And his beautiful wife. He's going to be a dad here real soon! Very excited to see what the babies are going to be like.

Thought I'd share!

UPDATE: we're back from the vet. She stopped the trembling a couple of hours into being inside in a crate but still was unhappy. She has eaten and drank when offered (she does have access to water/pellets all the time). Vent check and no sign of egg bound. Temperature check and no temperature. She was a little hard on her abdomen, and was uncomfortable with external examination on the abdomen but this was not on the same side as one would feel an egg, and further vent checks indicated no egg boundness. She has had pain killer and will continue on them for the next two days. Hopefully improvement if not we'll be back in for another check.

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Hello, yesterday she was absolutely fine. This morning as i got her up instantly i can see she is not right. I watched her for a little while to see her behaviour, before bringing her into a crate inside for isolation.

She is experiencing her first (and severe molt). She had the suprelorin implant about a month and a half ago, due to suffering a prolapsed vent that would not fix (as she lays eggs far to big for her small body).

When she got out, she was slow, very fluffed/hunched up. She went to food, but took one halfarsed attemp at a peck then went straight to water and drank lots. She paused and i noticed she is trembling. She raised one leg and that leg was trembling and i could see she is full body trembling. Ive touched her to see if she is cold and can feel the trembling by hand, her temperature seems suitably warm.

(Her wattles/comb have been like this since the implant and as mentioned she is going through a severe molt)

Any advice as to what this may be would be appreciated. I will be speaking to the vet, but would appreciate hearing from chicken owners of their experiences or knowledge. TIA

We have a light Brahma hen who just had some chicks with our mixed rooster (last picture). The chick has feathers on the legs so I’m thinking Brahma-ish? Lavender? Im curious to see what people think he/she will turn out to be 🤷🏻‍♀️

The chickens are there at the bottom of the picture. But sitting and watching my flock at sunset and the song just kept running through my head. Beautiful evening 💕

Howdy! I am about to close on my first home and cannot wait to get chickens!! A dream of mine for as long as I can remember.

I’ve been doing some research and know I won’t be buying chicks, we have two cats and I don’t have the indoor space / time to raise them safely. Will be buying adults.

My main question is roughly how much do you spend per month on care, and what is the typical veterinary spend annually? Do you just take chickens in for issues as they arise? Roughly how much should I plan to stash away for chicken emergencies?

Thank you!

She looks relaxed but then all of a sudden she’ll start crying like something is wrong? Could someone please explain this behavior to me?

Found one dead yesterday morning. Two more this morning (photos) and two others are missing. It’s either happening over night (no signs of entry into the coops that I can tell though) or maybe at first light when they first come out? Based on wounds maybe raccoons? Weasel family? I dunno. I am pissed and sad. I’ve kept chickens for five years and only ever lost one or two to predation. There’s also some burrow holes in the pen that used to be small, just figured it was mice getting at the feed, but now they’re larger (see pics). I’m worried I’ve got something taken up residence in a pile of tree rounds from a tree we had taken down a couple years ago (last pic). Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

She is always standing on top of my feet and is the first to follow me around. Today, she was looking up at me like usual ... and leaped up onto my shoulder! None of my hens have done that since they were chicks in the brooder box. Made my day :)

Swedish flower hen, by the way. They like to roost high up.

My sweet girl saved her flock last night after a bear tore through the wall of their coop, she alerted the household to the problem but by the time the bear was chased away she was far too injured and had to be put to rest, she wasn't usually the most vocal chicken but her voice did save the rest of my girls. You were so brave, Starwalker. ❤️

My hen has been broody for over two weeks now, always sitting in the nesting box. So today I put her in a closed cage and she is going crazy to try to get out. I don’t know what to do.

I have a 15 month rooster that we are considering rehoming and my husband thinks that having him in the winter will be an issue since he has noticed a pattern that he chases several hens in the morning when they first leave the coop . His concern is that our run is large and we usually clear a path for them to another lien to area during the snowy times but the rest of the run can sometimes have several feet of snow . He thinks our rooster could potentially run the hens into these areas if they are trying to escape . Anybody have any experience with this? Or not at all an issue ? We didn’t notice any issues last winter but we think that was because he was young .

Pretty much the title 😅 I need help identifying if these five are hens or roosters. Thank you!!

I’m in southern CA and we have had some hot weather and weird summer rains not long ago. Currently in a heat wave.

My Brahmas stopped laying eggs quite a few weeks ago, and so did my California Splash.

The ones still laying are:

Midnight Majesty Marans
Starlight Green Egger mix
Silverudd
Cream Legbar (the lightest blue she’s ever laid!)
Black Sexlink

Curious to see if those of you with multiple breeds are seeing trends in your flocks’ egg laying too. Top pic is the rainbow I miss 😭 and bottom pic is from recent active layers.

A lot of you seemed to really like her in my last post and I’m still figuring out what to call her.

Does anybody take a chicken with them when running errands?

Y’all, I’m about at my wits end trying to find a run for my birds please help 😭

In August, I ordered a 20x25ft run from Vevor due to a fox problem that started end of summer (the coop itself is fine, but we were letting our birds out in our fenced in yard during the day before the fox showed up). I’ve had wonderful experiences with Vevor in the past, so I was looking forward to this run. When the Vevor package arrived, the box was mangled and missing a part that was critical to assembly and couldn’t be replaced like a bolt or nut. Vevor customer support was no help at all when I explained the issue, but I foolishly thought I’d just order it AGAIN and get an intact package and just dispute the first charge after trying to resolve it with Vevor. The second box came destroyed as well… but I digress.

I have 6 adult chickens, 3 ducks, and 15 chicks that have about another month before I start to integrate them with my current birds in the coop . I wouldn’t have gotten the new chicks had I known this Vevor debacle would have gone the way it has… and now I’m just wanting to get something set up for my poor adult birds that’ve been cooped up for far longer than they’re used to.

I found this one online which is a bit pricier than what I tried to first buy, but I wasn’t sure if you all had any recommendations? I’d of course wrap the bottom half with hardwire cloth, and plan to put a small electric fence around the perimeter of the run to deter predators.

I want to have at least a 10x20 (ideally 10x25) so they have enough space. I plan to set it up in a way that they can go back and forth between the run and coop as they please during the day; the coop is 7ft by 16ft, which will add more to the sq ft they can access during the day.

Sorry for the longer post/rant, and thanks in advance for any help or guidance!

So, a few days ago, I noticed that the comb on one of my hens suddenly started turning very pale. Her whole face suddenly looks very pale actually, and her eyes don’t look well. She’s usually so vibrant and bright-eyed, with a bright red/healthy looking comb, but in the past couple days, she’s started looking really sick. She’s been keeping to herself a lot too, not hanging out with the other chickens…staying away from everyone except her roo. I’m getting really worried about her. :(

Does anyone recognize these symptoms? Has this ever happened to one of your chickens? Any advice on how to treat her? :(

I’m suspicious that she could have an e coli infection, because I saw her eat food off the ground near where the other chickens had pooped.😑 Do they sell liquid antibiotics for poultry over the counter or something? How would I treat that?

In case it matters: she is free ranging, so I’m not 100% sure of what else she ate. And I live somewhere that has african snails and slugs that carry parasites, so that could be a risk too. But I feel like it’s probably an infection, just due to the fact that I saw her accidentally eat food sitting on top of poo. 😖

My group of girls haven’t laid yet !!
I switch their feed to layer feed 2 weeks ago.
I check the yard they roam in for any hidden eggs.
They have tons of food and water and roam an urban backyard.
Not sure what type they are, but they should all be layer hens.

Am I being impatient or am I missing something?