love this method because it makes searching for particular words easy but I don't think I'm ready to get into that level of detail for my chickens lol
My plan is to eventually grow my flock to 12 (local maximum for my acreage). The hard part will be not getting them all at once to better stagger their ages.
This is only my second summer with my OG flock (buff orp, white rock, wyandotte, EE). When they first started laying, I was getting almost an egg from each of them a day. Since July, it's becoming more common for me to get just 1-2 eggs/day. I've checked my birds and to my untrained eye, they...
I expected the two younger pullets to get picked on when I first introduced them to the flock but it's been a month now of sharing the big, new coop, and even longer of letting them free range together. They can coexist fine when free-ranging but when confined to the run and chunnel, 3 of my 4...
My 6'x8' coop is on top of 8-inch tall cinder blocks and it's high enough for the birds to go under for extra shade, which I like but it's going to be very difficult to clean especially because I have hardware cloth wrapped around three sides of the coop, with the run attached to the fourth...
1. I just had a large coop delivered that my 12 week old pullets are currently in. I had them locked in there for five days while we were on vacation with a neighbor checking in on them. I don't yet have a run attached to the coop so I've been letting them out to free range for a few hours while...
Okay. Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion and it will be fine. There are multiple food and water sources available and I saw she eventually made her way to some feed. The hens won't be able to free range while we're gone for a few days but they have a big enough run and a chunnel.
I have a small prefab for the four hens. I actually just got a larger coop delivered but it's not move-in ready yet. Right now they're all free ranging and I saw her being chased away from the coop and kennel/run, where the food and water are.
So the broody hen was always bottom of the pecking order. I was a little worried about separating her because of this but I gave it a shot anyway. I let her out of broody jail after 3 days. She's been foraging with the others and two of them keep chasing her away from the coop! A very small part...