Start with apologize for my late hatching to BYC membership and support team, knowing wonderful supports are around throughout but my life at the moment is hectic. .Although amid busy life I'm also hopeless writing in the computer, specially in English (as it’s not my mother tongue) however I’ll endeavor to keep up with you as much as I can. Please let me introduce my chickens. I have two chickens, breed called "Warrean", one I call Tikka and one I call Masala (my idiot husband named them) , and they are brown with creamy brush strokes colors around the neck and tale, they arrived to my house 1st July 2013. They were 17 weeks then and started laying eggs within a couple of weeks, since then they keep laying eggs everyday so far. just had 130th egg from them. Their characters are quite different, Masala seems much smarter than Tikka. Because she can peck better and spot food quicker, also drinks without splashing. But Tikka will come on my lap and hop down often well Masala is quite independent. When Masala snatch food from Tikka, she just makes sad noise but do no action. She also splash awful lots of water when she drinks. I am not sure such “pecking order” exist between only two birds. Overall I think they look healthy and happy in my eyes. I still have lot of mystery about chickens but hope I can get answer and suggestions through BYC. Small concerns regarding blocking nest box every evening before they going to sleep in roost because if I don’t they always sleep in the nest box, wondering if they need trimming beaks or clipping their wings so that them stay inside the pen and etc. As they are my first animal/ pets in my life. I found it’s absolutely pleasure to looking after them. I could spend hours and hours around them. I live in Cornwall in England now but if I lived near Tokyo all my life, I never had this opportunity. So happy that I am part of chicken’s life and watch them grow.
Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan Unless your birds have special medical problems, they are unlikely to need any trimming - chickens are very sturdy and durable. Younger birds will sometimes to sleep in the nest boxes. You might try closing them off in the evening before they go to roost, so they get used to using the roost at bedtime - chickens are creatures of habit, and once they get used to sleeping there they will likely stop going onto boxes. Glad you hear you are enjoying them so much.
Thanks for your replys. They are very welcome and wherever you are it's incredible to think how world is close and in touch quickly through chickens! Thanks to chickens again. About trimming beaks and wings, I'll take the advice of 1muttsfan, I shall leave them as they are for now as they haven't got any medical problem. And I'll keep blocking off the nest box before they going to bed every evenings but will they ever learn not sleep in the nest box at this stage because they are now nearly 30 weeks (6 months) old.
Hi and Your chickens sound like they have a pretty typical pecking order. One of my hens is always stealing food from the others, it's almost comical. We don't clip our chickens' wings. Sometimes they will fly over their fence to come up to our house (they stay in the back section of the garden) but strangely they won't fly over the fence to the neighbours' house. They must know where their home is. Enjoy your chickens
Funny that someone mentioned about how chickens will fly over the fence into the yard but won't fly over the yard towards the road. We clip but it doesn't matter they will walk up the fence while flapping till they are over the top. Best of luck with your chickens!