Hello BYC Members!
I am very excited to join your forum
We live on about 3/4 of an acre on Staten Island in New York City. Not much land all in all, but for NYC it is a lot. We have a good sized garden and a fish pond and an obnoxious but loving dog (half husky half whatever) and now have just inherited 4 lovely hens from our neighbors who moved and could not take the girls with.
So we had been enjoying shared eggs for a couple of years and helping here and there; the chickens always wandered free range in our yard anyway so we knew them well. Now we have the full responsibility yet not so much experience taking care of them so I am reading this board a lot.
We have 1 RIR (I think) very perky, small and social. One Dominique...she seems to be the hardiest. One New Hampshire Red (I think, again, not sure...she's actually mostly black and green and smallish) and One Americana/Easter Egger who seems to be at the bottom of the pecking order. She molted hard last fall (none of the others have molted yet) which had me a bit nervous. At that time stopped laying through the whole winter but happily her egg laying seemed to be picking up again now that the days are longer again. Her eggs are light green. Then last week she was limping and again stopped laying. I feared bumblefoot at the time. Now she seems to be walking well again and spending more time with the others but in general she tends to be alone a lot. She's always the first back in the coop at night and I just always feel sorry for her, she seems a little outcast sometimes.
The latest thing is the chickens seem to be developing secret nests in the yard and don't want to lay in the coop so at the advice of another member I'm going to leave them in the coop for a couple of days, or at least in the mornings to try to retrain them to lay in the coop cause I really don't want to be on an egg hunt every day in the bushes.
I love all our chickens and am enjoying everything I'm seeing on the board. SOoooo.....Hello from the Big Apple!
I am very excited to join your forum
We live on about 3/4 of an acre on Staten Island in New York City. Not much land all in all, but for NYC it is a lot. We have a good sized garden and a fish pond and an obnoxious but loving dog (half husky half whatever) and now have just inherited 4 lovely hens from our neighbors who moved and could not take the girls with.
So we had been enjoying shared eggs for a couple of years and helping here and there; the chickens always wandered free range in our yard anyway so we knew them well. Now we have the full responsibility yet not so much experience taking care of them so I am reading this board a lot.
We have 1 RIR (I think) very perky, small and social. One Dominique...she seems to be the hardiest. One New Hampshire Red (I think, again, not sure...she's actually mostly black and green and smallish) and One Americana/Easter Egger who seems to be at the bottom of the pecking order. She molted hard last fall (none of the others have molted yet) which had me a bit nervous. At that time stopped laying through the whole winter but happily her egg laying seemed to be picking up again now that the days are longer again. Her eggs are light green. Then last week she was limping and again stopped laying. I feared bumblefoot at the time. Now she seems to be walking well again and spending more time with the others but in general she tends to be alone a lot. She's always the first back in the coop at night and I just always feel sorry for her, she seems a little outcast sometimes.
The latest thing is the chickens seem to be developing secret nests in the yard and don't want to lay in the coop so at the advice of another member I'm going to leave them in the coop for a couple of days, or at least in the mornings to try to retrain them to lay in the coop cause I really don't want to be on an egg hunt every day in the bushes.
I love all our chickens and am enjoying everything I'm seeing on the board. SOoooo.....Hello from the Big Apple!
