Recent content by rolohman

My husband and I used the broomstick method for the first time this fall on a young rooster. It was foolproof. We ended up pulling the head off by accident instead of just breaking it, which was messy, but at least gave us full confidence that he didn’t feel a thing.

Yes, my goal is to keep them from making eggs- fake eggs in there now! I don’t like waste, but I’m the future I will probably just cook and feed the eggs back to the chickens. Might try steaming them once, since that seems to be what they do at the fancy restaurants where they are considered a...

So- I wasn’t sure if the young pigeons I bought last September were a boy and a girl or what, but apparently I have one of each! Had our first two eggs and at least one appeared to be fertilized (circle apparent on yolk). I cracked them to check for that, and figured I’d fry them just so they...

Everyone is laying!!!

About 4' at door side, shorter in the back. Here's a link to my article with photos: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/chickens-of-the-woods.78874/

Couple thoughts - My coop is elevated, base hits me at the hips. It's 3' deep, and I find that is DEFINITELY deep enough for my six chickens to wander around and hang out. Deeper and it'd be significantly harder for me to reach all the way across. I don't see any mention of poop boards yet...

Oooh - I have two 20lb empty feed bags lying around - I'll cut them up right now and give that a try. Thank you!

Good morning! We've had our first 12 eggs from our six chickens - 3-4 of them are laying, we think. About half of the eggs have been stepped on and slightly cracked. The hens go into the nesting boxes (12" cubes) and proceed to scratch scratch scratch until all the wood chips are gone. There...

For some reason I keep singing this to myself to the tune of "I am the walrus". So - my question is about chickens squatting for me now that they've started to lay. All but one of them were very standoffish til now, but now I'm enjoying the fact that all six cluster around me and squat and...

Three or four are laying now. Got two blue ones yesterday, different sizes. Not sure if that has to be two different birds or if the first egg can sometimes be stuck so that you get two at once. Then a brown egg today- not olive with blue inside like the first egg. I’m poaching the unbroken...

Bought some- showing up Sunday!! I thought they’d wait til a little later in spring.

Now I need to read up on how to encourage her to lay in the boxes instead of outside in the middle of the run!

One!!!! But it is our first so we are thrilled.

First eggs! We got one yesterday as a valentines present but I didn’t find it til this morning. By then it had frozen and cracked. So, the chickens had a scrambled egg treat! This afternoon, whoever it is laid another one, which we proudly brought in and poached. It is a nice olive. The inside...