Backyard Chickens (and Other Birds)

She's a marans, and a petite lady at that.

She just started back laying about two weeks ago. She had a loooooong molt, starting in September, and stopped laying around the end of that month, maybe the beginning of October.

There's three missing from this pic. One was soft shelled and broke when she laid it. Another was soft shelled and she ate most of it. The third of those was a nice egg, but got pecked before i could snag it, so she recyled it too. I suspect she may have had one or two that we missed out in the coop in the same way.

She's a about two and a half years old, gets fed well with some treats in the evening plus having a decent sized enclosure during the day to find bugs n such.

Best eggs I've ever had in my life. Rich yolks, with a deep almost orange color. The texture is almost as amazing as the taste.

She's not a working girl, but she doesn't seem to have gotten that message lol. For a pampered pet, she puts out more eggs than we typically use. After she stopped laying last year, we had enough to last well into December. She was laying almost every day before that.

We're finally looking to get some chicks, a rooster, and possibly a guard gosling this spring. We're plant hardiness zone 4a (Canada) I believe, and get about one to three weeks of -20C in a normal winter, maybe a burst of -30C for a day or four but getting noticeably more mild these days with climate change.

So the question: Are there any breeds of egg or heritage birds that can handle that amount of cold in an insulated coop without heat or should I plan on a little ammo can waste vegetable oil heater for the few cold days/weeks? (We're offgrid and don't even have proper power for ourselves yet, so a heatlamp or anything like that wouldn't work for us). I don't mind if they don't lay through the winter but I want them to be comfortable in the coop at minimum.

I'm going to be building a roughly 1.2m wide x 1m tall x 2.4m long coop (4ft x 3ft x 8ft) very soon. Thinking low wall height to keep it warmer, but maybe I should go with 1.2m (4ft) high walls to allow for more air circulation and roost bar spacing? Thinking 4" rockwool walls and probably 4" for the roof and an exterior insulation panel on top. Want to keep the construction fairly light so 6" walls may be out, unless I slap exterior insulation panels all around. But they aren't cheap. Some amount of rockwool panel under the floor. Probably go with the deep litter method for free added bottom insulation too.

It'll most likely be an elevated chicken tractor setup with a (highly) electrified caged grazing area coming off the coop because we have a lot of black bears on our property in the summer, as well as some other predators. That way they'll have fresh scratching ground every day or two, whenever they've torn it up. People nearby just free range their hens and roosters without much issue, but I don't think we can get away with that here since they said they rarely see bears on their property.

Also wondering could they all be housed in the same coop if they're raised together from hatching or is it more common to separate the rooster and maybe get him a social buddy instead? I kind of assume for the rooster and/or goose to be effective guardians they need to be IN the coop but idrk.

Thanks for any insights!

Good news! I put 20 eggs 21 days ago on the incubator, just 9 were fertile and 8 grow till the end but just 6 hatch up. They are from the famous breeder Martijns Cochin Poultry, and the variety is Isabel porcelain. Soo beautifull and fluffy, can not wait to see them grow up. Anybody knows how can I know if they are roosters?

have a nice day!❤️

Sorry, english is not my main language😅!

Emotional support chicken? Source

I had 13 chickens which is a lot for many. None of my birds are small but all loving. I had to cut my flock from 13 to 7 because I was worried about feeding to much on neighboring floras. I made the cut from 13 to 7 near Halloween. Then 2 pit bulls showed up and attacked the coop that day killing missexed rooster. (Oct. 31). I never wanted a rooster, but he fought and defended the flock, and the only other hen injured by an 80/60lb set of male/female blue pitbullsade me question. Maybe I do want a rooster. He died October 31, I set a few eggs aside in literally a Styrofoam box, with half a strand of Christmas lights in it, pull out, push in to get the right temperature (less) ... And a chick was born. Rediulous one at first, 39 mins from start to finish. (Absolutely ridiculous). Now. A second is being born. (I assume 12-18 hours) The rooster passed on 10/31

So 3 weeks ago I had 2 blue (pitbulls?) come by one male one female, jumping at my 20x10ft cage trying to get in. Luckily I walked out there, they friendly to people, I told them to cut it out and go away, and they left. This afternoon between 2-4pm they came back and broke through the wire to get to the chickens, the one missexed rooster fought them to his death, and all the hens survived. I wrapped the bottom 2.5 feet of entry with stronger metal wiring to reinforce it. They came back at 11pm. (They leaped over after tearing through the weaker part up top). I had to let one out) First off hats off to a rooster that fights off 140lbs of dogs. (Picture below for sorrow). Second, I will re-inforce further, but what would you/should I do. My spouse wants me to shoot them, and I am very much a dog lover and believe the female dog was recently pregnant so I think they are out trying to provide.... I'm trying to avoid shooting them at any cost. It's Tennessee. She grew up here. Her mindset is it's killing our livestock, kill it. I'm very much re-inforce, and figure out if we can find who owns them and make sure they know what's going on... What would you do?

Rest in peace knight of the chickens

Every morning I grab a coffee and either sit outside with the fluffy butts or I bring one inside and read Lemmy with them on my lap. Best start to the day.

I've got some determined leghorn pullets that I'm hoping to keep free range, but they are really getting good at flying now. I'm going to run an electric wire over the top of my fence so that they can't perch up there and plot their escape. Does anyone have experience with electric fencing and chickens?

I'm worried if I buy a normal kit it will be juiced up for horses and the like and I'll end up harming the hens. If there are recommendations for energizers that would be great too.

Here is a quick list of mine:

• garlic and apple cider vinegar mixed in the water
• VetRX Poultry
• nutri-drench
• Vetericyn Plus Antimicrobial Poultry Care

Bounus, what I've been using to diagnose and treat issues: The Chicken Health Handbook, 2nd Edition

Hi, chicken enthusiasts.

I just wanted to drop a note in the channel to explain what's been going on with me. I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma last year on my birthday. Happy birthday to me! As we headed in to fall my wife wasn't sure that she would be able to take care of my and the birds at the same time so we elected to chut down our flock. I went through 6 months of chemo and the cancer is gone. We are planning to restart our flock next spring.

So, I've been away and quiet for a while but I'm still here and I'm not going anywhere. If anyone is interested in helping to promote and moderate this community please send me a note.

Bought a house - previous owner moved to a town home so we kept the chickens. There is a decent amount of space on the property, and half of it is a forested hillside.

Any suggestions for a newbie? A new coop is definitely first thing on my list. And a fence around the property.

One of the chickens is an outcast and I feel bad for her, doesn't leave the coop when the others go out in the yard and doesn't eat treats from the ground just food from the feeder. The other chickens get along well it seems.

Most of our eggs are on the jumbo side, we got a few tiny ones now from hens that are just hitting the age, but I've got one hen that just spits out huge eggs. I posted an 85g 8 months ago on here, but now this one is 100

This is our first time keeping chickens and we got 5 chicks from a local breeder. We live in the suburbs and can't have any roosters so we paid extra to have the breeder vent sex all our chickens.

About 8 weeks later one of them was clearly a rooster (reddening comb) and we had to return them and trade them in for a new hen around the same age.

12 weeks in and two more of our chickens were showing very clear signs of being roosters (i had my suspicions for awhile but could never quite be sure). The breeder didn't have any more the same age so we had to trade them in for two 6 week old hens. Of course now our chickens are upset and we are having to integrate them slowly.

It's now 14 weeks in and one of our last two original chickens crowed! For the past few days we haven't heard them crow again and I've been really hoping it was just due to the pecking order being disrupted and/or taking over as a "rooster" but now their posture/appearance is telling me they might also be a rooster:

So at this point we are very reasonably upset as we spent all this time bonding with our chickens, buying food and getting excited for eggs and now we probably only have one of our original chickens left (which is a black sex link so SURELY they cannot be a rooster...) and the breeder only has younger chickens left meaning we would only have one actual egg layer left (our other one the same age is a bantam so they will lay smaller eggs...)

4/5 sexed chickens turning out to be roosters seems ridiculous but the lady that sold us the chickens is very nice and knowledgeable so I think we just got extremely unlucky. It just feels hard to bond with chickens at all now considering our last original hen is very unfriendly and hates being held at all.

Has anyone else been this unlucky?

I've hatched 6 eggs and got 2 roosters. I was thinking about keeping one if I can manage the noise and agree with my neighbours.

If I do go ahead, how do I deal with the inbreeding thing? I assume he is probably going to try mate with his sisters... Obviously I wouldn't hatch any of those eggs, but is it normal to just allow that kind of weirdness in the flock?

I had a small flock of 3 hens who all got along once the pecking order was figured out.

One day, a lower hen became broody and I allowed her to hatch a clutch of eggs. This broodyness made her a bit defensive and caused some issues with the top hen.

Once the eggs hatched I separated her and her chicks to a nursery space away from the other hens until I felt they were old enough to free range, ~4 weeks. I didn't move her while nesting because I was afraid of breaking her broodyness.

Gradually she became less and less protective and has now returned to laying eggs. The chicks are independent approaching 8 weeks, although still attached to the mother hen. They are still roosting/nesting separately to the other hens in the nursery coop.

When the bullying happens now, she submits immediately to the lead hen and has no protective urges for the chicks.

The issue is that the top hen isn't letting up and I'm concerned about what happens when the chicks become too big to fit in the nursery coop and everyone needs to roost together.

I've seen some recommendations to separate the one being bullied for awhile, others to separate the bully and others to let things play out. One thing I was potentially going to wait out was for the rooster chick(s) to grow up enough to police the hen fighting.

Any other suggestions here?

Are there any (Canadian preferably) resources that you found helpful when getting started keeping chickens? Especially WRT keeping birds through the winter and/or minimizing purchased inputs (grain).

I can't deal with all the ai generated list websites filled with misinfo these days. Hard to tell what to follow and what to ignore when you aren't already an expert on the subject.

My partner and I are wanting to get some egg birds this summer.

I hatched some quail and made sure they imprinted on me (why not, I was thrilled to watch anyway!) but my cats were also there and the brooder is a 55 gallon aquarium on my living room floor, so I think it’s safe to say my birds see them as the adults of the covey because they do this leg splay thing a lot, and lay on their backs all comfy-like.

I’ve seen owl babies lay down on their tummies but never rolling over like this. And they are a bit over 2 weeks in age, but they’ve been doing it for well over a week already.

I’m super pumped for this behavior, I hope it lasts. I can’t wait to see what weird shit the next generation I hatch picks up!

(Sorry for potato quality, I actually took this with an iPhone… really hard to capture this from across the room without disturbing them..)

Greetings! I’m new here!

I just got notice from the city that a chicken license (one of 10 for a town of 15,000 people) came up and I’m first on the waiting list! So exciting! Please excuse the excited tangents.

We had chickens when I was 8-14, so I have a rough idea of the care involved, and am not overly concerned about the long-term maintenance. Since that was like 20+ years ago, however, I’ve been doing a lot of looking, just to brush up. Ultimately tho they have been kept for most of human history so I’m sure I can manage. :)

However, my experience, and most resources, are for larger flocks than I’m allowed, as well as more… comfortable climates.. so I’m here to ask some questions and learn.

This question is about the coop, because the run and access to various things is pretty well handled, but building it right is going to be important. I’d really rather not wake up after a snowstorm to clucksicles.

The location for it is going to be next to the garage, on the northeast side near the back, close to the warehouse behind me, and my house shadow falls there in the morning, garage afternoon, so the coop itself will be blocked from direct sun year round (there’s nowhere I can put it in the sun and be compliant with city regulations). They will have a huge run in full sun, however, and this location, coupled with the warehouse behind my property, is an effective wind block for the direction wind usually comes from.

I live in usda hardiness zone 4 (coldest temp between -20 and -30 f (-28 to -34 c)), and will be choosing a breed with that in mind, but I want to provide them with a really good shelter, too. I don’t want to use a heat source, so I’ll be insulating it quite heavily, but since I’ll be hatching them myself and interacting with them heavily, I’m not opposed to bringing them into the basement if the weather is looking really bad.

So my question given that I can have up to 6 (so I’ll have 6) and it gets really cold sometimes is this: should I build a full size coop I can walk in, so that if it’s amazingly cold they can comfortably exist inside for however long they want? Or should I build a smaller elevated coop with space under it for them to use, so they have a smaller space to warm up with body heat? Can they be trained to use doggy doors?

So my eggs are usually pretty set in size, and it is hard to tell in the photo but one of my hens missed a day (unusual for her) and I assumed it was because it was cold and maybe she'd slow her laying as I am used to raising chickens in Florida, and now in the Nashville area so it has been in the 20s at night lately. The next day she laid this mammoth egg. This batch(?) of chickens is young so I getting to know them still. Should I be concerned for any reason about this, or is it possible she is still growing and is just going to lay Jumbo sized eggs in the future?

Well, it happened. We have a bird with bumblefoot.

So I've been looking at what needs to be done. All the home treatment options are within my skill set from doing human wound care as a nurse's assistant.

But should I do it is still a question. All the online stuff seems to be biased purely in favor of that, and while it seems to be true, I can't help but want to make sure it isn't malarkey.

So, any of you folks have any input? For it, against it, or specific preferences as to which methods to use?

Again, I've handled similar situations with humans, including the removal of deep "kernels" or roots from cysts and abcesses, so I know I can do the job right, I'm just wanting to make sure I should do it myself rather than have the hen dealing with the added stress of travel and the vet visit.