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The 13+ years continued saga: 2014 -- With only 3 gentle temperament hens left after giving up our two lovely but bully Leghorns we needed to add at least one more bird. With one timid Ameraucana "Taffy" and two gentle Silkies "Violet" and "Mini" left in the yard what new breed(s) to introduce...

You are so good caring for your chicks :thumbsup As for predators -- we never had predators until we put chickens in the yard. Predators smell the chickens and the chicken food and all of a sudden we had predators! So don't think you won't eventually get predators. Foxes and dogs are very...

@Companihen -- your chicks are adorable doing all their happy dust bathing! I don't know what predators are in your area. We have chicken hawks, raccoons coyotes, opossums, feral cats, stray dogs, small rodents like rats, rabbits, squirrels -- my DD additionally gets skunks, poisonous...

@mrskenmore -- Penny Marshall POW YAY!

@ASP -- lots of things I would do differently but my ideas are mine alone. None of these ideas may be your cup of tea so just showing what we did in the past 13+ yrs of chickeneering. Your temps seem awfully high. At those temps I never put half grown birds outside. Matter is, we kept most of...

Once my DD had her lid upside-down on her trash can and the upturned lid filled with rain water. As I drove into the driveway the kitty jumped onto the lid and got soaked. That's not the funny part. The next day the lid was still full of water and she shocked herself with another dunking! Do...

Love the slippers and the little tail poofs at this age are too-oo-oo cute!

The 13-yr saga picks up in late 2013: After the Dominique chick "Xena" passed, we put "Taffy" the Blue Wheaten Ameraucana outside. She was about 11 months old here. So sweet and pretty. Taffy layed L/XL pretty blue eggs compared to the regular White Leghorn egg and tinted Buff Leghorn egg...

DH says TY! Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree. To deter rats we didn't plant sweet fruit trees cuz of rats/squirrels -- just pink grapefruit, meyer lemon, and hard shell pomegranate trees for chicken shade. Our Dominique "Dana" will reach for low-hanging pomegranate fruit and peck it to pieces. All our...

We have one of those only ours is a hen! OOPS! This one is real!

For our 100 degree day DH turned on the sprinkler water under the canopy shade in the chicken yard & put music to the video w/ a song he wrote for our hens:

If there's anyway to get a copy of "The American Dominique: A Treatise for the Fancier" by Mark Fields you will find a wealth of history and breed standards for Doms. Last year I bought an Amazon downloaded copy for $14 cuz the hard copy was too expensive. Old book websites of it are even more...

Goats too -- claimed even better than sheep for hillside clearance and a bit smarter than sheep.

Kill it if a rattler or confine it for animal control if not a rattler! Someone's exotic lizard-type reptile got stuck in our garden netting. I thought ok another good garden lizard but bigger than usual. The thing bared its rows of sharp teeth and hissed and snapped at me like an alligator...

One old timer chicken owner said not to worry about chickens eating the styrofoam -- it'll come out the same condition it went in!

So you are intending to breed your Doms as pure Doms? No cross-breeding? Wise to order from a private Dom breeder. I wish you were on this west coast rather than east coast cuz we LOVE Doms and we know how to select male from female chicks. Newly hatched females have a tighter smaller white...

I Wouldn't even do that for one of my own kids!!! :lau

Talk about commitment or expense: My DS/DIL have an old dog pound rescue cat they estimate to be between 15-18 years old now. For several yrs she's needed insulin injections twice a day 8 hrs apart exactly! That means they have to coordinate their daily schedules precisely for someone to be...

I imagine vets that come to your property cost more than our suburban vets. We felt if $$$ was an issue we would choose only ONE pet after we retired and firstly remodeled the cottage. Dogs cost a lot yearly with required vaccinations, routine health visits like teeth-cleaning, local...

Many years ago we rescued a house sparrow chick, dug up earth worms & fed its open mouth w/ the smallest wet worms. The next morning we set out a small shoe box wedged in the yucca bush and the parents flew to the shoe box to feed their chick along w/ the other chicks located deep inside the...