Recent content by EMS83

They just roost in the coop. They spend the day in the 25x25 run. Would stress pop up suddenly like that?

Coop is 8x8, run is 25x25. They’re only closed up at night. Faithway 22% layer pellets and kitchen/garden scraps.

I have 31 hens. Three are older, the rest hatched last March/April, and this is their first season laying. For a while I was getting 15-20 eggs/day. But for the past 2-3, production dropped to maybe 8-10/day, and half of those were broken or eaten. During that time, one of my black...

Awesome! I’ll do that and hopefully we’ll see some eggs soon!

Most ofbtheir combs are red. The hen on the left is 7. The two on the right are from earlier this year. The black one is the only one afaik whose comb is black. The second picture is how most of the black australorps’ combs look.

I have 14- and 16-week pullets that aren't laying yet. Can I go ahead and switch to layer feed? Feed them oyster shells? With my previous flocks, I waited until they started laying, but they're pretty close, and I'd like to go ahead fully integrate them with my older hens.

No worries! I'm not in a huge hurry. My dad reminded me that DE works on slugs, but I still want to know about this breed. It would be intriguing pest control. 😁

I asked about slug control in a homesteading FB group, and someone suggested this breed. They said these chickens hunt all the bugs and don't eat the garden plants. So I'd like to know more about them for anyone who has them.

Will it hurt the chicks? I know daily layer pellets probably would, but what about a one-time accident? Edit: They're 4 and 6 weeks old.

My extension cord isn't long enough to make it to the coop and run our heating pad. There's 17 of them, and they're half feathered out. They've been in our house until today, and I stepped down their heat at a week and turned it off at 2ish weeks. Here it will be mid-50s to high 40s for the...

I doubt I could get her to do that, though I agree it would be worth an article or even a series. She said she didn't think the different wings of government talked to each other. So maybe it would be fine?

My county uses Municode, and I tried searching for penalties and checking the Permitted Uses section for consequences of violations and turned up nothing. I work for our paper, so I'll try asking around there. I feel like calling zoning and asking about it would be kind of obvious. Especially...

https://www.agr.georgia.gov/cottage-food https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/40-7-19 So part of the licensing requirement is to get in touch with local government about septic/well suitability and any business licensing requirements. It's the local septic inspectors I'm worried about. I don't think...

So I originally got chickens to just have our own fresh eggs. County ordinance says that's fine, as long as any permanent structures are 100 feet from all property lines and 200 feet from any offsite residential structures. Well the coop is 125 feet from one neighbor's house (they don't care)...

Well, she didn’t make it. 😞 She was dying when I came back, but she’d laid an egg. It looked like she'd had some diarrhea, too, but I discovered that the waterer I left in the crate with her tilted, leaked out, and soaked the towels I had under her. And right before she died, she had very...