Recent content by NameIwish

Crumble for chicks. Cantaloupe and watermelon rind as a treat - provides nutrients and moisture. After a week or so consider tossing in some grass (or weed) clippings - they will love them when they are ready.

For what it is worth, I've had four week old chicks in an out door cage without any issues. I left the little carry home box in there with them (after cutting a 'door') and they used it at night (keeping one another warm) but rand about like cheerful chicks once the sun rose in the East.

Sue: Better to have a sloping site so that water may easily run off. They are chickens, and will not notice the slope - but would notice the dampness. The floor of the coop can be as level as its walls are plumb. Gaps between ground and structure can be closed off with wire mesh buried at...

Wow! You're up at at them birds before 6:15 AM! It was 15:35 before I realized I'd not yet let them out. Course, they've a larger enclosure and, when I do let 'em out (they've their own rooster), they get their choice of some 20ac if they don't cross my property lines.

Hmmm, I dug two quarters out of my left front pocket and gave one to my wife. Then, we each flipped the quarters and recorded how they fell. So, based on that, it seems you should see me for heads and my wife for tails. What is the AMBIENT HUMIDITY in the room where your incubator resides...

I would think it much higher since the 'natural' method involves laying a living hen atop the clutch - think of the humidity under your armpit.

I buy a couple bags of crumbles with five bags of CC and mix them a bit as I transfer them to my (rat proof?) feed storage barrels. Then, when I refill the feeder I get a mix of the two. I pay about ten bucks for the CC and eleven for the Crumbles or pellets and think I'm treating them with...

Jeeze, you are awfully sensitive. Didn't you notice the ;) in my 'nomination' comment? It was meant as a bit of humor. I see over sixty posts - a number of which appear to be people taking your first warning to heart. My wife is always 'announcing' stuff she reads on FB or some such...

Thank you. I did find lids for $2.99 but only after I'd solved my problem. I do find the hens strew an awful lot of the cracked corn about in the process of pecking out the bits they do consume!

"lay a light speckled egg" No, they seem to lay a middle of the range or tan egg, darker than some, lighter than some others but definitely NOT Hershey Bar Chocolate or even close. Thanks for the FB

Right, we can but hope - thanks for the feedback. Don't forget, National Pinhole Camera Day (last Sunday in April) is fast approaching - very difficult to shoot a duck with a pinhole camera, though.

You said the bowl was under the coop and the rain that got into it must have run off the roof into a bowl that had been sitting under there for quite a while. You admitted 'it was hardly Scientific,' so there's that mea culpa. Given this effort you went through to confirm this Black Rubber Bowl...

I got the (orange*) "Chicken Feeder No Waste Automatic Poultry Feeder 12 Ports Kit 6 Chicken Feeders and 6 Water'r Set for $13.99 @ Amazon" And installed them in two old plastic buckets. Set them up on blocks and the hens went right at it as if they'd ordered the things on the Coop Shopping...

Now, I did try online w/o success - did not find an easy way to id these two new (to us) birds we bought cheap at a flea market. So, I thought to take three pictures and post them here on the chance someone would look and exclaim "I know that there bird well!" Then post a response sharing...

What is it you are raising these chicks for? Meat? Eggs? Pets? I raise 'em for eggs and buy Golden Comets. When we first started, the birds were as much an attraction for the grandchildren as a food source so I bought whatever was cheapest and a couple of Polish and a pair of ducks (Cheese and...