What did you do with your flock today?

[TropicalBabies]

Skimmed the floating fern (aka common duckweed) off of my fish bowls and fed to the chooks. Refilled 5g gravity feeder. Checked nest box ♡ 2 days worth of eggs. The now settled and more normal laying begins??? We shall see.

Never gets old.

 

[ValerieJ]

Skimmed the floating fern (aka common duckweed) off of my fish bowls and fed to the chooks. Refilled 5g gravity feeder. Checked nest box ♡ 2 days worth of eggs. They are now settled and more normal laying begins??? We shall see.View attachment 4027208View attachment 4027209
Never gets old.

Beautiful!

 

[Shetland lover]

Ok. I like your secret. I can do that .

I've had a few fellow keepers ask me how my unwashed eggs were so clean. I could not figure out how theirs were so dirty...

My girls' eggs are almost never dirty - and they all sleep in the nest boxes! Plenty roosts available but it's rare they use them.

 

[TropicalBabies]

My girls' eggs are almost never dirty - and they all sleep in the nest boxes! Plenty roosts available but it's rare they use them.

Man, your girls are civilized. When I have had a nest box sleeper they would mess in the box. Usually a extra unused box but there were times when I had poopy eggs because of confusion. Normally they grow out of it and join the flock, mostly i toss them out. But this time, I remember being pretty over crowded. Housing 25- 30 chickens and 2 roos, probably cockerels... into one run temporary insanity, I'm feeling better now.

 

[ValerieJ]

I don't like nest box sleepers either, but I do give my chickens free choice in their lives to live as they wish, so it happens from time to time. Normally only when I have a broody hen, and that's okay with me.

We are having cold and wet weather, so my chickens all want to stay indoors, or at least in the screened in portion of their coop all day. DH goes out and tells them to get outside and breath the fresh air, but I say. let them alone. It just means more coop cleaning, but they may be staying in there because they see an aerial predator. We do have those, so they might be acting smartly. I trust them.

 

[Shetland lover]

Man, your girls are civilized. When I have had a nest box sleeper they would mess in the box. Usually a extra unused box but there were times when I had poopy eggs because of confusion. Normally they grow out of it and join the flock, mostly i toss them out. But this time, I remember being pretty over crowded. Housing 25- 30 chickens and 2 roos, probably cockerels... into one run temporary insanity, I'm feeling better now.

I do poop pick every morning when I let everyone out. It's not a big job with just 5 chickens. I also find that my lot tend to poop in just one place. Ferdy ALWAYS goes in the back right.hand corner - he IS house-trained, which is probably why.
I'd make mine roost too if I was that overcrowded, too

 

[Shetland lover]

I don't like nest box sleepers either, but I do give my chickens free choice in their lives to live as they wish, so it happens from time to time. Normally only when I have a broody hen, and that's okay with me.

We are having cold and wet weather, so my chickens all want to stay indoors, or at least in the screened in portion of their coop all day. DH goes out and tells them to get outside and breath the fresh air, but I say. let them alone. It just means more coop cleaning, but they may be staying in there because they see an aerial predator. We do have those, so they might be acting smartly. I trust them.

Mine basically do what they want too. Chickens should be allowed to get on with chickening in my view. The only thing I do insist on is a summer curfew. If I didn't, I'd be up all night waiting for the girls to go to bed and the boys would be making a racket trying to get them in the coops

 

[ValerieJ]

I do poop pick every morning when I let everyone out. It's not a big job with just 5 chickens. I also find that my lot tend to poop in just one place. Ferdy ALWAYS goes in the back right.hand corner - he IS house-trained, which is probably why.
I'd make mine roost too if I was that overcrowded, too

We do that too. We have sandboxes under the perches and those are scooped daily. That is where they do most of their business. But right now they are spending so much time inside that they are also messing up the straw on the floor, so we have to change that out every couple weeks. They don't do it a lot, and it's an 8x10 coop, so fortunately we are not changing straw every day.

Ferdy is such a civilized boy.

 

[TropicalBabies]

I do poop pick every morning when I let everyone out. It's not a big job with just 5 chickens. I also find that my lot tend to poop in just one place. Ferdy ALWAYS goes in the back right.hand corner - he IS house-trained, which is probably why.
I'd make mine roost too if I was that overcrowded, too

More is better??? meh, loving my downsized flock. Not supplying any eggs for anyone, anymore.
It is so warm here with no real predators that there is no excuse to be in a nest box other than low on the pecking order and over crowding. My fault and I sorted it out after pushing mine and their limits. It was overwhelming and I was a referee more than I should have been. Funny, at the time it just seemed normal.

 

[ValerieJ]

Productive day! House is clean, new straw in the coop with nesting herbs. Both places smell great now! It's 37 now but we will get down into the 20s this week so I know the girls will be inside a lot of the time. In fact, I had to chase them out to clean today.

Time to make some tortillas for tacos.