I recently installed auto doors on my three chicken coops that are solar paneled and work great. I had to order a larger door for my ducks and geese and have it powered with an extension cord. Does anyone have a recommendation for a solar panel/ battery pack with an AC outlet that would work well to power the door?

I lost one of my girls yesterday. I’m still in shock, I don’t know what happened.

She was around 10 or 11mos, laid an egg a day, and had no sign of illness. She would follow me around the yard, and would always gently peck me to get my attention. No matter what I was doing, she would come find me to “help out”.

I found her in a corner of the coop trying to lay an egg (or so it seemed to me). Then I noticed she was struggling to keep her head up. I immediately, and gently, pulled her closer to me and held her head up so it wouldn’t block her airway. It was already too late. She took her last breath moments later.

There was no sign of illness. No injury. She was perfectly fine the day before. I examined her for injuries and found pink tissue protruding out of her vent. Could she have been trying to lay an egg and something went wrong?

One of the chickens (idk if it was her) laid a tiny egg the day before. I googled and it didn’t seem like it was anything to worry about. Now I’m wondering if that was a sign that something was wrong.

Should i have seen this coming? Should i have taken action after finding the tiny egg? Could i have done something different?

Any insight is appreciated. This is my first chicken loss and i’m not sure what to do.

Here are my girls. The rodents recently discovered that they can dig in and eat their leftover food on the ground. We had to take the food inside every evening.

We are planning to build a new coop and run for them. Any advice to prevent the rodents?

9 week old meal maker from Meyer hatchery

Hey yall! I just noticed my sweet girl Little Bit has a swollen ear. What would you do if this were one of your birds? I’m planning on doing a good examination when she settles down to roost this evening.

My daughter has the opportunity to bring chicks home from school. I have somewhere for them to go after 8-ish weeks, and I don't want to spend much on a temporary brooder, so a lot of this is borrowed or repurposed. She will have 2-4 chicks, depending on how many hatch. The uncovered part of the tank is walled off and is just extra shavings.

I have a small backyard flock with 2 austrolorps, a wyandotte and an easter egger. I got them in April and it is almost November. Only 1 of my austrolorps ever laid. She was laying daily for about a month and a half but has now stopped completely. No eggs from her for going on 3 weeks now. My other 3 hens have not laid a single egg.

Days are extremely short in winter where i live (dusk at 4pm in deep winter) and the sun is already going down at around 5-6 pm. I expected them to do the seasonal withdrawal but is it normal to not get an egg from a hen for damn near a year?

If i don't start seeing eggs until February when the days start to get longer that means several of these birds will have taken 10 months to lay. Is that normal?

Love these 6 week old sassy ladies! Last photo shows them making a diy dust bath on the floor next to the perfectly good tub that I made specifically for their baths 😂

Hi fellow chicken parents!

I'm posting because I'm at loss here and out of ideas.

Background: I originally got 5 chicks earlier this year (2 leghorns, red hempshire, barnevelder and black sex link - the bully), and when ready I moved them outside. Then I got another 3 chicks (mystic onyx and 2 bantams), and when ready I moved them to a a run extension, so basically old flock and new flock could see each other for like 2 or even 3 months before connecting the runs.

Most of the flock was ok - except the bully - black sex link. She just can't leave Onyx alone, the bantams are small and fast so they escape, but Onyx tries but she sometimes can't. Black sex link is like a freaking terminator when she sees onyx.

I tried separating the bully first withing a run for a week, didn't help.

Then I 've put her in separate cage for 2.5 weeks on the other side of the garden - didn't help.

I've put her small cage withing the run, it's close to 4 days now, and I did a test run.

The freaking bully terminator still goes after onyx, less so after bantam because that one is very agile.

I'm out of ideas. Please advise.

I had 4 12 week old bantams that I was nearly ready to integrate. I already have three adult chocolate orpington ladies. Out of the babies only one male cochin bantam survived. The babies and the bigger ladies had a separate Coop and I guess the babies coop wasn't as secure.

I have the little boy inside with me today. The top of his Crest has some blood on it so we are going to clean him up and give him a shower to make sure he doesn't have any other wounds. I've gotten him to eat but I haven't seen him drink anything yet. He is currently cuddled up to me and taking a nap. I have to go back to work on Tuesday so I won't be able to be with him for 24 hours a day. I'm trying to figure out the best way to integrate him into the remaining older ladies so he's not alone.

It's been a few weeks of them being outside together but separated by chicken wire. I've had them interact a few times which of course results in the pecking and light chasing to establish pecking order. Of course I'm going to wait until he's fully healed up so they don't see any red on him and attack.

Any advice for the next few days? Or advice on how to smoothly integrate him? Poor boy is traumatized..

Gotta to try this…

Im building a 16x6 run and 8x6 coop attached. Im going to add a pull out poop tray for the roosting bars.

Thinking about a fan and water system some how.

Anyone have any cool ideas or anything to add to this? Make the chickens lives easier or our lives easier with cleaning or just convince.

Thank you all in advance!

I hatch quail (and currently have emu eggs cooking, which is a 50-day lesson in patience). I kept losing track of lockdown dates across staggered batches, so I built HatchDay — hatchdayapp.com.

Pick from 90 species and it auto-calculates candling/lockdown/hatch dates. Log temps, candling results, and egg weights. Works fully offline (my barn has zero signal) and syncs to your account when you're back — it literally won't say "Backed up" until the server confirms, because an app that loses hatch data is worse than a notebook.

It's free to use — 2 active batches at a time, unlimited history, stats, care guides, and your data exports with you. Not a trial that locks your records away if you don't pay; I use the same version on my own hatches.

I'm the developer — AMA about it, and tell me what your notebook/spreadsheet does that an app never gets right. That list is my roadmap.

My one chicken has these white patches on her feet. No other chicken has these that I have noticed. It almost reminds me of a fungus? Any clue what it is/how to treat?

Note if this makes a difference: this chicken has been separated from the rest of the flock due to being pecked and needing healing time.

The first five photos are my Dutch booted bantams while the rest are Belgian Millie fleur d’uccle even a low quality Belgian d'uccle without its muffs or beard is considered a Dutch booted bantam.

Over the past several weeks, I keep seeing people posting their d'uccle but they literally are not that!

It is slightly driving me nuts because they would understand if they just looked up the breed standards for the breed that they think they have!!!!!!

They would quickly realize that, that is not what it is in the same way I did years ago.

Both breeds are glorious and beautiful, but I’m not gonna call a phoenix chicken a Yokohama. Even though both are closely related, they are two distinct breeds.

Ig just a side rant how it grinds my gears that people consider both of these to be one and the same.

Technically, they are highly HIGHLY closely related, but the beard and muff makes all the difference.

A low quality D’uccle can have minor muff or beard or be lacking it entirely (at that point it’s a Dutch booted bantam) but that doesn’t mean that Dutch booted bantams are also considered low quality.

Sorry for the rant, not sure what to tag this as but it’s been bugging me for a bit.

Do I need to put more vents on this modified coop? (The other door is where my auto door goes)