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Oh god, are you saying my light brahma is hitting on my cute bantam mutt?  I thought he was being "mean" to her because he pecks her when they get ready to sleep in the coop and everybody is stepping on everybody and the bantam wants to get literally under everybody to sleep, so he walks to her and pecks her, making her run away. she also does it when they all get together to eat, but he doesn't go beyond some stink eye looks and a peck or two, making her get away, then she comes back to eat away from him. She's at the bottom of the pecking order, and I didn't know chickens start to get all horny at 3 months old  .Edit: well, I let all my chickens get into the coop, and I can see rusty is afraid of Roostroyer. She chirps and gets vet tense near him, and he went to peck her a few time hard and made her run out of the coop into the run. then he go our of the coop too, looking at her. I grabbed him so Rusty could calm down and get back inside, after a few minutes of holding him tight enough so he couldn't escape and finally calmed down too, I let him back into the coop. He settled down, then as he lied down, he saw Rusty, turned around, and pecked at her again. My other two pullets put hi in place and even peck at him. Rusty is very small and while she has chest bumped with the other pullets, she has never tried it with Roostroyer. He's very nice with the other two, but he pecks at Rusty, and I'm not quite sure it's because he's into her. They did all finally settled down and are sleeping now, but I'm grabbing Rusty in a couple of hours to give her another dose of medication, and put her in a crate in my room. I don't trust leaving her there until dawn while I still see him pecking her around, and my chicken run is small, it was meant only to lock them inside at night. Rusty doesn't really have anywhere to hide in the coop if he decides to chase her . I don't understand why he bullies her, since she never fights back and its clear his above her in my flock. I don't know if him pecking her not only on her back fur now I saw him peck her face when getting ready to sleep is something I should worry about. I don't want to have to relocate Roostroyer, but I guess that if he keeps attacking her while in the coop, I"m gonna have to crate him separately at night. I'm gonna keep watching their interaction this week, hopefully he will get used to her in the coop at night, so I can try and left her outside all night and just get up before dawn to see how they interact. Is there any advice you guys can give me, or am I being overly protective and paranoid? Edit 2:I'm gonna record their interaction tomorrow and put it in youtube, so you guys can tell me if I should worry about their behavior. Chido fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jun 19, 2011 |
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Jun 19, 2011 02:16
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Chido posted:Edit 2:I'm gonna record their interaction tomorrow and put it in youtube, so you guys can tell me if I should worry about their behavior. I'd just give them time. I know you're worried about the hen getting hurt, but every time you remove her you're basically letting the rooster win. Just keep some anti-peck lotion on you in case he breaks skin, and leave them be. My hens when I first got them were downright nasty to each other, but eventually they got their hierarchy sorted out in the first couple of months with a minimum of bloodhed and leave each other alone now. They just have to establish the pecking order and they'll be fine.
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Jun 19, 2011 19:46
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Sorry, first time having chickens and I still don't know how to read their behavior well This is why I'm not planning on having children, I'm way too overprotective.
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Jun 19, 2011 19:54
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Take a deep breath and don't worry. The chickens will sort things out on their own. In other news, my broody, Jean Grey, is still sitting strong on the eggs, although when I checked today, during her break, there were only 16 eggs in the nest. One of the Marans eggs was missing. There was no sign of broken shell, egg guts or the egg anywhere in the coop.  Otherwise, she's doing awesome. Last year, her first time going broody, there was a problem with the other hens pushing in and laying in her nest, but this year she's pushed everyone into laying in a new spot. I'm going to take a picture of her, because seriously, she's a ball of pure rage at this point. Its hilarious and awesome.
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Jun 19, 2011 23:39
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WrathofKhan posted:I'm going to take a picture of her, because seriously, she's a ball of pure rage at this point. Its hilarious and awesome. Yes please! More chick pix!  Also, so no one has any personal experience with watery and/or greenish egg whites? I googled it and I got answers ranging from "harmless diet thing" to "bacterial infection DO NOT EAT." I think I'm gonna stop giving those weird ones to my dog just to be on the safe side.
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Jun 20, 2011 00:55
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Somebody in PI/animal farm asked for a picture of my chickens in a gradient scale, from dark to light. I think my chickens are telepaths but got the message kinda... wrong  
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Jun 20, 2011 01:55
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GrauFrau posted:Yes please! More chick pix! One of the glaringly obvious differences I've noticed between supermarket eggs and the eggs from our chickens is that ours have much firmer, more cohesive albumen - I figured it was just because supermarket eggs are so much older, and the albumen naturally breaks down a bit as the egg ages. Maybe those eggs are just older? Chickens sometimes lay in weird places, maybe your egg provider doesn't find them right away. It could also be that those eggs are coming from the older hens in the flock. If they smell fine, your dog's GI tract should handle them no problem. Last summer, our puppy would sometimes find chicken eggs of indeterminate age in the woods and eat them up, shell and all, and she never had a problem. She also liked to eat their poo poo, and has literally never had a single health problem! Since people have mentioned goats... has anyone kept both hens and goats? The neighboring farm through the woods has about 40 dairy goats and a nice-sized chevre operation. They get rid of most the male kids every spring. We were thinking of taking a few in this past spring, but we have an actual kid on the way, so we'll probably wait a year or two. If space within the coop isn't an issue and we have them cordoned off from each other, would chickens and goats be alright sleeping in the same structure?
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Jun 20, 2011 01:57
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Dr. Octagon posted:Since people have mentioned goats... has anyone kept both hens and goats? The neighboring farm through the woods has about 40 dairy goats and a nice-sized chevre operation. They get rid of most the male kids every spring. We were thinking of taking a few in this past spring, but we have an actual kid on the way, so we'll probably wait a year or two. If space within the coop isn't an issue and we have them cordoned off from each other, would chickens and goats be alright sleeping in the same structure? They don't sleep in the same house but we have the chicken pen adjacent to the goat pen and they pretty much ignore each other. Even the couple of times we've let them both graze outside of their pens it was like they were invisible to each other. I don't know about sleeping together but in day to day life there has been zero problems. The goats are Nigerian Dwarves and the only male is neutered so you may get different results with different breeds and/or intact males.
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Jun 20, 2011 04:23
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My husband and I will be getting our own house very soon. What about things like parasites or mites? Do chickens get fleas? What's the best way to keep them healthy in general? Here's a story from my town about feral chickens http://www.nola.com/pets/index.ssf/2011/04/feral_chickens_have_proliferat.html They really are everywhere. It's not uncommon to see Roosters strutting around my neighborhood or have hens pecking through garbage.
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Jun 20, 2011 05:17
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The best way to keep your chickens healthy is to keep their coop clean, feed them a balanced diet, aren't over crowded, make sure that the have plenty of access to the outdoors and lots of clean water. To prevent mites, a good idea is to put down food grade diatenacious earth in the run for the birds to dust bathe in, this keep the mites from getting started. This will also work for lice.
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Jun 20, 2011 06:42
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Here's a pic of hen saddles to protect hen's backs from roos.
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Jun 20, 2011 16:01
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meriruka posted:Here's a pic of hen saddles to protect hen's backs from roos. Wow, that is so  Now I want chickens just so I can put those on them. 
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Jun 20, 2011 18:55
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This thread has caused me to look into the chicken rules of my county (I'm good to go) and start looking at both plans to build a movable coop/run and craigslists for a cheap one already made. What are you people getting me into!? 
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Jun 21, 2011 20:30
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A flying piece of posted:This thread has caused me to look into the chicken rules of my county (I'm good to go) and start looking at both plans to build a movable coop/run and craigslists for a cheap one already made. Animal Farm, where we suck you into our vortex of crazy cat lady-ness and chicken keeping. edit: Oh, we moved into A/T? Well then. We're still crazy chicken ladies and guys.
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Jun 21, 2011 21:21
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Hey everybody! Awesome thread, just read it from start to finish. I have two questions I hope somebody can help me with. First, do chickens eat snails? I have quite a snail population and being able to feed the snails to the chickens would really help out in that regard. Secondly, I have a pretty average sized yard, enclosed by 6ft concrete walls. Would it be possible to let the chickens chill in the yard on the lawn etc without running the risk of them flapping over the walls or crossing into my neighbour's property? I really don't know what chicken capabilities are in this regard.
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Jun 21, 2011 22:33
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Mr_Biggs posted:Hey everybody! Awesome thread, just read it from start to finish. I have two questions I hope somebody can help me with. First, do chickens eat snails? I have quite a snail population and being able to feed the snails to the chickens would really help out in that regard. They may, chickens love protein (you should see the melee that occurs when one of my hens find a juicy worm), but I dunno if they'd see snails as a food because of the shell. You might have to train them to see snails as a food source by holding the snail still for them and letting them peck out the juicy part. Or you could just throw the snails in and see what happens. But I will say chickens are excellent food disposals. I get rid of all my moldy bread and veggies via the chickens, and they've even eaten ham and cole slaw when dumped in their pen. During one party, people thought it was hilarious to feed my chickens the BBQ chicken wings we were serving. It was so wrong, but the chickens pecked those bones clean. quote:Secondly, I have a pretty average sized yard, enclosed by 6ft concrete walls. Would it be possible to let the chickens chill in the yard on the lawn etc without running the risk of them flapping over the walls or crossing into my neighbour's property? I really don't know what chicken capabilities are in this regard. Maybe. Chickens can probably do about 4-5 feet by just launching themselves from a standstill, so 6 feet might require a lot more effort than the chicken would be willing to put forth. You could put something at the top of the wall that the chickens can't get a hold of for some extra hilarity if they do manage to reach that height. The highest I've seen my fat hens do is about 5 feet to the spoiler on the back of my husband's Mazda6. He wasn't very amused. Another chicken got about 4 feet right into the middle of a snowbank, and then couldn't move because she hated snow, so I had to wade in and rescue her. Stupid birds....
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Jun 21, 2011 23:20
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I'm just wondering because although my two cats are of average size, and both are too lazy to attack a pigeon let alone a chicken, there is a rogue cat from the neighbourhood that sometimes passes through my backyard, and he is huge. Like lion huge. And I wouldn't want him scaring my chickens over the walls etc. I live in South Africa, and I do know that some of our indigenous chicken breeds like the Venda and Ovambo will easily fly high enough to roost in trees, but I was just wondering about other breeds like the leghorn. Also, how do you teach a chicken where to roost? I know you make it pretty obvious with a coop and all but I often hear stories of chickens deciding to roost in ridiculous places from from where the owner intended.
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Jun 21, 2011 23:40
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Mr_Biggs posted:Chicken questions To prevent them flapping over the walls, you could always just periodically clip the flight feathers on one wing of each chicken - that's what we do. They can still get a good couple of feet up in the air. As for teaching them where to roost, we just kind of shuffled them into their coop right before dusk every night and shut them in. Before long, they had the hang of it. Now if we could just get them to lay in their boxes, instead of under them...
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Jun 22, 2011 00:12
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Ok thanks man, I'll keep that in mind. How much damage are 2 or 3 chickens likely to do to a lawn of 25m square if they are left to roam free every day? Sorry I have no idea what that is in feet. Apologies also for what might be inane questions, I just keep thinking of new ones... :/
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Jun 22, 2011 00:28
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Mr_Biggs posted:Ok thanks man, I'll keep that in mind. How much damage are 2 or 3 chickens likely to do to a lawn of 25m square if they are left to roam free every day? Sorry I have no idea what that is in feet. Apologies also for what might be inane questions, I just keep thinking of new ones... :/ Here's a picture of my completely unkept lawn which has had 6 hens pecking at it for about a year and a half now.  It'll scruff it up a bit, so don't try it if you really care about having a nice lawn, but besides that it'll live.
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Jun 22, 2011 03:18
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Leghorns can fly a fair bit, generally the breeds classified as 'medium' or 'heavy' can't fly very well. Or as others have suggested, you can clip the wings.
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Jun 22, 2011 04:31
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Also, if you have anything near the wall, they could jump up on it and then over the fence.
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Jun 22, 2011 04:35
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I've been having a bit of an issue reitroducing my sick pullet rusty to the flock. She is fine now, just a nasty tongue yeast infection I'm still treating, bu it's way better now. I've let her outside the whole day and night for 3 days now, and while during the day I've seen no big issues between her (she's some bantam mix I think, she's small), and my cockerel Roostroyer (Velvet Sparrow's light brahma hatch of this year). He still walks in front of her and gives her the stink eye when they are eating, but it's nowhere near as bad as before. they often hang out together and even lay down in the shade together. At dusk, however, he still scares her a lot and pecks her when they are in the coop (my coop has a run included). He pecks at her and the poor thing looks really scared, but they do settle after 15 minutes or so, with me watching to make sure he doesn't hurt her. Still, I can see the stress is affecting Rusty bit, so what I did tonight was lock the pullets in the coop, and put Roostroyer in a dog crate inside the coop. After the girls were settled an it was darker, I let him out, grabbed him, held hi firmly and pet him as VS taught me to make sure he gets the point I'm still the head roo (and so he would also calm down and stop struggling), and let him in the run. He walked into the coop, and while he clucked and woke everybody up, and Rusty got tense by seeing him there, he didn't go after her, and just settled down and finally all of them slept. Should I continue doing that, or will my new technique backfire? Sorry for the long post, but as I've said before, I've never had chickens before, and I still don't know when not to worry and let them sort things out, and when thing are not working out.
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Jun 22, 2011 05:08
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I'm picking up a small coop (converted rabbit hutch) and 2 hens tonight... pictures to follow later. The girlfriend isn't very happy about this. She'll come around when she sees the chickens.
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Jun 22, 2011 18:16
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A flying piece of posted:I'm picking up a small coop (converted rabbit hutch) and 2 hens tonight... pictures to follow later. The girlfriend isn't very happy about this. She'll come around when she sees the chickens. Good luck bro, be sure to post any experiences that you have as a first time chicken owner for my sake!  I'm starting construction on a coop tomorrow for 3 chickens, looking into getting hold of a local chicken breed, the Koekoek:
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Jun 22, 2011 21:39
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So after a 4 hour drive home (Wow I'm never driving around D.C. during rush hour again... should have been a 2 hour drive), the coop and chickens were set after it got dark. I'll get better pictures over the next few days, but here they are settling in: The brown and white one is a Tracter Supply- Tetra Tint hen (some new breed within the last year that is a hybrid and heavy producer). The larger black and white one is a Silver Cuckoo Maran hen. The smaller black one is a Frizzle hen and the one left, the silver-looking one, is a Splash Maran rooster. These are all according to the lady I got them from as I really have no idea. Questions: 1) Do I need to make these laying boxes I keep hearing about? 2) How quickly will they rip up a small area of grass? 3) How long should I expect them to go through the 'getting used to each other' phase? Only two of the four were in the same coop before. 4) Where the hell do I get chicken feed? (I got a bunch from the lady I bought them from) I didn't really want a rooster because I'm afraid once it grows up the neighbors will hate it... but she claimed sometimes they grow up to be really quiet and I guess I can get rid of it if it becomes an issue. A flying piece of fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 03:25
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Mr_Biggs posted:Ok thanks man, I'll keep that in mind. How much damage are 2 or 3 chickens likely to do to a lawn of 25m square if they are left to roam free every day? Sorry I have no idea what that is in feet. Apologies also for what might be inane questions, I just keep thinking of new ones... :/ Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (awesome TV chef who started his own farm project and started the Chicken Out campaign - watch his River Cottage shows if you want to see nice treatment of beasts, good advice and some tasty recipes) said on his site somewhere that it's usually not much of a problem, but if the chickens are scratching up the lawn too much, you can put a short fence down the middle of their area, so that when the grass on one side is looking a bit bare, you can put the chickens over onto the other side to let the grass grow again.
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Jun 23, 2011 12:58
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A flying piece of posted:Questions: 1) Not really. Unless you want to watch the chickens pointedly ignore them. 2)Immediately. In two weeks it will be a lunar landscape 3)The younger they are the sooner they will sort it out. Shouldn't take long for yours...maybe a few days. 4)Agway, Southern States or Tractor Supply
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Jun 23, 2011 13:58
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Congrats on your chickens! All your questions have pretty much been answered, but I would ad that since you've got a rooster you want to feed them 'Flock Raiser' or some kind of other feed that doesn't have added calcium, and put a dish of oyster shell in the coop. Laying hens need the extra calcium that is added to layer feed, but its bad for the kidneys of chicks and roosters. If he ends up being noisy, and you decide you don't want a rooster, it might be worthwhile to put him up for sale on craigslist. Marans are the 'cool' chicken right now, so someone might want to use him for breeding. Or alternately, process him and make coq au vin. 
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Jun 23, 2011 18:52
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WrathofKhan posted:I would ad that since you've got a rooster you want to feed them 'Flock Raiser' or some kind of other feed that doesn't have added calcium, and put a dish of oyster shell in the coop. The hens will eat the oyster shell and not the rooster? Apparently I don't give chickens enough credit.
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Jun 23, 2011 19:53
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It is kind of surprising, since chickens are dumb as poo poo. My personal theory is that the need to eat oyster shell is kinda like pica in humans, and the hens have a overwhelming urge to eat the high in calcium stuff when they need it.
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Jun 23, 2011 23:14
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Figured I'd post some better pictures because, hey... who doesn't like pictures. We named this one, the rooster, Dartagnan after one of the guys I play Planetside with. His comment on the forums when I posted that info there was "The first thing that's ever named after me and it's a cock!?'  After arguing with my girlfriend, this one is named Dagda (again a Planetside thing... and a celtic mythology thing if you want to get technical). She's currently the largest of the hens and is kind of a bitch.  This one is Black Mama and is currently the way youngest... not even half grown. She's also the cutest and the one most amiable to being handled. AND SHE HAS FEATHERY FEET!  We don't have a name for this one yet. I'm letting another group of people I associate with name her. You're welcome to suggest things too. 
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Jun 24, 2011 02:03
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Your new babies are all so But naming a hen Dagda... that's just wrong.  That's got to be a rooster's name, and even then, it'd be The Dagda. But hey, it's your poultry. I like Black Mama the bestest. Name the reddish one Thor.  "I just laid a HUGE egg and man am I Thor!"
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Jun 24, 2011 05:40
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So I've heard a lot about chickens being stupid... how accurate is that? Any amusing anecdotes about unexpected cleverness or profound stupidity?
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Jun 24, 2011 14:01
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A flying piece of posted:You're welcome to suggest things too. Please name her Weedcat, thank you.
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Jun 24, 2011 17:07
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A flying piece of posted:Do you have racoons or possums? They will literally reach through that chicken wire, and tear a chicken through it, piece by piece, I've seen this mess and it it's NSFW. Like other posters in this thread have mentioned, use poultry netting if you can, and bury it a few inches deep so nothing can dig under it. If you don't have bad rear end predators in your area, carry on
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Jun 24, 2011 18:50
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smitz posted:Do you have racoons or possums? They will literally reach through that chicken wire, and tear a chicken through it, piece by piece, I've seen this mess and it it's NSFW. I live just north of Baltimore, MD and I don't doubt that we have both of those around here, although I've never actually seen one in the area that this yard is in. Building a more secure (and larger) caged run is at the top of my list once we finish moving into the house tomorrow. That structure is just what came with the coop.
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Jun 24, 2011 19:09
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Marchegiana posted:Just make sure you read the entire code, not just what's on the backyard chickens website (they should have the link to the code there for you). Their website lists where I live (Henrico County, VA) as allowing chickens. The section of code they quoted does seem to indicate that chickens are allowed, but only if they "observe the distance requirements of Section 24-10", which states that a coop has to be 400 feet from the property line. That means you'd have to own over 4 acres to have chickens. I live in Chesterfield, and it is ridiculous too. My coop would have to be 500 feet away from any other building.
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Jun 24, 2011 22:39
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Stupid chicken stories.... Well, I had one chicken who committed suicide by flying over the back wall and getting eaten by the neighbor's dog. Another chicken, my Easter Egger Jubilation, (they were free ranging in the back yard, because we'd just gotten irrigation and wanted them to eat bugs) wiggled behind a large shipping box we use for storage on the patio to lay an egg. Once she was there, she couldn't get out and flipped over onto her back. We found her an hour later, she seemed pretty woozy, because chickens can't breathe well when on their backs, but recovered quickly. As far as smart chickens go, my Blue Andalusian, Inara, is pretty bright. This makes getting her to stay in the run a real challenge. We clipped her wings to keep her in, and she started *climbing* up the wire. Like, she'd jump as high as she could, then hook onto the wire with her feet, and do this flapping climb up the fence, then jump off the top. Later, we added a bird netting roof to the run, and she found the one spot where it wasn't attached to the run fence, and wriggled through.
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Jun 24, 2011 23:37
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I successfully constructed a square structure with a functioning, swinging, latchable door!  Sometime in the fall, I'd like to make a larger coop with an attached run that is all on wheels so I can more easily move them around to fresh ground. 
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Jun 27, 2011 13:49
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