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Hi. I did a complete flock butt feather check for dry clinging poop. Only a few hens needed to be hand cleaned. But when I checked the rooster I saw he had a red irritated looking patch of skin below his vent. The area around the feather follicles was raised a bit too. I did not see any lice or...

Hi. I ordered 10 chicks thru Tractor Supply. Female Delaware chicks. 9 chicks look like they should. The 10th looks completely different. The chicks come from Hoover’s hatchery. I contacted TSC and I’ve been credited for the chick so that’s good. Does anyone have a guess as to what this chick...

This little baby just hatched a few minutes ago. It is still attached to one part of the shell. there’s a long thick thread of blood or bloody tissue on its back, down to the vent area or maybe umbilical cord area. Please see picture. This is the first time I’ve seen this bloody stuff on a new...

I have 3 4 week old boys in with 2 10 week old girls. Everybody gets along fine but the smallest youngest chick (he hatched last) is way smaller than his hatch mates. He’s acting ok but I don’t think he’s getting enough to eat even though the food is there all day long. He’s not nearly as...

These cuties are my fist ever hatchery chicks. Shipped also! They are 10 Barres Plymouth Rock pullets. All do look like girls. I’ll feather sex them tomorrow. I want to give them today to recover from shipping stress. Boy are they loud! Way louder than my home hatched chicks. But they’ve had a...

I am new to raising chicks. While I’ve hatched 4 batches this is the first time I am raising some past 2 weeks old. I’m down to 4 boys :) They’ve been in a big brooder box on a table in the family room but they’re getting close to flying out, need more room, etc. I’m using the mother hen...

My husband found this egg a few days ago. It was right by the coop door so it was newly put there as it would have been impossible to miss. It was 2 leathery shells mostly enclosing the egg seen in the last picture. The whole mass is huge! Softball size. The egg is normal sized. The coop floor...

Hi. I’m hatching black rock chicks (RIR roo over barred rock hen). The girls are already sold :). That leaves me with the boys. They are only good for meat as far as I know (no breeding potential). So my question is : can I speed up getting them to butchering weight -I’m shooting for 4 pounds -...

Hi All. I was given a silver laced Wyandotte roo a few weeks ago. I’d been planning on using him for dinner but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Then I happened to be on a hatchery site looking at chicks and came across an offering for blue Plymouth rocks that seems to indicate, genetically...

There was an unforeseen tragedy and I lost 15 chickens yesterday late afternoon. We simply ran out of time to deal with them as we had to deal with the live birds. We bagged the dead birds and placed in the fridge. Can we process them tonight and safely eat the meat? Quick reply really needed!

Lost another hen a few days ago. That makes 3 from the same group of 5 total I bought in March. They are also the oldest (but not old) hens I have. I posted pics of the necropsy on Petunia in early July. She had a sack of fluid in the abdomen. Penny died not 2 weeks ago from what seemed to be...

My light Brahma internally laid in past day or so. She was fine up until this morning when she didn’t come out with the others. She won’t stand. She did scoot around a bit in the hospital though. She clearly has yolk and white on her vent area. How is best to clean it? Soapy warm water? I did...

Ok, I’m ready to eat crow! I posted a few days ago about purple discolouring on a few hen’s combs. I thought it was leftover from putting iodine on peck marks from when we had some new hens and the pecking got bad for awhile. @Wyorp Rock and @CountryFlock thought the purple might be from lack...

I’d guess this has been discussed before but hard to search on. How long on average would you say your hens spend in the nest box after they lay their egg? Not broody or sick, just relaxing after dropping the bomb. I literally saw Crystal lay this morning. Happened to glance at the nest...

This is the inside of the coop with the roosts swung up to the ceiling. The slanted pine board at the right side of the pic is propping up one front corner of the roost structure. This leg swings up on a hinge pivot and the locks into place out of the way. When down it supports the right...

I’ve wanted to try a fermented feed trough for a while now. I like the idea of the feed being off the ground so chickens don’t scratch it out so much and run debris doesn’t get scratched in so much - both big issues with my feed pan method. It also needed to be easy to clean and sun/rain...

For those not familiar with my other thread on this hen Marti - I was pretty confident she had been laying but then she apparently stopped about the time I had to close off the nest she’d been using. Due to sick hens and vacation and stuff, she fell off my radar as she always acted 100% fine...

After do some research and chatting here with @gtaus DH and I built 2 compost bins adjacent to the chicken run. Our intention is to provide natural feed opportunities to the hens and reduce reliance on commercial feed. They will still have 24/7 access to dry feed and I will continue to feed FF...

When there was an outbreak of pox and then alot of pecking for order establishment I put iodine on pox marks and battle scars. Now many have parts of their combs purple! It’s been a few months. Will the purple stain color ever go away??

I’ve got 4 leghorn hens that have been laying for months. I got them from a distressed situation. They were skinny and missing ALOT of feathers. What feathers they had, especially the tails, were ragged and fewer than what I think is normal. At least 2 feather pick the others some of the time...