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Would be grateful for ideas about how to place feeders so both my chickens will feel comfortable using them. I have two hens, Odile (pita pinta, lead hen) and Medora (light Brahma, timid). A couple of weeks ago, Medora starting acting lethargic. I took her to the vet, who gave her antibiotics...

Has anyone done this? If so, I would really appreciate directions. The company owner is always very helpful, but since it is the weekend he may not be available and I need to fix this asap. If you have replaced your motor, I would be very grateful for advice written for someone with mininal diy...

I hope this doesn't sound too crazy. Last Sunday, I was briefly on a property where there were a couple of chickens. They were in a run, which I didn't go into -- I was just walking around on the grass outside the run for a few minutes. On Monday, I had to go outside my own house to talk to...

I was't sure where to post this, but it was so cute I had to share. This is from a 1601 English translation of the classical Latin author Pliny the Elder's treatise on natural history: THE HENS of countrey houses have a certaine ceremonious religion. When they have laid an egge, they fall a...

I have two hens; one is going through a hard molt and one is not. The molting hen started making this little chirping sound a few days ago. At first I thought she was just complaining about molting, but I noticed that she does it when she finds worms in the ground, and then my other hen runs...

I have only two hens, and I limit the amount of scratch I give them, so as a consequence, I am realizing that the bin of scratch I have is a year old now. They sell it only in 25-lb bags, so I had to get a lot at once. The brand is Scratch 'n' Peck, and it looks like it is mostly whole grains...

OK, I have been bugging everyone with a million crazy questions about mites lately, but this one might win the prize. Can squirrels transmit mites to chickens? Or are bird mites their own category and unrelated to what a squirrel carries? I ask because, sigh, I seem to have an over friendly...

A couple of weeks ago, I found a tiny, faint streak of blood on an egg from an adult hen and was told that this is a sign of mites. I held off on treating chemically because I am very reluctant to introduce pesticides into the hens' environment. There were no other eggs with blood on them after...

Has anyone used this? There are some older threads that refer to it incidentally while talking about other oils, but I would be really grateful for up-to-date and specific directions on dosage, concentration, and effectiveness if anyone can provide these. Thanks.

This morning my hen had her vent open and was trying to pass a stool but couldn't. I saw her sort of push a couple of times: I was worried about her being blocked, so I took some wet paper towels and gently removed the stool. But even after I did that, her vent area didn't seem to...

I had some fancy Icelandic yogurt, which is very thick, left over, so I gave some to my girls since they usually like yogurt. They loved it and gobbled it up, but because it's so much thicker than regular yogurt, there is a lot of yogurt on their beaks; usually this doesn't happen nearly so much...

My friends sent me this pic from Crete. Anyone recognize the breeds?

It gets very hot where I live, and a chicken-keeping friend suggested buying a kiddie pool for my girls. (This is my first summer with chickens.) So I did that, filled it with about an inch and a half of water, and am now trying to figure out how to get them to use it without scaring them. I...

This isn't a question, just a funny thing. My girls have a two-section run, one part with dirt and one with sand, which they enjoy for dust bathing. I opened the door at the sand end today to give them a free range and then sat down on a ledge near the open door. They did their usual promenade...

My ladies' horizontal nipple waterer broke yesterday, and I have to wait 24 hours for the sealant to dry where I patched it (lesson learned -- I will always have two leak-free waterers on hand at any time from now on). So they will go for more than a day without their regular waterer. It will be...

So, I use unfiltered cider vinegar to clean around my coop, and I just accidentally poured out the "mother" (goopy, stringy stuff) on the ground and my hen downed it, possibly thinking it was a worm. Will it bother her stomach? Should I do anything? I know that ACV is good for them, but this was...

This is a silly question, but I am curious. Usually my girls are very orderly about egg laying -- they politely take turns using the box and have pretty much gotten used to the routine. This morning, a couple of weird things happened. One hen stayed upstairs when I let them out, and when I when...

One of my hens just started laying a couple of weeks ago, and she often lays eggs that are a little cracked at the pointy end: I thought this was because that end of the egg came out first, and the crack was caused by the impact when it was hitting the coop floor (she is not using her box)...

My ladies have decided that they want to lay near the door to their coop (the opening in the floor is for the ladder into the run): You can see where one girl had just scratched around in the corner; the egg was there. I haven't interfered so far because I actually don't mind them laying...

My partner (we'll call him Mr. Ballerina Bird) likes fat-free foods, so he loves stuff like angel food cakes and meringues and divinity, anything made with egg whites, but he won't touch egg yolks. Does anyone have recipes they like that feature yolks only? I am especially good at baking and...