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delflipz17 said:
Small update today. I’m starting to get somewhat concerned about my chicken friend that my wife started calling “hay hay”. I’m pretty certain it’s a hen now. No spurs whatsoever on the leg, never crows only soft clucks when she seems happy

Couple days ago, I followed her around dusk. I was surprised to find her roosting in a row of pines only about 30 yards from my garage.

Today, I saw her milling about near her roost in the picture. I went up to her and just sat on the grass. I tried making clucking noises and after a minute she confidently strode towards me. So I was able to get the closest look at her in 3+weeks. She has a lot of feathers missing from around her tail area, I can see her red skin 😭 Not sure if it was an attempted predation or what. She also had a strange looking black speckled spot on her neck that looked featherless. It’s actually pretty visible from one of the pics. If any one has any thoughts I’d appreciate it.

My run is close by according to the tracking, so I’m hoping to start setting it up tomorow or Saturday. Obviously, I’d like to secure Hay Hay as soon as possible so that my wife can treat her if needed. Needless to say that should be much safer for her then living outside in a pine tree.

It may seem silly to some, but I have a dream of taking this cast away chicken and giving her a proper home and allow her to become the alpha of a flock of her own. It’d be hard to come up with a better redemption story than that.
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I don't think its silly. Good on you for rescuing her. If you have a kennel or a cat carrier you could bring her in at night until her run is completed.
 
delflipz17 said:
Hello everyone, I recently found this community on Facebook and it seemed like a perfect place for a beginner.

Over the past few weeks, I have had this beautiful daily visitor to my property. I want to think its a rooster? I have no experience but it would be odd I think for a hen to wander alone. Its not uncommon in my area for neighbors to have chickens. But after moving here 3 years ago, this is the first time that I have had one wander onto my property. It is a friendly chicken, not scared of people whatsoever. I had a large gathering on July 20th of about 60-70 people and this chicken walked right by everyone, within a couple of feet of people playing cornhole, so it could get to the area it had been typically grazing. I have come to really appreciate this animal, it brightens my day each time it visits me. This has encouraged me to research possibly getting a few of my own. My wife is a veterinarian, and she has been very supportive of the idea of having chickens, as long as I am the one to take care of their daily needs.

Enter picture number 2. I feel as if I have an almost perfect opportunity to adapt this old shed into a chicken coop. There's currently only some misc. junk in there that would take 5 minutes to completely clear out. If I remember correctly, the prior owner just said their kids used it as a fort/clubhouse. It is rather large, probably at least 20 ft sq. inside and has a ladder that goes up to a second story. Am I wrong to think that it would be relatively to turn this into a coop? Additionally, this shed is a good 100 yards from my garage. Behind the shed is about 150 more yards that I keep mowed to the edge of a creek on the border of my property. So theoretically they could have a very large enclosure by just putting some wire up.

As for the chickens themselves, I'd ideally just like to have them as egg layers and pets. I'm an avid hunter so I would have no problem butchering the chickens, but that just seems like too much time and effort to me, i'd rather just buy them already prepared :D. I live in Northwestern Pennsylvania, so we generally have cold winters and heavy lake effect snow. One of my main concerns was what to do in winter. What kind of things do you need to get them through? I saw other posts abut people in Montana and Colorado keeping them alive so it must be doable for me as well.

Open to breed suggestions. The egg laying is really just a cool secondary feature to me. Mainly interested in the beauty of the birds themselves. Easter eggers seem neat and they provide obviously cool colored eggs.

Thanks for reading my post, hope to begin this journey with you all soon!
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Welcome. Thank you for rescuing this rooster. Roosters are so awesome. You will so enjoy your chicken. If you can spend enough time with your rooster, you don't need to get a flock for him, but if you can't, a flock would be a good idea. Please enjoy, chickens are God's gift to us, and a piece of heaven.
 
That is what I’ll do then. I will try to corral her this weekend. I would be very sad if something should happen to her now given the plan I envisioned. Do you guys be have any particular recommendation for temporary food for the next couple days?I’ve just, perhaps foolishly, been giving out wild bird seed that I use for finches and such. She also gets her fill on my blackberries and raspberries as well (very entertaining to watch her hop up to reach them).

I ordered Kalmbach chicken feed after seeing multiple users on here give good reviews. So that will be coming next week.

It’s actually pretty neat, everything about chickens I’ve learned over the past month. So much good info here. I know Hay Hay and my future chickens will be very thankful 🙏
 
delflipz17 said:
That is what I’ll do then. I will try to corral her this weekend. I would be very sad if something should happen to her now given the plan I envisioned. Do you guys be have any particular recommendation for temporary food for the next couple days?I’ve just, perhaps foolishly, been giving out wild bird seed that I use for finches and such. She also gets her fill on my blackberries and raspberries as well (very entertaining to watch her hop up to reach them).

I ordered Kalmbach chicken feed after seeing multiple users on here give good reviews. So that will be coming next week.

It’s actually pretty neat, everything about chickens I’ve learned over the past month. So much good info here. I know Hay Hay and my future chickens will be very thankful 🙏
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Chickens love eggs. Boiled or scrambled. Give her the shell also, she probably needs the calcium. Mine also love sardines.
 
Will do! Finally made some tangible progress. The run arrived yesterday. Here are a few photos of the assembly. It was actually quite easy, even by myself. Little smaller than I had imagined. The wire at came with it seemed kinda like a joke. I’ll still put it on but I’m running to the store in a bit to grab a bunch of hardware cloth to use as the main line of defense
 

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delflipz17 said:
Will do! Finally made some tangible progress. The run arrived yesterday. Here are a few photos of the assembly. It was actually quite easy, even by myself. Little smaller than I had imagined. The wire at came with it seemed kinda like a joke. I’ll still put it on but I’m running to the store in a bit to grab a bunch of hardware cloth to use as the main line of defense
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Hardware cloth is definitely best. At least you have a frame to work with.
 
delflipz17 said:
Will do! Finally made some tangible progress. The run arrived yesterday. Here are a few photos of the assembly. It was actually quite easy, even by myself. Little smaller than I had imagined. The wire at came with it seemed kinda like a joke. I’ll still put it on but I’m running to the store in a bit to grab a bunch of hardware cloth to use as the main line of defense
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Yes the wire that comes with those is horrible. HWC is the way to go
 
delflipz17 said:
Small update today. I’m starting to get somewhat concerned about my chicken friend that my wife started calling “hay hay”. I’m pretty certain it’s a hen now. No spurs whatsoever on the leg, never crows only soft clucks when she seems happy

Couple days ago, I followed her around dusk. I was surprised to find her roosting in a row of pines only about 30 yards from my garage.

Today, I saw her milling about near her roost in the picture. I went up to her and just sat on the grass. I tried making clucking noises and after a minute she confidently strode towards me. So I was able to get the closest look at her in 3+weeks. She has a lot of feathers missing from around her tail area, I can see her red skin 😭 Not sure if it was an attempted predation or what. She also had a strange looking black speckled spot on her neck that looked featherless. It’s actually pretty visible from one of the pics. If any one has any thoughts I’d appreciate it.

My run is close by according to the tracking, so I’m hoping to start setting it up tomorow or Saturday. Obviously, I’d like to secure Hay Hay as soon as possible so that my wife can treat her if needed. Needless to say that should be much safer for her then living outside in a pine tree.

It may seem silly to some, but I have a dream of taking this cast away chicken and giving her a proper home and allow her to become the alpha of a flock of her own. It’d be hard to come up with a better redemption story than that.
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Not silly in the least! Very inspirational! :love

You might want to pick up some permethrin dust as she possibly has mites or lice which could explain some of her condition. When you’re able to handle her, dust her with that, especially her rump and under her wings, and her living quarters too, repeating in a week.

Besides permethrin dust, you may also want to get some chicken vitamins, for her and just to have on hand. Most of us use Poultry Cell or Nutra-Drench.
 

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