Dear BYC Friends,
I know you won't let me down. (Yes I know I can hunt for this information on threads, but I would love to hear your input for my particular problem).
We have a trolling skunk. It began about 4 months ago when the chickens in the main coop went off in alarm around midnight. I...
I've had an older hen doing poorly for several weeks, with the inevitable end. She apparently didn't make it back to the coop last night (wasn't at coop count). She'd been spending more time hiding in corners of the yard, which is pretty hard to see at night.
So I looked this morning and found...
I have a 4 year old, senior Barnevelder rooster who is a sweetheart and who I value for his lovely terra cotta egg shell genes.
This last year, in July, I bred Barney to a lovely Cream Legbar to renew my olive eggers. I broody hatch, so my birds integrate into the main flock fairly easily. I...
Okay, gruesome topic, I know.
And please, nobody respond or PM me about how evil it is to cull (spelled kill) a chicken. Sometimes it is necessary.
I've tried other methods, but have found the broomstick the quickest and easiest for my needs when I need to cull a bird for either illness, poor...
Probably because my brain is mis-remembering the exact title, hence, search isn't bringing it up.
I've found and re-connected with the Broody Hen Thread, but there was also the Old Fashion(ed) Broody (or Brooding) Thread.
Can anyone help me with finding that?
Thx
LofMc
Do you do anything to protect your animal's health when they "rat?"
My rescue Rat Terrier caught and killed his first rat today. I'm so happy as I've trained him to not chase the chickens, and he runs through the flock now to chase squirrels and rats without touching chickens!!!!
I'm an...
I'm interested in starting a conversation thread about effective treatments for common maladies that owners can perform on their own chickens without resorting to a vet (if at all possible).
In case you haven't heard, the FDA has been very busy in removing many common drugs from the over the...
Okay...we've set the trap cage, placed the bait (in a jar attached at the back with holes poked through and some bacon wrapped around it too). Hopefully the banded rascal will take it.
Thus far this opportunistic vandal has killed one of my best layers and mauled one of my expensive breeders...
I've written an article about keeping chickens when you are managing a chronic illness that I think would be beneficial for those who wonder if chicken keeping is something to do when you are struggling with physical illness.
You may find it at this link...
Okay...since it is always easier to sex the other farmers chickens, I present these two hatchery quality Barnevelders purchased on June 4th and 6th at approximately 1 week of age, so about a June 1st latest hatch date (probably a little earlier)....so that would make them 5 to 6 weeks old...
The back run gate got left open and we had an opportunistic killing...lost a hen who was brooding in the nest box....but JUST the one hen.
It caused quite the ruckus as the other birds were all huddled in the opposite coop (I have 2 coops with a run in between them)....some odd feathers here...
Hopefully it's okay to post this here...but since many of my BYC friends frequent the "What Breed or Gender is This?" threads, and those coming here have so many different breeds, I wanted to post a link to a fun thread I started so that we can share photos of our lovely "hen" colored eggs for...
To all my friends on BYC....
I'm getting my egg baskets done this weekend...without any dye this year!
Now, please post your pretty egg baskets...NO dye...Nothing on the egg to change its natural color from the hen (washing dirt off okay, adding stickers okay)...NO artificial...
To all my friends on BYC....
Hopefully it's okay to post this here...but since many of my BYC friends frequent the "Chicken Behaviors and Egg Laying" thread, and those coming here have so many different breeds, with the focus on egg laying, I wanted to post a link to a fun thread I...
I like to keep a pretty egg basket, for myself, to give as gifts, and they sell better.
Having said that, I find that the white egg next to the other colors makes for a nice contrast, especially against my dark Maran eggs.
So I'm looking for a layer of white, medium large to large size eggs...
Okay...I ended up assisted hatching this little chick as it was "shrink wrapped" and part of an expensive (to me) batch of shipped eggs of a breed I cannot get locally (Buckeyes). I pulled it out from my broody after it had been "stuck" in the same hatching position for over 12 hours with no...
Okay...I just broody hatched 4 Rhodebars from hatching eggs purchased from a local breeder.
The breeder said look for head dots as the boys will have a head dot, however it can be too pale to see if the boy is light colored.
Other sites say the boys are yellow with no markings and the girls...
I'd like to start a thread for posting "nifty tricks and tips" you've learned along the way so that we have a spot to read through for ways to make life easier in chicken keeping. (I did a search on BYC and didn't find a thread exactly like this...or it was so buried a new one might be nice)...
Okay, I've got 2 six month old, almost 7 month old, EE's that are about a month into laying, going on their second month...so they are still relatively new layers. Both are laying the anticipated blue/green egg.
The eggs I am getting are still the smaller, new pullet size eggs, however they...
Okay...here are my current babies...first time for BCM's.
As of today, I think I have 1 very obvious roo (big comb) and likely 2 pullets. One chick has more copper on her than I was expecting, but her comb is so small I think it is just extra coloring on the hackle rather than roo coloring at...