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For a little background; life threw me a curve ball this spring with my meat bird raising. I had a good rooster who was 1/2 broiler and 1/2 naked neck. Last year he had 100% fertility and I got lots a nice big birds from breeding him. He was good with people and the hens seemed to like him...

I had grown pretty confident in my ability to tell the sex of chick by 5 weeks, but this 7.5 week old speckled sussex has me scratching my head. Starting at about 4.5 weeks I was 100% sure it was a cockerel. It sprouted a pink comb and wattles, upright stance, thick legs, slow feathering tail...

I have a 9 month old hen resting in my refrigerator, and I am wondering if anyone here has cooked hens in this age range other than turning them into stock/canned chicken. For chickens over a year, I have typically either pressure canned, or made into sausage. But, I'm wondering if 9 months...

I'm incubating shipped eggs that are on day 9. I candled today and found that every single egg has a detached egg cell -- and the air sacs look kind of large as well. However, 10 of 12 were developing and I can see movement in all of them. I've hatched shipped eggs before, and usually...

It's that time of year where there are feathers everywhere in the coop and yard. It looks so messy, but I kinda go with the flow. If there is a particular dense concentration somewhere (blown up against a fence or a pile on the poop board), I rake or scoop them up in put them in the compost...

Big Red, my year old red ranger hen, just laid biggest egg I have seen yet. It was 4 oz in weight. The one next to it, for reference weighed 2 1/2 oz, so a good sized egg in and of itself. My poor hen was walking funny before hand and I was worried she was egg bound.

I had an old butternut squash from the winter that I cut into rings and put out for my chickens this morning. When I went out to check on them this afternoon I discovered that one of my hens had chosen to wear one of the rings. She seemed very proud of her necklace.

I've been thinking about buying a microscope so I could do my own fecal float testing. I was particularly interested in checking to see that the tapeworms I had earlier in my flock are truly gone. Hunting for mid-day poop with my trowel and poop stick is only so much fun. But, I was curious...

I've been meaning to do this for awhile, and the pumpkin seed thread reminded me. Let me first say, after spending many hours trying to research the impact of tapeworms on poultry, I found more questions then answers. There are precious few studies that deal with worm management in free-range...

Duke, my 6 year old rooster, has heretofore always been great with broody hens and chicks. Multiple batches of chicks have been reared inside coop, some that he sired, but many that he did not. I thought he was totally trustworthy. Until now. I gave a reliable broody a newly hatched chick...

Pretty awful. I wrote last summer about a horrendous experience I had with chicks getting stranded at Sacramento's main distribution center for 3 days and arriving in bad shape. That same thing happened again in the fall with my cornish cross chicks. This year, I've had two orders of hatching...

I have an 8 month old BCM rooster. Recently, I've observed a couple of behaviors that make me wonder if he's a keeper. First, he is laser-locked on one hen, a small EE "Gimpy" who was born with a twisted foot. He occasionally dances and courts some of other hens, but he just runs Gimpy down...

I finally winnowed my cockerels down to one, a 5 month old old BCM. He is in a flock with one aging rooster (soon to be dispatched), 6 older hens and 2 pullets who have not laid yet, but look to be on the cusp, and a handful of young -uns. In the last couple of weeks, I've seen a couple of...

Captured last night on my trail cam. This is the fence that separates my chicken yard (on the left) from nature. There are 4 strands of electric wire. The light you see in the background is a motion sensor light. That obviously didn't have much impact on the bobcat. The time/date stamp...

This morning, we butchered a 1.5 year old EE/Orpington mix, who had become egg-bound and didn't respond to treatment. Butchering revealed, she was indeed egg-bound, so I was glad to have spared her a slow decline. We went ahead and processed her -- I pulled aside the fat to render down for...

This seems to be the most fundamental difference that effects how people view their chicken care and deal with things like illnesses, culling and general flock management. I got my chickens as livestock, and livestock they remain, although it has at times been a struggle to maintain an...

This is a follow on to an earlier thread about having a back-up rooster. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/adding-a-second-or-back-up-rooster.1263122/ The short version was that I planned on keeping one of my cockerels along with my 5 1/2 year old rooster, Duke, for at least one more...

I feel so sad and angry, I needed to vent somewhere My order of 7 chicks from MPC has gone missing. As of yesterday morning, they were at distribution center just a couple of hours away from my house. I was so excited, I thought I'd have them yesterday. But they never came. My local post...

I currently have a 5 1/2 year old rooster, Duke, who is a good rooster, but he's starting to get up there in years and his genetics are not quite what I want long term for my flock. From chicks hatched out this spring, I have several very nice looking cockerels, around 8 weeks old now. I'd...

I hatched 5 chicks on May 31 and bought 2 more buff orpington (sexed as females) on June 1. I've got 3 roosters for sure, 1 fairly sure its a rooster, 1 hen for sure, 1 hopeful it's a hen, and 1 runt who I have no clue about. Would love you thoughts. Here are my 3 for sure roos (the Buff...