|
||||||
 In the last post (see Molting Chickens), I said that you could tell how long a chicken has been molting and how long it would continue to molt by looking at the primary (flight) feathers. But, I didn’t go on to explain how from there – as several have pointed out. I’ll try to explain further with [...] Continue reading Fast or Slow Molting Chickens?  Fall is the time of year when chickens molt and ours are doing just that; so egg production is way down and it’s a good time to make decisions on which chickens (if any) should be culled. Molting is a natural occurrence for chickens triggered by shortening day length in fall. It can take from 2 [...] Continue reading Molting Chickens  To help educate backyard poultry owner’s about infectious poultry diseases and protect their birds, the United States Department of Agriculture is again offering a free calendar for 2012, called: Backyard Biosecurity: Keeping Your Birds Healthy. The calendar features full-color photos of birds like the one shown below, and can be ordered at: https://web01.aphis.usda.gov/LPA/Biobird_orders.nsf/biobirdorders?OpenForm. You can order [...] Continue reading Free 2012 Bird Calendar  With a little knowledge and planning, the number of eggs produced by chickens can be controlled to be somewhat consistent throughout the year. Although the number of eggs a chicken produces each week depends on many things; it’s most dependent upon day length. Increasing day length in the springtime signals a chicken to start producing more eggs; and if [...] Continue reading Controlling Chicken Egg Production  The two Buckeye hens that went broody this summer both successfully hatched three chicks; and today we have five chicks left that are growing up amongst the flock. All of the chicks that hatched seem to be extremely healthy, and we haven’t needed to provide any special care for the them at all (i.e. no brooder box, no pasty butts, no heat [...] Continue reading Broody Chick Update 
Our second Buckeye hen to go broody this season successfully hatched 3 chicks on Thursday (see “Broodies Buckeye Chicks – 10 Days Old” for more background), which is terrific; however, that means we need someplace to house them – the broody box is inside the coop and too small to hold mama and baby chicks for very long. As [...] Continue reading Second Broody Hen Hatches Chicks  The Buckeye chicks that our broody hen hatched are now 10 days old, and three of the chicks have survived. It’s fascinating to watch mother hen raise the chicks – I thought raising day-old chicks was great (see Raising Day-Old Chicks), but watching how she handles it is even better. The chicks hatched in the broody box in the [...] Continue reading Broodies Buckeye Chicks – 10 Days Old  The eggs under our broody Buckeye hen (see Building A Broody Box) were due to hatch starting yesterday (Tuesday) when it would have been 20 days since we set eggs under her; so we were shocked on Saturday when this showed up: Naturally, we then expected more eggs would be hatching shortly - but nothing on [...] Continue reading Broody Buckeye Hatches Chicks!  Tinker Bell Eating Pea Vines Each time I work in the garden and consider bringing back some garden trimmings for the goats and chickens; I have to stop and look through my reference books – to determine whether that particular plant is safe for them to eat. So, I decided to make a list of [...] Continue reading Garden Greens for Goats & Chickens  Broody Buckeye Hen – Sitting For 10 Days & Counting As of yesterday, our broody Buckeye hen has diligently been sitting on 15 eggs - for 10 days. She gets out of her nest box only to eat, drink, and relieve herself; and has only once signalled a desire to leave the broody box (see Building A [...] Continue reading Candling Broodies Eggs  I’m so excited – one of the Buckeyes has gone broody!!! Raising the Buckeyes was a great experience (see Raising Day-Old Chicks), but I was hoping the Buckeyes would retain their instinct to go broody, and raise their own young – I’d rather they perpetuate the flock (why should I do the work if they’ll do it naturally?). So, when one hen showed [...] Continue reading Building A Broody Box 
This is the first year we’ve had heritage buckeye chickens, more than one rooster, and a new phenomenon – hens with bare backs. We have nineteen hens, and one rooster per every ten hens is recommended, so two roosters aren’t too many. Still, some of the buckeye hens are literally getting the feathers worn off their backs. There are four of them with bare [...] Continue reading Bare Back Chickens!  Giant Yellow Eckendorf This year, we’re adding a new vegetable mainstay to the garden – not for us, but for the chickens. Mangel beets used to be grown extensively as a livestock feed on small farms; however, usage dwindled in the US as large farms became the norm. Today, it’s being rediscovered on small farmsteads as [...] Continue reading Growing Mangel Beets for Chickens  Spring finally seems to be here, so in the first semi-dry weekend, we cleaned and inspected the year-old chicken coop. We use the “deep-litter” method for managing coop sanitation, which basically means putting down a 4” layer of pine shavings (the “litter”) mixed with a little diatomaceous earth, adding more pine shavings as the ratio [...] Continue reading Semi-Annual Chicken Coop Cleaning & Evaluation  Well, a hen’s reproductive system consists of an ovary and an oviduct. The ovary contains undeveloped egg yolks (the number of yolks (or ovum) that are contained here are the total number of eggs the chicken will lay in her life) that are released into the oviduct as each yolk develops, usually about an hour [...] Continue reading What Causes Double Yolks? |
||||||
|
Copyright © 2012 Better Hens and Gardens - All Rights Reserved |
||||||
Chicken Coop Cam
New Comments