Captain Log posted:

Chickens are capable of drawing blood?

My ex had an uncle who lost a ball (Yes, a man ball) to a goose...but that's also a loving goose.

my cat is norris posted:

I've been steadily adding more straw and plants and things around it, once it's done I'll get a decent clean scan and share that so you can print it or something...!!

Thank you all for the compliments, I don't do too much drawing anymore so it's nice when I make something I feel is good enough to be shared. For you to enjoy it, too, means a lot!

Lawson posted:

That all depends on where in the world you are, and what kind of birds you have. We have (&had) RIR, BR, Polish crested, and misc. mutts in New Jersey, and our coop provides nothing but shelter from wind and rain. The temperature is the same as outside. In the first year I was paranoid too, and gave them a heat lamp, and then a space heater (set on really low). This didn't really make a difference. It only got the electricity bill up, and made me paranoid about starting a fire. So now I don't do anything and they're all fine. The only thing I do have is a heated drinker to prevent it from freezing. But as I said, if you're raising Fayoumis in Greenland you may have to give them a little extra heat.

fauna posted:

i'm glad someone is reading it and i'm not just whitenoising into the void quail are fantastic, but i try to show both sides of the quail experience (the joy and the sorrow) to emphasise that they're not the perfect pet for everybody, emotionally/psychologically speaking

as for the cold, i've never lost a quail to cold and i've kept them in places where night temperatures would occasionally dip below freezing, but unfortunately don't really know much about new england winters. australian desert winters are very dry and very frosty, without snow, and most of the time they would sleep on the bare ground, it was mostly only when it rained that they slept in the waterproof nesting area. they seem to be pretty tolerant of cold. so i think if you buy locally bred birds, they'll do fine as long as you make sure part of their enclosure is waterproof and lined with soft warm nesting materials for the very bad nights

Halloween Jack posted:

Purina Layena Plus Omega-3 Layer Feed. I've gone from crumbles to pellets and I'm thinking about going back to the crumbles.

Mozi posted:

A new layer has entered the nesting box!

Errant Gin Monks posted:

So it’s been years but I finally decided to get back into chickens. This time around I’m doing meat birds instead of layers, so I will focus less on the chickens themselves and more on their digs. I built a modern inspired coop to house my chooks while they grow out. I have been furloughed or about a week now and worked on this for 5 solid days. I’m happy with how it turned out.

That Works posted:

Coop update



I made a solar powered battery operated system for the coop. It's got a raspberry pi running a temp sensor and also a linear actuator to open and close the door. It's close enough to the house that it's on wifi so I can control it all remotely.


That first egg gets ever more expensive.

spookygonk posted:

That Works posted:

Our Marans is beautiful but super skittish and never wants to hang with the other hens or come near people much.

The gold and silver wyandottes are pretty middle of the road, not wanting to come socialize much, but don't freak out when we need to pick one up and were super gentle when we had to trim ones beak.

Our cream crested legbar is probably the prettiest of the bunch, but also mean to the other hens and avoids us all the time. I would probably not get more of those next time.

Lastly are the buff orpingtons which are all adorable and sweet, curious and want to come sit on your arm or shoulder whenever you come by. By far they are the nicest of the bunch.

That Works posted:

It really is!

A few times my wife and I have just pulled up a chair outside the coop and had a drink and just bullshitted and watched the chickens be silly. Pretty good stress relief.

newts posted:

You guys are rad, thanks! I will think some more...


My kids have already picked out a few ridiculous looking chickens. Mainly Cochins and faverolles. I thought they'd be into silkies, but my oldest said they looked like "dinosaur aliens" so I guess they're out.

We have a pretty low fence on either side of us (to neighbors' yards) so I don't think the birds can be out of the run without supervision. So, I'm kind of leaning toward Cochins as I've heard they're too floof and/or dumb to fly over fences. My youngest daughter swears she'll die if we don't get faverolles, though.

MrUnderbridge posted:

We had a mouse issue some years ago. One evening I heard a SNAP followed by a squealing and thumping. Turns out the mouse trap caught a young rat and only broke its back. Had to get a length of 2 by 4 to put it down. Not fun at all.

Shifty Nipples posted:

My chickens are starting to molt.

Displeased Moo Cow posted:

Amber has improved significantly since the tick and worm treatment. Stools are almost normal now. She eats like a horse. Quite a friendly chook too. Looking at her options with the rest of the crew but I might be looking at making a bespoke house for her as she is finding getting up difficult with her wonky leg.

Displeased Moo Cow posted:

Amber is laying

That Works posted:

What do you cold-weather types like to use for watering during the winter?

I have a 5g bucket waterer hanging in the run and was looking at just putting in an electric de-icer ring for that maybe, but wasn't sure if there was a better / safer option.

Errant Gin Monks posted:

So my girls decided they were super angry at the heating lamp in their roosting area and they knocked it outside and onto the ladder.

This promptly began igniting the ladder and causing smoke to billow out of the chicken coop and my wife to run upstairs screaming and waking me up this morning.

So now they have no heating lamp. And they refused to go upstairs because they couldn’t see. So I had to hold a flashlight up to allow them to walk up the ramp at the pace they felt was needed and find their spots on the roosts. This resulted in me standing in 20 degree snow with a flashlight waiting for chickens to go upstairs for 15 minutes.

I’m not going to need to kill them they are going to die of stupidity any day now.

Errant Gin Monks posted:

Ask my wife. She demanded a heating lamp even though chicken don’t need one. She has changed her point of view now.

I tell everyone not to use them but you know.... she says it must be done it just be done.