Background: Marilla is part of a small flock of eight chickens + one rooster that freerange during the day and shut up in a coop at night. They are generally all healthy and give us 6-7 eggs a day, taking turns skipping. They are all about one and a half years old.
Their free-range diet is...
And Wondernose, who never stays with the group and is always furthest afield if they are allowed to free-range (never a leader, though; the ramblings are always independent).
and Friendly, a smaller bird, one that I had thought might be a rooster because he/she began with shorter, stubbier wings... but her comb is not as red as many others now.
Would you help me figure out whether I have any pullets? These chicks were hatched at home, 6 weeks ago, and the parents are a barnyard mix (Siberian egglaying breeds of some sort, most likely). Back when they were still small I read somewhere that early feathering was often a sign of pullets...
Thanks for the reply! We ended up having one more powercut for a few hours at day 15, but had 30 hatch out of the 56 eggs we began with, and they're doing well now!
We set eggs on the 18th, but on the 20th had a 25-hour powercut. When the power went off we covered the incubator with half a dozen blankets, but when it became evident that it was going to be more than a few minutes went online to find out what to do and, based on advice from here and the...
After spending 20% of every day this last week on the forums, getting answers to all my questions, I decided to finally jump in and become part of the community.
(1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens?
Last spring, with the arrival of twenty one half grown chicks in a...