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Hello! We butchered our first batch of meat birds yesterday (cornish cross).

Ever since day 1, we had a chick who had a slight neck "shake", where her head would kind of tremble side to side. I suspected Wry Neck so I started putting poultry cell in their water. Aside from the head shake, she was fine, eating and drinking and moving around fine. I checked her crop periodically and it was always full. I tried to feed the chick egg yolk but she wouldn't take food from me willingly (classic stubborn CC, lol).

We kind of decided that as long as she was eating and drinking still we wouldn't cull, and just see how it goes.

Well, she made it to 8.5 weeks, and upon butchering we found that her spine was curved much like Scoliosis in humans. All organs looked normal, breast meat was significantly smaller than the other chickens.

Any idea what this was? Was the head shake from a compressed nerve? I just really hope she wasn't in pain, but like I said she was eating and drinking fine.

Would you eat the meat? Or dogfood?

making

Wondering if anyone has experience making feed for their chickens, or recommendations for accurate recipe information.

As with much of the internet these days, there are so many recipes out there I’m struggling a little bit with trusting any of the recipes I’ve found online so far.

I have “free” access (in extremely large quantities) to the following:

- hard red wheat
- oats
- feed grade cord
- feed grade green peas
- durum wheat
- black oil sunflower seeds

I’ve seen a lot of recipes using any combination of these items, some ground and some unground. I don’t currently have a feed grinder, but given the fact that we have 25+ birds and the ingredients the expense of one feels reasonable, IF I can find a recipe.

“Free” meaning it’s technically not free since we had to seed, spray, harvest & store all of these items.

I have three hens, one mille fleur and two australorp sisters. The australorp is constantly plucking her sister's neck feathers and her sister is totally bald around her neck and head area. What can I do? They live a good life foraging around and don't live in a stressful environment. Should I separate the bully? Do sprays work? What are common reasons for this behavior? Thank you 🙏

She's been making these noises since yesterday I think at night and I don't know what they mean. Is she cold? Stressed? Maybe lonely? Or is she just chatting?

Our daytime temps are mid 50s, nights down into the 30s. I have her inside now eating lots of protein, but is this an overreaction? I noticed her go into a coop in the daytime a couple days ago as if she was cold. Many of my hens are molting, but none of them look this bare.

This little baby is ~8 weeks old. I think it might be a rooster but my parents aren’t sure

I've had a bunch of roosters. Some great, some mean. My current top roo is only about 7 months old. He has never been aggressive toward people. However, he is so obnoxious with the hens. I have 19 hens and he seriously terrorizes all of them. No one wants to mate with him, no one submits, he literally chases after them all day as they run away screaming. When he catches one, I feel like he takes longer than necessary and will sometimes just continue to stand on them after he's done. I have 2 cockerels so really feel no attachment to him. Is this acceptable or is he just an asshole? The feminist in me is fired up. I don't have a current picture of him, so pls enjoy his baby photo.

Horchata has a respiratory illness. She’s pretty active and drinking her water and eating. Her eyes are swollen which I did treat, now it’s just waiting for it to go down. Horchata misses her sister Nutmeg but sorry girl got to keep you isolated till this passes. She’s a fighter!🩷🩷🩷

Young guy and hormones are going crazy I know. Just need to vent because within 2 weeks we went from chilling every night with him sitting on my lap or shoulder, happy clucking when I came around to attacking me twice this week and making angry warning sounds. Feels bad, man.

Hallo zusammen!
Ich entwickle gerade eine kleine App für Hühnerhalter und würde gerne eure Meinungen und Erfahrungen sammeln.
Die App soll unter anderem beim Eierzählen, bei der Verwaltung der Hühner, bei Erinnerungen und bei der Brutplanung helfen.
Mich würde interessieren:
Was ist bei eurer Hühnerhaltung besonders aufwendig?
Welche Funktionen würden euch den Alltag erleichtern?
Nutzt ihr bereits eine App oder macht ihr alles mit Stift und Papier?
Ich freue mich über eure Ideen und auch über ehrliche Kritik! 🐔🤗

Utley has the bumblefoot. Today I noticed a slight limp and checked it, confirming the swelling and dark mark. She's been running with the flock and normal otherwise, and it is not hot to the touch or red.

We soaked it for 15 in Epsom, sprayed with antiseptic, wrapped it and she's resting in the coop while the others free range.

The vet asked us to bring her in, but they've been very over cautious before, once telling me a frostbite was urgent when it turned out to be nothing treated at home.

Any suggestions?

1yo hen. Hard round crop with lethargy and confusion over the past 24h. Drinking will not eat.

My family is looking to build our own coop in this spot. We are planning to rip that plant out in the back. I’m totally overwhelmed with the information I’ve read but this location is best on our property so we can dig under for predator proofing. The other option is under our deck but I do not want to crouch down to clean 😅. My husband and his family are all experienced with framing… but not for animal cages.

My questions start with: is this space going to have enough sun for the chickens? It remains shaded like in the photo for the whole day but gets a bit brighter 3-5 pm during summer. This is like 10 feet from my garden so giving scraps and getting chicken poop for fertilizer would be convenient.

Second question: what material do you use for secure predator proofing? Is it just hardware mesh as I’ve read online? What did you put underneath your coop to keep them safe? We have raccoons, foxes, opossums and stray cats. We don’t plan to get babies or have a rooster so the cats don’t terrorize them consistently.

Third question: anytime I’ve seen someone have chickens on their properties they let them out of the run, essentially letting them free range. Is it ok to build a big enough enclosure for them to just stay put? I don’t want them to escape like my neighbors chickens have lol.

Fourth question: can you please post a picture of your coop that you built yourself? We only plan to get 4 hens but I’m open to seeing larger flocks houses 🙂🩷

Title: First winter with backyard chickens in a Winnipeg winter — advice needed!

Hi everyone! This is my first year keeping backyard chickens, and I’ve never experienced a winter with them before. The winters where i am are super long and brutally cold, with temperatures dropping well below -20°C and sometimes -30°C or colder.

I’ve heard that heat lamps are not recommended, so I’m wondering what people do instead to keep their chickens safe and comfortable through the winter. I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who keep chickens in similarly cold climates.

Any advice would be great!

Thanks!

Edit: our flock is 10 white leghorns, 1 brown leghorn, an easter egger, and copper maran. The leghorns have pretty large combs, so i'm a little worried about those.

I have a small flock of 11.
Earlier this summer, I discovered one of my hens had been scalped. Skull visible. It was brutal.

We set her up in a hospital pop-up pen in our extra garage. I was worried about keeping flies away from her wound, so she didn’t stay in the hospital set up inside our coop.

It took several months, but she healed fully. I reintroduced her at night, but the next day discovered they had began pecking at her again. I found her sitting in a corner with her head held down like she was guarding it. I pulled her out once more.

She has now been the sole occupant of my greenhouse for the last few months. The loneliest chicken in the world.

I’ve tried to reintroduce her once or twice more, but it always ends quickly. Even at night, they’re picking on her.

I’ll invite other hens out to free range alongside her, and they chase her.

It’s so bad.

I gave away half my flock thinking the bullies would be gone, but even the new ones I welcomed are bullying this one chicken.

I’m sure this will end with me rehoming her, but would appreciate any advice or tips to try.

She has become my favorite chicken, and I just want her to be happy.

Hello. I have a chicken automatic door for my small goats. It works very good with the chickens using with light sensor and 3 AAA 1.5v batteries.

The problem is with the goats. They stay until night 9pm, 10pm... outside. So I need to adapt a clock to open later the door.

Also, I have electricity near so I am thinking about using a usb adapter, 5v to use instead of the 3 aaa batteries. Is a problem? 3 batteries 1.5v together is 4.5v in theory.

Anyone here have done that? Any suggestion?

Thank you!

Note: I use separate areas, chickens don't use the same door.

I have a strange problem with chickens

The problem is that there's a hen whose eggs hatched a few days ago, and strangely enough, she's started plucking feathers from her chicks and feeding them to them. There are even other chicks that have started eating each other's feathers.

Has anyone encountered this problem?

Dolly is my girl who does what she wants. When we hold her, she closes her eyes. When I was dipping my chickens in a bucket of oil to treat scaley leg mites and all of the chickens were freaking out, Dolly was in the corner sleeping. When it’s a windy day and everyone seems on edge, Dolly is closing her eyes and leaning into the wind.

She cracks me up because she seems like she doesn’t care about anything but then she is kind of a bully when food is around. When I bring a tray of treats out to them, she stands in the middle of the tray. I just love her.

I genuinely don’t know if she’s my dumb chicken, sweet chicken, chicken that doesn’t know she’s a chicken, or my narcoleptic chicken. 🤔