Hi from a newbie

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Well, hello everybody!

As for problems let me think, this list will be in no certain order:

- Birds fighting with one another, usually an issue with diet (protein) or housing (space as in not enough for each bird). Sadly, I have seen birds gang up on one another and kill another over dominance related issues. I was very disappointed to see What Mother Nature brought me that evening.

- Birds stop laying eggs. Typical in the winter for most breeds it seems, although i am reading that there are some breeds that do well in the Winter, The Russian (or Russian Orloff) being one. Personally I find that breed to very interesting, I'd like to work with them at some point, but I am full up this year.

- Predator attacks - I've only heard stories about coyotes and javelina here in Arizona, but were pretty certain a hawk took out one of our hens and got ahold of another. We were letting them free range during the daytime on our property. That was a shame, our preference would be to let them free range. Of course there is also dogs. We've been very lucky, our two beagles are fantastic with the chickens! If any of them get out, they will work them back into the coop at my command. As puppies from time to time we'd find them carrying the hens around the yard and putting them in different spots! Never once hurt them! Funniest darn thing you've ever seen! Anyway, for this i recommend underground security of some sort, either a good solid bottom on the coop, or I am considering driving rebar stakes into the ground around our coops. That way even if the predator was to try to dig under they'll be blocked off.

The chickens eating their own eggs. Nothing used to piss me off quite like this problem. Nothing like taking care of birds for what seems like forever, then they start laying (finally!) and the next thing you know the ungrateful little dirtbag is turning around and eating its own eggs! Wait what?! What just happened was my first thought, hahaha. Anyway, the issue for us was simply a nutritional deficiency. Likely a calcium deficiency issue if i remember correctly, and I have read something also about vitamin d deficiency, regardless we were very fortunate as this issue was resolved by adding oyster shell to the chickens diet.

Other than that we have been extremely (knock on wood) fortunate with our flock and hope to continue to be that way in the future. :)
 
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