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  1. SamLockwood

    Poll: Do high-value treats turn your chickens into savages?

    There's the usual pecking order reinforcement, but nobody gets that out of sorts since I tend to spread the scratch feed out over a pretty wide area. After a minute or two of chaos the flock sorts itself out and everyone peacefully munches away.
  2. SamLockwood

    Is this a terrible idea?

    If they were raised togther for 4 months they'll have likely bonded and consider themselves a flock and you'll have the usual problems integrating strangers with them. In general chickens don't like strangers or strangeness of any kind, and often respond aggressively to newcomers. The only time...
  3. SamLockwood

    Daytime Preds

    Since I improved the coops and run and started free ranging, I've only had predator losses in daytime. The first year was awful: I had 7 losses to predation (4 chickens to a bobcat, 2 guineas to a coyote, 1 pullet to a hawk, and one chicken probably to a coyote). Year two went better in some...
  4. SamLockwood

    Guinea keets!

    I definitely would have done things differently with the first generation. The biggest issues I had were in the first 18.months. AFter that, the biggest difficulty is if I introduced new birds to the flock: the guinea hens don't like any strangers, even other guineas. Oddly, if I let the...
  5. SamLockwood

    Questions about lockdown

    From experience, you're going to have to accept you're going to lose a significant portion of the hatch: I've had power interruptions a couple of times and it always causes problems. I wouldn't worry of the egg turner worked or didn't a day or two early or late. I haven't seen that be as big a...
  6. SamLockwood

    Bloody Egg Struggling to Hatch

    Some hens are not good mothers. Other times they don't like what they see in a hatching egg or hatchling and abandon it or even kill it Remember that while they look cute and fluffy they are actually tiny dinosaurs and sometimes your backyard chickens act out scenes from Jurassic Park. On the...
  7. SamLockwood

    Guinea keets!

    It might. It might also give your chickens some guinea tendencies, which may or may not be a good thing depending on how much tolerance you have for guinea fowl quirks. Guineas are very territorial, much more group oriented, and more aggressive than than chickens. How well they get along with...
  8. SamLockwood

    Not sure whats going on with my hen

    That was my first thought. Some of them get really weird the first time they get broody. One youngest hens got broody for the first time this summer, and any time she left the nesting box she was puffed up to the point she looked like she grew spikes and growled constantly if anything got near her.
  9. SamLockwood

    Broody adopting baby chicks: moving logistics

    She'll wait until the chicks get their legs under them and start getting hungry. Depending on mommas place on the pecking order and if you you have other broodies you may need to separate or not. It depends on how they interact. This year I had multiple broodies that hatched multiple chicks and...
  10. SamLockwood

    Baby hatched in raised coop question

    The better mothers keep the chicks inside as much as possible the first couple days until the chicks get their legs under them. I help out by providing them their own food and water source in the coop. They're pretty good at training them, and when the babies get feathers enough, usually 2 to 4...
  11. SamLockwood

    Two heat exhaustion deaths in a month

    I had a similar incident with a guinea fowl last year: he was outside and wallowing around in a puddle but was clearly disoriented and suffering heat exhaustion. I picked him up and brought him inside and he went into convusions and was dead in less than a minute. Perhaps he was already far too...
  12. SamLockwood

    Normal integration behavior, or do we need to separate?

    A certain amount of aggression is always inevitable. This isn't a species that has a sophisitcated method of communicating, so "go away" is usually a quick warning, followed by pecking and chasing. Where I call it excessive is when you start seing missing feathers, actual injuries, or where the...
  13. SamLockwood

    Roosters… to keep or not to keep?

    6:1 isn't a terrible ratio for hens to roosters, although getting 10 roos to get along would require a LOT of space. In my experience if you drop below 4:1 you're definitely going to have problems even with an ideal setup if only from the over-mating of the hens. Make sure to have backup plans...
  14. SamLockwood

    Guineas- What the hell!!

    Absent any real details it's hard to say. First, guineas tend to like being in larger groups and tend to get very tetchy if they're alone or in small groups. If you have a proper flock of guineas and one gets separated from the group they often go into full panic mode. Second, guineas are...
  15. SamLockwood

    Group parenting in my flock

    This afternoon. They like to hang out in the shade under the deck.
  16. SamLockwood

    Group parenting in my flock

    From a couple weeks ago, as they were getting ready to roost early for the night. The first week, while they disupted custody.
  17. SamLockwood

    Group parenting in my flock

    Not really a problem or a question, just noting some interesting behavior in my mixed flock. The second year in a row I let some of my broodies hatch chicks & keets, as well as some "back-ups" I hatched indoors. Last year only a pair of chicks made it and the mothers raised them separately. I...
  18. SamLockwood

    First 4th of July with Chickens

    The first time they got a bit upset, but since then my flock doesn't seem to care. And where I live we get fireworks for Cinco de Mayo and Diwali as well as July 4th, Memorial Day, and Veteran's day. Plus they've seen me shoot predators. At this point unless it's actual thunder they don't...
  19. SamLockwood

    Female Guinea laying but not sitting

    Their usual nesting behavior is the male scouts out the nest first, and if he thinks it's OK he'll make some approving sounds (which sounds like my tinnitus acting up) and then he'll stand guard while she lays. Before she lays she'll often give what chicken-keepers mistakenly call an "egg...
  20. SamLockwood

    It's been a very rough first year with chickens. Anyone else?

    Where I live, frequent downpours and temps in the mid-90's are what we call "normal summer weather." If they're panting but otherwise acting normally they're not heat-stressed: it's just the only way they cool off. Chickens can't sweat and they're not inclined to get wet to cool off. Mine HATE...
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