Recent content by Dmontgomery

I have had several molting already, primarily our Black Star hens. It seemed to come a little early this year.

We have had mixed luck moving broody hens. I guess it depends on the momma’s determination. We’ve found the most successful way is to let her sit wherever she wants until the first egg hatches, then relocate her and all the eggs CAREFULLY to a brooder box. We use removable “trays” inside our...

We had the same thing happen here a couple years ago. A stray guinea hen showed up in our yard one day and moved right in with all the other chickens! There is a family about a mile away with a guinea flock, so we assumed she came from there. She was extremely well behaved and never caused any...

I’ve always used pine shavings and have never had problems. Medium flake size. Just scoop out the nasty bits as needed. Get hanging feeders and water bottles. They can’t knock them over.

I posted a thread on this forum a couple years ago called “New Coop Project” that might be helpful. I turned an old rabbit hutch/tree house in to a large coop for some friends of ours. Depending on your location, you could take out one of the walls to create all the ventilation you would need...

Absolutely! The answer is almost always yes, get more chickens! Right now you have a pretty small flock, so as long as you have the room for them, get more. You’ve got the separate pen already, so integration shouldn’t be a problem. Free ranging will also help because there is less competition...

Go back to the BYC homepage and click on the articles section. Then open up the “coops” and click on “large coops”. Scroll through a couple pages until you get to an article called “Hot Weather Coops” by @getaclue from June 2017. It will give you some good ideas about what you need to consider...

Since I appear to be awake first, I’ll reply first. Congratulations on getting them in the new coop at night and especially on getting them to lay in the nesting box. It took me 2 years to get mine to lay inside the coop! Since yours were just hatched in June, they may not even have an interest...

My guineas free range all day but sleep in a “secure” coop at night with all the other chickens. My main hen starts nests wherever she wants to. She has been laying since late February, because our weather is so warm most of the time. Her only successful hatch this year was in a nesting box...

My guineas come up on the porch and beg me for mealworms. It is by far their favorite treat. Always has been. I don’t know why yours don’t like them. I’ve got 25 baby 3 week old chicks in the brooder that won’t touch mealworms or seed though. I’ve never seen any chicken or guinea who wouldn’t...

Our youngest guineas are coming up on 6 months old. They have roosted in the coop with their parents and all the chickens since they hatched. A couple weeks ago, all 9 of the young ones decided to sleep on top of the coop one night. It’s about 11’ high. They slept up there 3 or 4 nights, then...

I wish I could offer you some advice, but I have no experience with this situation. I did say say a quick prayer that it all works out for you though.

It makes perfect sense. I’ve observed the exact same behavior and inadvertently put myself in place of the rooster at times. We have a couple nesting boxes on our back porch, in addition to several in the coop. Frequently I will reward a hen singing the egg song with a treat of mealworms and she...

I feel for you. We’ve had 2 hens sitting on eggs all month and we weren’t sure if they would hatch or not, so we went to TSC yesterday to pick up “6” chicks to put under the new mommas just in case. When we got to TSC they had one corral left and the associate said that would be it for the year...