this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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Backyard Chickens (and Other Birds)

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[Were you a mod of backyard chickens on Reddit? Message me if you're interested in modding here.]

This is a community for people who keep chickens in their back yard. This includes pets, layers, and meaties at levels that are sub-industrial. Family farms and homesteads are included.

EDIT

The Fediverse is small. There probably aren't enough people here to make up a community for every type of bird that someone might keep so for now, everyone is welcome. Bring us your ducks and geese, turkeys and quail, Guineas and Peacocks, emus and parrots. The community will be focused on chickens but until there are enough of each bird community for their own community they will find care and comfort here.

/EDIT

There may be discussions of animal processing. This is part of chicken keeping. If you don't like it leave and block the community.

You may also be interested in:

Homestead

Parrots

Cockatiel

RULES:

  1. All Lemmy.ca rules apply here.

  2. Everyone (see rules 4 and 98) is welcome.

  3. If you've seen a question 100 times answer it the 101st time or ignore it. Even better, write a complete, detailed answer and suggest that the mod(s) pin it to the community.

  4. There will be ZERO tolerance for shaming, brigading, harassment, or other nonsense of those who keep and process chickens. You will be permanently banned the first time.

  5. No, it's not a calcium deficiency. Wrinkled eggs are the result of insufficient or insufficiently viscous albumen. Tiny eggs and missing shells are misfires. They happen.

  6. If you post a picture that includes a dead animal or blood mark it NSFW. We're not going to tolerate the militant anti-hunting and anti-farming bullshit here but we're also not going to tolerate people rubbing their hunting and harvesting in people's faces. See rule 98. If you post blood, gore, or dead animals and don't mark it NSFW it will be removed and you might be banned.

[Did you actually think there were 98 rules?]

  1. If you present something as fact and are asked to provide proof or a source provide proof or a source. Proof must be from a reliable source. If you fail to provide proof or a source your post or comment may be removed.

  2. Don't be a dick. Yes, this is a catch-all rule.

  3. The mod(s) have the final say.

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Extremely bad luck (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by toxic_cloud@lemmy.world to c/backyardchickens@lemmy.ca
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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?

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