new to chickens

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Warfarin

Warfarin

In the Brooder
6 Years
Jul 25, 2013
11
0
24
Indianola Utah
Well I'm on my way to life with chickens. I do need some advice. First off I have 5 acres and the place came with a nice coop. I was given a black rooster and a white hen two days ago. Hen seems old and rooster young. They don't like leaving the coop. I leave the door open during the day. Yesterday I was given 3, what appear to be barre rock, chickens. 1 rooster and 2 hens. They get along with the others. The 2 roosters have seperated the flock. The black has kept his white chicken and the barre rocks are together. My issue is this, the barre rocks came to me from some friends that gave them to somebody else first. They were beat up badly by the flock and one of the hens is missing about 60% of her feathers. She seems healthy other than missing feathers. She is following the rooster around the place eating bugs to her hearts content. Is there anything special I need to do for her? They will all be free range chickens.

Thanks,

Robert Broadhead
 
Greetings from Kansas, Robert, and
welcome-byc.gif
! Pleased you joined us! Probably the first thing that is now too late to do is to quarantine the new birds asthe new and old birds could potentially pass diseases or parasites to one another. What I would do now is give them all a good parasite dusting. On the bald-ish hen...not much you can do but wait until after the fall molt and see if they feathers come back - they should if she is healthy and the feather loss is due to being pecked. Keep an eye on her, however, so the others don't single her out for abuse. Maybe up the protein in their feed if they look on the thin side, and a little apple cider vinegar in their water. Best wishes.

Here's a thread about ACV:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/586961/why-do-you-guys-give-your-chickens-apple-cider-vinegar
 
If i were you i would de-worm and follow the instructions of the post above. Taking in some else's brids is a tricky subject. What ever problems they had you now have. If they are all older birds they will not be great layers any more. I don't know why you are getting into chickens but i am sure eggs are one reason. I would get these birds healthy and established then next spring find a hatchery and get your self some young healthy chicks and start with some new blood.
 
The birds have been dusted. And she was attacked is the reason for no feathers, hence the reason I have her. As for why I got into chickens. Eggs is one reason as I really don't like chicken meat. This is not one I can really answer as I have just always liked chickens. Even when I was little I tried talking dad into chickens and being upset when he always said no. At the time I didn't realize zoning prohibited having them. Thanks for the advice on the rooster to hen ratio. I think the best course of action there would be to just get more chickens. My wife won't like that answer
big_smile.png
, but she will learn to like them.

One more question. I have two Dachshunds. One could care less about the chickens and the other wants to kill them. Any suggestions on how I can help them get along with each other?
 
Warfarin said:
The birds have been dusted. And she was attacked is the reason for no feathers, hence the reason I have her. As for why I got into chickens. Eggs is one reason as I really don't like chicken meat. This is not one I can really answer as I have just always liked chickens. Even when I was little I tried talking dad into chickens and being upset when he always said no. At the time I didn't realize zoning prohibited having them. Thanks for the advice on the rooster to hen ratio. I think the best course of action there would be to just get more chickens. My wife won't like that answer
big_smile.png
, but she will learn to like them.

One more question. I have two Dachshunds. One could care less about the chickens and the other wants to kill them. Any suggestions on how I can help them get along with each other?
Click to expand...
Wow! That's an explosive topic. Type in 'dog and chickens' into the BYC search thread, get yourself a big cup of coffee and be prepared to do a lot of reading. Hope you find some suggestions to help you out!!
 
Ok so with the dog problem. I have 2 Dacshunds. One male only cares about his ball so no problem there. his mother is the one with the issues. So I took her into the coop and held her and introduced her to the chickens. The chickens were not fond of this idea but she has learned that the chickens belong there. I don't trust her around them alone but with me around she doesn't bother them.
The feathers have started to grow back on the two Barre rocks hens I have. I now need a third barre rock hen as I have named the other to Margo and Edith from despicable me. I need an Agnus. Next spring I guess.

They all appear to be healthy and only one is laying eggs for me. Not sure why the other Barre rock isn't laying. I know the White hen I have is just to old. How do you know if they are getting enough food. I let them run around the place and eat whatever, I'm guessing bugs, and I feed them scraps. They love corn on the cob. I also have some laying hen scratch that I feed them. I want to make sure they are getting enough food. Will they get to fat if I over feed them like other animals do? And is this a problem? For now they have all the bugs they can eat but this obviously will change in the winter so how much food do I need to give them? And speaking of winter how cold can they handle? It does get really cold here last winter we hit -20 on a regular basis. Thanks for any replies.
 

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