Good to know. Of course Penelope also lays whoppers also! But she is 7 and now only lays about once a week.

But she’s not above steeling eggs and sitting on them for an hour or so, I am actually surprised she hasn’t been broody, but she is happy to kick a hen off her egg and sit on it for herself for an hour, and move to the next nest where someone has laid an egg!
That's my princess
 
Nope because my carpet is far from clean, and worth nothing… absolutely thrashed, and they are still just as likel to deposit a slimy stinker on it… I’m sure the formula is much more complex and includes things like likelihood of a person stepping on it, size of the room for smell distribution, and many other factors known only to the chickens own digestive system!
:gig
 
I love this thread. It is very therapeutic and entertaining for me. This month has been so hard on me but FBA thread gave me smiles and kept me going. Thank you Bob! You are so good at moderating/organizing/writing I feel like any employer is lucky to have you.

Why do I have chickens: I had the ideas of getting chickens simply for food security in January of 2020 when Covid started to be bad in China. I love eggs and I've always wanted to produce my food as much as possible. At that time we lived in New Mexico and had a good chance of moving so we didn't do it. We did move to Wilmington NC in August 2020 and expect to be here for the foreseeable future. I made sure chickens are allowed in our new house.

Our first flock: March 10th, 2021, about 3 months after we closed on our new house, we got 8 chicks at the local feed store. I wanted 6 but my chicken-owning friend told me that chicks die easily so get 8 (yes she is an enabler). Being the ignorant human being I was, of course I picked good egg layers. We have 4 golden buffs (probably same as golden comets) + 2 RIR (production red) + 2 Rhode Island Blue (RIB/production blue). In raising babies, we completely fell in love with them, my husband more so. He played with all of them for hours every day.
View attachment 3206190
View attachment 3206191

I particularly love this picture when all 8 of them roosted on top of the cardboard box. SO CUTE.
View attachment 3206192

They are all doing well to this day. Here they are:
1. Foggy the rooster (RIB). Of course we will end up with a rooster. You can see him being huge and spilled out of my husband's hand in the first two pictures above... He was super sweet as a chick and teenager. He turned into a jerk pretty quick. I am a wimp so he attacked me anytime I was close by. He remained cuddly with my husband for a long time but eventually he had to kick Foggy's butt weekly.

Mid April of this year, we got a visit from city inspector telling us we need to get rid of our rooster due to complaints. We live within city limits and are not allowed to have roosters. To me such regulation is government overreach. We only really have one neighbor that would hear the crow and we made sure they are fine with it. Even with this neighbor, we know that given the distance from coop to their house, they'd barely hear it inside the house. In any case, Foggy was rehomed within a couple days.
View attachment 3206211

2. Ginger (Golden comets). Ginger is the alpha hen, an escape artist. We thought we named her well after we watched "Chicken Run". She is usually not sweet, but she totally lets you know when she wants to be picked up. She does everything with a purpose. Man she is so smart.
She is the only one that can jump on this metal spiky fence, then she flew over the green fence to reach to my garden... She remembered this trick after doing this once accidentally.
View attachment 3206220

Here she is out and about:
View attachment 3206223

3. Tina (RIR). Tina is the 2nd fittest after Ginger. To be honest, I am not sure on the exact pecking order after Ginger because it appears to be circular as A>B>C>A. She is probably number 2. Tina is very sweet and would kick off other chickens on the lap. She is a little devil.
View attachment 3206227

4 Honey (Golden comets). Honey is our sweetest hen and her pecking order is second to the last. She jumps on your lap and would stay on your lap forever if you don't kick her off.
View attachment 3206228

5 Wendy (RIR). Wendy is our heaviest hen. She walks funny because she is big. I constantly call her Maggie in my head thanks to RC. She is sweet too but she is really particular on how to lay on you (cause she is fat). She is pretty bossy to Poopy and Honey .
View attachment 3206235
6 Light (Golden comet). She is my husband's THE GREATEST HEN EVER. I've written about her on this thread a little bit. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-25550036
She is really gentle and cute. She is at the bottom of pecking order, but she would pick on Wendy. It's very weird. Due to her house chicken experience, she now comes to the house for breakfast every morning.
Here she is sitting right by the meal worm bin looking all innocent!! She surely knows about food security. (Yes there was a time that I forgot to close the lid and she got in.........)
View attachment 3206239

7 Poopy (Golden comet). Poopy gave us our first egg. She started laying before she was 4 months old!!! Oh the evil production line. She is sweet too but has to be picked up.
Here is her pretty pullet face at 4 months old.
View attachment 3206240

8 Inky (RIB). Inky is the only chicken that is not sweet. In fact, she is really skittish. She is also the fluffiest chicken. Her feather is sooo pretty. She is the only one molted during their first year. She is also the only one that has ever gone broody (three times already). In fact, she is still sitting in the coop and today is day 29. Good thing that she really takes good care of herself.

Inky giving me the evil look.
View attachment 3206244

Inky getting my elderberry leaves.View attachment 3206247
View attachment 3206242


This year's addition. Excuse me that I have to write a 2nd post to finish this 🤣 The quick summary is that we added 4 chicks this year, all fathered by Foggy.
Such a lovely stories + pictures of your chickens and I hope foggy is happy in his new home
 
I love this thread. It is very therapeutic and entertaining for me. This month has been so hard on me but FBA thread gave me smiles and kept me going. Thank you Bob! You are so good at moderating/organizing/writing I feel like any employer is lucky to have you.

Why do I have chickens: I had the ideas of getting chickens simply for food security in January of 2020 when Covid started to be bad in China. I love eggs and I've always wanted to produce my food as much as possible. At that time we lived in New Mexico and had a good chance of moving so we didn't do it. We did move to Wilmington NC in August 2020 and expect to be here for the foreseeable future. I made sure chickens are allowed in our new house.

Our first flock: March 10th, 2021, about 3 months after we closed on our new house, we got 8 chicks at the local feed store. I wanted 6 but my chicken-owning friend told me that chicks die easily so get 8 (yes she is an enabler). Being the ignorant human being I was, of course I picked good egg layers. We have 4 golden buffs (probably same as golden comets) + 2 RIR (production red) + 2 Rhode Island Blue (RIB/production blue). In raising babies, we completely fell in love with them, my husband more so. He played with all of them for hours every day.
View attachment 3206190
View attachment 3206191

I particularly love this picture when all 8 of them roosted on top of the cardboard box. SO CUTE.
View attachment 3206192

They are all doing well to this day. Here they are:
1. Foggy the rooster (RIB). Of course we will end up with a rooster. You can see him being huge and spilled out of my husband's hand in the first two pictures above... He was super sweet as a chick and teenager. He turned into a jerk pretty quick. I am a wimp so he attacked me anytime I was close by. He remained cuddly with my husband for a long time but eventually he had to kick Foggy's butt weekly.

Mid April of this year, we got a visit from city inspector telling us we need to get rid of our rooster due to complaints. We live within city limits and are not allowed to have roosters. To me such regulation is government overreach. We only really have one neighbor that would hear the crow and we made sure they are fine with it. Even with this neighbor, we know that given the distance from coop to their house, they'd barely hear it inside the house. In any case, Foggy was rehomed within a couple days.
View attachment 3206211

2. Ginger (Golden comets). Ginger is the alpha hen, an escape artist. We thought we named her well after we watched "Chicken Run". She is usually not sweet, but she totally lets you know when she wants to be picked up. She does everything with a purpose. Man she is so smart.
She is the only one that can jump on this metal spiky fence, then she flew over the green fence to reach to my garden... She remembered this trick after doing this once accidentally.
View attachment 3206220

Here she is out and about:
View attachment 3206223

3. Tina (RIR). Tina is the 2nd fittest after Ginger. To be honest, I am not sure on the exact pecking order after Ginger because it appears to be circular as A>B>C>A. She is probably number 2. Tina is very sweet and would kick off other chickens on the lap. She is a little devil.
View attachment 3206227

4 Honey (Golden comets). Honey is our sweetest hen and her pecking order is second to the last. She jumps on your lap and would stay on your lap forever if you don't kick her off.
View attachment 3206228

5 Wendy (RIR). Wendy is our heaviest hen. She walks funny because she is big. I constantly call her Maggie in my head thanks to RC. She is sweet too but she is really particular on how to lay on you (cause she is fat). She is pretty bossy to Poopy and Honey .
View attachment 3206235
6 Light (Golden comet). She is my husband's THE GREATEST HEN EVER. I've written about her on this thread a little bit. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-25550036
She is really gentle and cute. She is at the bottom of pecking order, but she would pick on Wendy. It's very weird. Due to her house chicken experience, she now comes to the house for breakfast every morning.
Here she is sitting right by the meal worm bin looking all innocent!! She surely knows about food security. (Yes there was a time that I forgot to close the lid and she got in.........)
View attachment 3206239

7 Poopy (Golden comet). Poopy gave us our first egg. She started laying before she was 4 months old!!! Oh the evil production line. She is sweet too but has to be picked up.
Here is her pretty pullet face at 4 months old.
View attachment 3206240

8 Inky (RIB). Inky is the only chicken that is not sweet. In fact, she is really skittish. She is also the fluffiest chicken. Her feather is sooo pretty. She is the only one molted during their first year. She is also the only one that has ever gone broody (three times already). In fact, she is still sitting in the coop and today is day 29. Good thing that she really takes good care of herself.

Inky giving me the evil look.
View attachment 3206244

Inky getting my elderberry leaves.View attachment 3206247
View attachment 3206242


This year's addition. Excuse me that I have to write a 2nd post to finish this 🤣 The quick summary is that we added 4 chicks this year, all fathered by Foggy.
They are lovely !! Your Inky looks like my barnyard mutts who likely have blue Maran or EE/olive Eggers in their background, they too are broody!
 
I love this thread. It is very therapeutic and entertaining for me. This month has been so hard on me but FBA thread gave me smiles and kept me going. Thank you Bob! You are so good at moderating/organizing/writing I feel like any employer is lucky to have you.

Why do I have chickens: I had the ideas of getting chickens simply for food security in January of 2020 when Covid started to be bad in China. I love eggs and I've always wanted to produce my food as much as possible. At that time we lived in New Mexico and had a good chance of moving so we didn't do it. We did move to Wilmington NC in August 2020 and expect to be here for the foreseeable future. I made sure chickens are allowed in our new house.

Our first flock: March 10th, 2021, about 3 months after we closed on our new house, we got 8 chicks at the local feed store. I wanted 6 but my chicken-owning friend told me that chicks die easily so get 8 (yes she is an enabler). Being the ignorant human being I was, of course I picked good egg layers. We have 4 golden buffs (probably same as golden comets) + 2 RIR (production red) + 2 Rhode Island Blue (RIB/production blue). In raising babies, we completely fell in love with them, my husband more so. He played with all of them for hours every day.
View attachment 3206190
View attachment 3206191

I particularly love this picture when all 8 of them roosted on top of the cardboard box. SO CUTE.
View attachment 3206192

They are all doing well to this day. Here they are:
1. Foggy the rooster (RIB). Of course we will end up with a rooster. You can see him being huge and spilled out of my husband's hand in the first two pictures above... He was super sweet as a chick and teenager. He turned into a jerk pretty quick. I am a wimp so he attacked me anytime I was close by. He remained cuddly with my husband for a long time but eventually he had to kick Foggy's butt weekly.

Mid April of this year, we got a visit from city inspector telling us we need to get rid of our rooster due to complaints. We live within city limits and are not allowed to have roosters. To me such regulation is government overreach. We only really have one neighbor that would hear the crow and we made sure they are fine with it. Even with this neighbor, we know that given the distance from coop to their house, they'd barely hear it inside the house. In any case, Foggy was rehomed within a couple days.
View attachment 3206211

2. Ginger (Golden comets). Ginger is the alpha hen, an escape artist. We thought we named her well after we watched "Chicken Run". She is usually not sweet, but she totally lets you know when she wants to be picked up. She does everything with a purpose. Man she is so smart.
She is the only one that can jump on this metal spiky fence, then she flew over the green fence to reach to my garden... She remembered this trick after doing this once accidentally.
View attachment 3206220

Here she is out and about:
View attachment 3206223

3. Tina (RIR). Tina is the 2nd fittest after Ginger. To be honest, I am not sure on the exact pecking order after Ginger because it appears to be circular as A>B>C>A. She is probably number 2. Tina is very sweet and would kick off other chickens on the lap. She is a little devil.
View attachment 3206227

4 Honey (Golden comets). Honey is our sweetest hen and her pecking order is second to the last. She jumps on your lap and would stay on your lap forever if you don't kick her off.
View attachment 3206228

5 Wendy (RIR). Wendy is our heaviest hen. She walks funny because she is big. I constantly call her Maggie in my head thanks to RC. She is sweet too but she is really particular on how to lay on you (cause she is fat). She is pretty bossy to Poopy and Honey .
View attachment 3206235
6 Light (Golden comet). She is my husband's THE GREATEST HEN EVER. I've written about her on this thread a little bit. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-25550036
She is really gentle and cute. She is at the bottom of pecking order, but she would pick on Wendy. It's very weird. Due to her house chicken experience, she now comes to the house for breakfast every morning.
Here she is sitting right by the meal worm bin looking all innocent!! She surely knows about food security. (Yes there was a time that I forgot to close the lid and she got in.........)
View attachment 3206239

7 Poopy (Golden comet). Poopy gave us our first egg. She started laying before she was 4 months old!!! Oh the evil production line. She is sweet too but has to be picked up.
Here is her pretty pullet face at 4 months old.
View attachment 3206240

8 Inky (RIB). Inky is the only chicken that is not sweet. In fact, she is really skittish. She is also the fluffiest chicken. Her feather is sooo pretty. She is the only one molted during their first year. She is also the only one that has ever gone broody (three times already). In fact, she is still sitting in the coop and today is day 29. Good thing that she really takes good care of herself.

Inky giving me the evil look.
View attachment 3206244

Inky getting my elderberry leaves.View attachment 3206247
View attachment 3206242


This year's addition. Excuse me that I have to write a 2nd post to finish this 🤣 The quick summary is that we added 4 chicks this year, all fathered by Foggy.
What a lovely introduction to your chickens. I will let Maggie know she has got in your head (I hope she isn’t too noisy in there!).
 
I love this thread. It is very therapeutic and entertaining for me. This month has been so hard on me but FBA thread gave me smiles and kept me going. Thank you Bob! You are so good at moderating/organizing/writing I feel like any employer is lucky to have you.

Why do I have chickens: I had the ideas of getting chickens simply for food security in January of 2020 when Covid started to be bad in China. I love eggs and I've always wanted to produce my food as much as possible. At that time we lived in New Mexico and had a good chance of moving so we didn't do it. We did move to Wilmington NC in August 2020 and expect to be here for the foreseeable future. I made sure chickens are allowed in our new house.

Our first flock: March 10th, 2021, about 3 months after we closed on our new house, we got 8 chicks at the local feed store. I wanted 6 but my chicken-owning friend told me that chicks die easily so get 8 (yes she is an enabler). Being the ignorant human being I was, of course I picked good egg layers. We have 4 golden buffs (probably same as golden comets) + 2 RIR (production red) + 2 Rhode Island Blue (RIB/production blue). In raising babies, we completely fell in love with them, my husband more so. He played with all of them for hours every day.
View attachment 3206190
View attachment 3206191

I particularly love this picture when all 8 of them roosted on top of the cardboard box. SO CUTE.
View attachment 3206192

They are all doing well to this day. Here they are:
1. Foggy the rooster (RIB). Of course we will end up with a rooster. You can see him being huge and spilled out of my husband's hand in the first two pictures above... He was super sweet as a chick and teenager. He turned into a jerk pretty quick. I am a wimp so he attacked me anytime I was close by. He remained cuddly with my husband for a long time but eventually he had to kick Foggy's butt weekly.

Mid April of this year, we got a visit from city inspector telling us we need to get rid of our rooster due to complaints. We live within city limits and are not allowed to have roosters. To me such regulation is government overreach. We only really have one neighbor that would hear the crow and we made sure they are fine with it. Even with this neighbor, we know that given the distance from coop to their house, they'd barely hear it inside the house. In any case, Foggy was rehomed within a couple days.
View attachment 3206211

2. Ginger (Golden comets). Ginger is the alpha hen, an escape artist. We thought we named her well after we watched "Chicken Run". She is usually not sweet, but she totally lets you know when she wants to be picked up. She does everything with a purpose. Man she is so smart.
She is the only one that can jump on this metal spiky fence, then she flew over the green fence to reach to my garden... She remembered this trick after doing this once accidentally.
View attachment 3206220

Here she is out and about:
View attachment 3206223

3. Tina (RIR). Tina is the 2nd fittest after Ginger. To be honest, I am not sure on the exact pecking order after Ginger because it appears to be circular as A>B>C>A. She is probably number 2. Tina is very sweet and would kick off other chickens on the lap. She is a little devil.
View attachment 3206227

4 Honey (Golden comets). Honey is our sweetest hen and her pecking order is second to the last. She jumps on your lap and would stay on your lap forever if you don't kick her off.
View attachment 3206228

5 Wendy (RIR). Wendy is our heaviest hen. She walks funny because she is big. I constantly call her Maggie in my head thanks to RC. She is sweet too but she is really particular on how to lay on you (cause she is fat). She is pretty bossy to Poopy and Honey .
View attachment 3206235
6 Light (Golden comet). She is my husband's THE GREATEST HEN EVER. I've written about her on this thread a little bit. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-25550036
She is really gentle and cute. She is at the bottom of pecking order, but she would pick on Wendy. It's very weird. Due to her house chicken experience, she now comes to the house for breakfast every morning.
Here she is sitting right by the meal worm bin looking all innocent!! She surely knows about food security. (Yes there was a time that I forgot to close the lid and she got in.........)
View attachment 3206239

7 Poopy (Golden comet). Poopy gave us our first egg. She started laying before she was 4 months old!!! Oh the evil production line. She is sweet too but has to be picked up.
Here is her pretty pullet face at 4 months old.
View attachment 3206240

8 Inky (RIB). Inky is the only chicken that is not sweet. In fact, she is really skittish. She is also the fluffiest chicken. Her feather is sooo pretty. She is the only one molted during their first year. She is also the only one that has ever gone broody (three times already). In fact, she is still sitting in the coop and today is day 29. Good thing that she really takes good care of herself.

Inky giving me the evil look.
View attachment 3206244

Inky getting my elderberry leaves.View attachment 3206247
View attachment 3206242


This year's addition. Excuse me that I have to write a 2nd post to finish this 🤣 The quick summary is that we added 4 chicks this year, all fathered by Foggy.
What a lovely flock and a superb introduction. :love So sorry to hear you had to rehome your sweet Roo,:hugs I hope you get updates on him and he is a happy boy. It is great that you have a few chicks by him before you had to rehome him.

I also love that you (and hubby) were able to spend so much time with them as chicks, so they are real 'people chickens' now.

Like you, I was amazed at how smart and personable chickens are once I got some. I hope these girls continue to bring you joy for a long time!! (P.S. I see chicken math is already working it's magic with you:gig)

Can I ask about your fence? I was thinking of using something similar (black wrought-iron/aluminum fence) along a small strip of trees & shrubs near the road, to 'encourage' them to stay away from the road. Do you know the name of the fencing (brand/style) and how tall is it? That would be perfect for my application, and what I am finding locally doesn't have that added piece at the bottom, so they could squeeze through what I am finding here. Thank you in advance!
 
I love this thread. It is very therapeutic and entertaining for me. This month has been so hard on me but FBA thread gave me smiles and kept me going. Thank you Bob! You are so good at moderating/organizing/writing I feel like any employer is lucky to have you.

Why do I have chickens: I had the ideas of getting chickens simply for food security in January of 2020 when Covid started to be bad in China. I love eggs and I've always wanted to produce my food as much as possible. At that time we lived in New Mexico and had a good chance of moving so we didn't do it. We did move to Wilmington NC in August 2020 and expect to be here for the foreseeable future. I made sure chickens are allowed in our new house.

Our first flock: March 10th, 2021, about 3 months after we closed on our new house, we got 8 chicks at the local feed store. I wanted 6 but my chicken-owning friend told me that chicks die easily so get 8 (yes she is an enabler). Being the ignorant human being I was, of course I picked good egg layers. We have 4 golden buffs (probably same as golden comets) + 2 RIR (production red) + 2 Rhode Island Blue (RIB/production blue). In raising babies, we completely fell in love with them, my husband more so. He played with all of them for hours every day.
View attachment 3206190
View attachment 3206191

I particularly love this picture when all 8 of them roosted on top of the cardboard box. SO CUTE.
View attachment 3206192

They are all doing well to this day. Here they are:
1. Foggy the rooster (RIB). Of course we will end up with a rooster. You can see him being huge and spilled out of my husband's hand in the first two pictures above... He was super sweet as a chick and teenager. He turned into a jerk pretty quick. I am a wimp so he attacked me anytime I was close by. He remained cuddly with my husband for a long time but eventually he had to kick Foggy's butt weekly.

Mid April of this year, we got a visit from city inspector telling us we need to get rid of our rooster due to complaints. We live within city limits and are not allowed to have roosters. To me such regulation is government overreach. We only really have one neighbor that would hear the crow and we made sure they are fine with it. Even with this neighbor, we know that given the distance from coop to their house, they'd barely hear it inside the house. In any case, Foggy was rehomed within a couple days.
View attachment 3206211

2. Ginger (Golden comets). Ginger is the alpha hen, an escape artist. We thought we named her well after we watched "Chicken Run". She is usually not sweet, but she totally lets you know when she wants to be picked up. She does everything with a purpose. Man she is so smart.
She is the only one that can jump on this metal spiky fence, then she flew over the green fence to reach to my garden... She remembered this trick after doing this once accidentally.
View attachment 3206220

Here she is out and about:
View attachment 3206223

3. Tina (RIR). Tina is the 2nd fittest after Ginger. To be honest, I am not sure on the exact pecking order after Ginger because it appears to be circular as A>B>C>A. She is probably number 2. Tina is very sweet and would kick off other chickens on the lap. She is a little devil.
View attachment 3206227

4 Honey (Golden comets). Honey is our sweetest hen and her pecking order is second to the last. She jumps on your lap and would stay on your lap forever if you don't kick her off.
View attachment 3206228

5 Wendy (RIR). Wendy is our heaviest hen. She walks funny because she is big. I constantly call her Maggie in my head thanks to RC. She is sweet too but she is really particular on how to lay on you (cause she is fat). She is pretty bossy to Poopy and Honey .
View attachment 3206235
6 Light (Golden comet). She is my husband's THE GREATEST HEN EVER. I've written about her on this thread a little bit. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-25550036
She is really gentle and cute. She is at the bottom of pecking order, but she would pick on Wendy. It's very weird. Due to her house chicken experience, she now comes to the house for breakfast every morning.
Here she is sitting right by the meal worm bin looking all innocent!! She surely knows about food security. (Yes there was a time that I forgot to close the lid and she got in.........)
View attachment 3206239

7 Poopy (Golden comet). Poopy gave us our first egg. She started laying before she was 4 months old!!! Oh the evil production line. She is sweet too but has to be picked up.
Here is her pretty pullet face at 4 months old.
View attachment 3206240

8 Inky (RIB). Inky is the only chicken that is not sweet. In fact, she is really skittish. She is also the fluffiest chicken. Her feather is sooo pretty. She is the only one molted during their first year. She is also the only one that has ever gone broody (three times already). In fact, she is still sitting in the coop and today is day 29. Good thing that she really takes good care of herself.

Inky giving me the evil look.
View attachment 3206244

Inky getting my elderberry leaves.View attachment 3206247
View attachment 3206242


This year's addition. Excuse me that I have to write a 2nd post to finish this 🤣 The quick summary is that we added 4 chicks this year, all fathered by Foggy.
This is wonderful! 🥰🥰 It is so nice to meet your group finally.

Thank you for the kind words on the thread. I'm glad you found it a help and have enjoyed it. 🥰
 
Honestly, I believe that estimate is for an active, LAYING hen. I would go with about a cup (8 oz/320cc/ml) for a non-laying, active hen (more if really hot & panting). Since Bella is A) not full sized, B) Not laying, and C) not active, I would aim for getting 4* oz (120cc/mls)🚰 into her. So, at ~ 70cc, you are getting around 55-60% into her. Once she starts to feel better and become more active...even if just a bit, she will be using more energy, and will use more water in the process, and fluid intake should then increase, too. Can you massage crop more frequently and try for 2-3 feedings instead of 1-2?? That would That would bump fluid from 35-70cc to say, 70-100cc. Yes, I understand crop emptying is a determining factor....and you are probably already doing all you can..:th.this was just a thought.:idunno

That said (and @Ponypoor & @BY Bob feel free to chime in) when I worked as a CNA, there were people who took hardly any fluids & essentially refused to eat...and lived a very long time. You don't want the body to start to shut down, so she needs enough to keep organs, etc healthy, but she doesn't need the fluids that an active chicken would,

* My guesstimate based on inactivity, no egg (eggs have a lot of water in them), and much smaller body/weight than an adult....plus the fact that my young chickens (at about 8 weeks of age) that are very active - when not super hot like recently - were going through about a cup of water per chick per day. Granted, they were/are smaller then than yours are, but Bella is also inactive.
I agree with this. 500 mls is a lot for a sedentary chicken that is not pooping very much. Chickens do not perspire like we do so the majority of their water loss comes from eggs and poo. The body is very efficient at water recycling. I doubt very much that she needs a lot of water right now to stay hydrated.
 

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