Recent content by slipshift

Update to the cleanliness of the chick waterer, one of our chicks (Sweety) found they make an excellent foot bath. Even so, it stays much cleaner than the traditional chick waterer. Jim

We put our chicks outside at 1 week, they are now 3 weeks old and a problem we had was the waterer would get dirty and clogged. Our solution was to use a catfood can. It is attached to the coop frame with a drywall screw. Now the water stays clean and is easy to refill through the chicken...

I forgot to mention that the eggs are ones I found under a bush. Several of the hens would lay in this spot with various hens setting for a short time. Maybe some of the eggs are further along. Jim

My chicks are hatching on the 19th day, again. The first batch did the same, 4 on day 19 and 2 more on day 20. Is this OK? The incubator is home-made from an ice chest, temp varies between 99 and 100, humidity was in the high 40's until lockdown on day 18, then up to high 70's after lockdown...

Sourlandis right, Great Horned Owl. Game cameras are cheap nowdays and not only will it take a picture but will record the time of the event. Jim

I went out to check our 2 1/2 week old chicks and found a dead one with a black snake wrapped around it. I turned it into a "good" black snake with a bullet in the head. People tell me they are beneficial, they kill mice and copperheads. Mice and copperheads don't kill chickens and all the...

We live in a similar area here in the Ozarks. Our chickens free range and we lose about 1 a month. It's been in the 90's the past week so we took our 5 day old chicks out for a "walk" and they seemed so happy. I think free ranging gives them a better quality of life but it is hard to lose...

So sorry about your babies, we have had that happen from owls and coyotes. We have 4 dogs and we introduce them to the chicks when they are a few days old. All the dogs do is smell them but they realize the chickens are pets, more or less. The dogs are self-appointed wardens, breaking up...

Very nice! I'll have to fix up something like that. Our chicks use their feeder as a toilet and their waterer as a foot bath. Jim

We name our chickens, about 2 dozen. The oddest is "Bonus Chick", which grew into a monster rooster but still kept his name. Murray McMurray threw in an extra in our order. Then there is/was "Hoppy" which got a damaged leg from a predator. "Golden Hen" and so on. Jim

Pics ??? Jim

Woke up with a start at 3:00 am, 70 deg. outside. I thought if the chicks didn't make use of the heat lamp they would all be dead of hypothermia. When I went out to check them they were all wide awake, chasing bugs and each other in their yard. Definitely outdoor chicks, the days we took them...

Six days old and they love being outside. They have a heat lamp inside their condo but tonight they are all huddled together in a corner of their yard. There is a straw base inside the condo and I'm thinking they don't like it, if so I'll take out the straw and put in some wood chips. They're...

We just hatched 6 chicks in our incubator and all seemed pretty healthy. When the hens hatched eggs they would have the chicks running through the woods the first or second day so we decided to take our 4 day old chick out for a "walk" in the chicken pen. The first day they just practiced...

I'm new to incubating, can you really just tilt them? I marked an egg under my broody hen after she left the nest when we were handing out noodle snacks. The eggs seemed to be rolled on their sides, not end to end. Jim