Recent content by Henrik Petersson

I have a 9-week-old Creme Legbar cockerel who's had two toes that are bent 90° sideways since week two or so. At first, I thought "whatever. It's a cockerel. I'll only spare one in the end anyway, I'll just cull the ones with deformities". So I didn't do anything about it. You might already...

I didn't know that people always bring that up.

Why do you bring that up? No-one in this thread has suggested doing that.

Somewhat differing responses here. Interesting. Seems to be a topic without a clear-cut answer. I'd love to see some more replies.

A friend of mine found 3 mallard hatchlings by their dead mother and is now raising them, giving them fodder, a heat source, and letting them roam around in an outdoor cage and take the occasional bath. After a very short while they started seeing my friend as their "mother" and follow her...

Wow, with harnesses and all?

Interesting. This is a topic that's very neglected in articles I've read. How do wild geese "enrich themselves"? I mean, chickens scratch and explore all day; what's the goose equivalent of that? Knowing that can make it a lot easier to come up with enrichment ideas...

Cool, they seem to need less than chickens then. Our muscovy ducks also seemed to need less. They were "lazy" and preferred to just sit around a lot.

Hello! I have owned chickens for a decade, and dabbled in muscovy duck keeping. I'm thinking about geese. Now, I know that chickens are highly curious. They hate "boring" runs that only consist of a patch of dirt. Also, chickens have agoraphobia and like to hang out in bushes. Chickens...

I would like to add an incubator pro: The chicks become tamer adults.

Chickens are scared witless of things moving overhead - they probably thought the tarp was an enormous bird of prey when you put it on!

If they could mingle without problems, I would say they are ready for a full transition. Kudos to you for treading so carefully.

By 16 weeks of age, you can probably treat them as adults for all intents and purposes. You can certainly feed them adult feed, and you can put them in with the older ladies, but of course with the usual precautions needed for introduction of new flock members.

16-week old or 16 week-old? This is why grammar matters. ;)