Recent content by JuliaSunshine

I'd love to see the 9th do some bullying herself lol. I'm sure she'd a good job. Actually I took the 8th away for 2 days and put her back with the flock before they forgot her. I think there was a slight improvement between the 8th and the 9th. I guess whoever becomes the bottom, she'll get some...

Thank you. That's a good point. The problem is that the 8th is my second favorite who I've been training to tolerate my handling so I can hug her sometimes. It'll be upsetting to see the other hens peck and chase away the 8th even more than now. It's tough to decide who to choose to baby. I...

I have 9 hens (no rooster) and the 8th (8 months old) on the hierarchy bullies the bottom one, 9th (also 8 months old). She always pecks the 9th and whenever the 9th is in the nesting box, she chases her away even though she doesn't want to lay herself. The 9th happened to be my favorite as she...

Thank you for your input. I want to build an insulated coop for them as the temp occasionally drop quite a bit and it gets very gusty. I'll have to think more about roost placement.

Thank you. That's good to hear. Now I have 4 chickens indoors 55F , three crammed in a dog cage. They seem to be standing and moving normally. I'm hoping to put them back out tomorrow. Tomorrow it's going be 32F day and 28F at night. How long does it tak to see if they got a frostbite or not...

Yes, I guess he was worried about them but getting water in case the nipple waterer freezes. We'll get a heated waterer in the future. They're all standing on their feet. The first one didn't use one foot at first but after soaking she seemed to be using it.

Thank you. Now I'm soaking the third chickens feet. They have a nipple waterer in the coop and I'm upset that my husband still wanted to put the water bowl in there nonetheless. Anyways, they seem okay for now but I don't know how they would act if they got a frostbite. Their feet look pretty...

My husband put a bowl of water in the coop when it's 14F this morning. (I told him not to, explaining that they will knock the bowl over, but he did it anyways while I was sleeping. He admitted that he was being a knucklehead and is now apologetic and repentant, according to his words.) That was...

Thank you for sharing your coop pictures. How often do you clean the poop board? I think we can clean one only once a week at the most.

Thank you for sharing. I also had more chickens than recommended in a small coop without much problem in the summer. I guess the bigger the coop the better you're prepared for emergencies or special situations. But I don't want to have a big coop where I have to run around and around to grab a...

My chickens enjoyed hiding and dust bathing under a small 8'x12' building while free ranging in the summer so I thought I'd recreate it under the coop. Also they use the dust baths I made with a rubber bin, kitty pool and wheelbarrow in the run or outside. Maybe because it's hard to find dry...

The new coop will be only 1.5' raised from the ground to give the chickens to hide and enjoy dust bath in the summer. It'll be a walk-in and I don't need to get under it. My second one is not a walk-in and it's so hard to grab a chicken from there when I need to. Thank you for sharing your...

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation with many excellent points. Maybe I'll think about splitting the 12X8 coop into 8X8 for sleeping and 4X8 for occasional separation needs. I have 2 more coops in different areas that I can use to keep some separated if necessary.

I'm building a run and a coop again and hoping third time's a charm. The new covered 12'X22' run will be completely predator proof with hardware cloth and the chickens will have access 24/7 to the run from the coop. It's pretty mild in the winter here, usually around 40F. The lowest was 10F and...

Thank you. It'll be very helpful to manage my chickens in isolation.