Recent content by BurbCoop

Where does she sit in the pecking order? Is she the head hen? We have a Buff Orp, eight years old now. She took on the role of head hen early on and quit laying, but for a few times off and on. She would try to crow occasionally, but nothing consistent. We’ve pretty much chalked it up as she...

Ugh, we have one of “those” hens right now too 🙄 Curtains on the nesting boxes have helped a little, but some days she just goes off the rails and tries to micro manage all laying activities - the WORST 🤦🏼‍♂️ We’ve been having some long term egg quality issues. If those issues weren’t present...

Oof, I couldn’t imagine treating 100 birds 😳 Definitely a time consuming task and those darn mites are tough to treat!

Just a heads up, the birds pictured appear to have scaly leg mites in varying stages. Might want to get that treated and under control as it is looks to be spreading through the flock and will become a problem for your new pullets or hens pretty quickly. The white bird standing behind one of...

Our three laying hens are having egg quality issues. It seems like our new flock members always start out laying quality eggs, then things go down hill from there. PBE - currently laying (blue) misshaped eggs with calcium deposits and wrinkles or striations along the side. She is almost 2...

Two and one half 😆 Great example of a fairy egg out of our Prairie Bluebell who consistently lays the largest eggs in the flock.

You’ll have to let us know how it turns out. As others have mentioned, I could be totally off on that one being a cockerel. Fingers crossed you get five eggs 🤞🏻 Beautiful birds by the way. Always like the look of Welsummers.

The one in the upper left corner of the first picture with the inconsistent feather patterning, red patches on shoulders, and red developing comb (shown in pic 3) appears to be a cockerel. Can’t see it from the pics but it most likely has a dark colored chest compared to the others.

Alright, one more just because it is weird. This is the sister of the one I posted earlier today. She has what we like to call saggy diaper fluffy butt 😆 She is a very strange hen too 🤨

Happy Fluffy Butt Friday!

ALMOST had them lined up perfectly 😅

Turkeys don’t mess around! 🦃😆

x2 what TheWasp said. Eggs keep longer unwashed, with the bloom intact, pointy end down in the carton. We wash ours right before use. That is also normal behavior for the hens to not want to sit on the eggs. Chickens are communal layers, meaning they lay on top of, or add to, what other hens...

Another possibility looking at the expression she has in that pic - she may have been refusing oyster shell and giving you thin shelled eggs all this time simply out of spite 😆

Good questions from Kiki - if your flock is on layer feed currently, prior to the switch to grower, but getting a lot of treats, scratch, or table scraps, good chance she is not always getting the base calcium provided by the feed, let alone the free choice oyster shell she is not a fan of...