Winter days must be as long and boring for backyard chickens as they’d be for us if we were cooped up inside all day. With no chance for fresh greens I imagine they would like some fresh food for a change. So….I planted some Chicken Salad Seed Mix for them again this year along with a few other treats. … Read more →
Well the girls have been a bit of a disappointment for the past month or so. Five chickens, lots of feed and bedding ,but…No Eggs! On top of that the coop and the run are a mess! Covered in more and more feathers each day. I knew about molting but knowing about something and experiencing it first hand are two… Read more →
Whenever you add chickens to your flock it’s important to quarantine new girls for a while before combining them. And I did……well, for a few days. I was worried about them working out the pecking order but I didn’t think about anything else. Everything changed one morning when I heard my granddaughter say, ” Look Grandma, Pebbles has spaghetti in… Read more →
When a friend recently sold her home we took two of her little hens so she could still see them. Raised by hand from chicks they are sweet, tame and tons of fun. I had no idea hens raised from chicks were so different from hens brought home as pullets. I brought them home March 3 in our puppy carrier.… Read more →
Watching the birds hang upside down on our big sunflower heads, working so hard to get at the seeds, made me wonder if chickens might like the sunflowers. A little research showed me that they love them and they’re good for them! Tossing sunflowers heads into the pen didn’t make it easy for the girls to get at the seeds… Read more →
We’ve had our chickens almost a year now and one thing has bothered me since day one. The water was always getting dirty and I had to haul a heavy container out to dump and clean it nearly every other day. With our drought conditions in California I’d drag it all over the yard to water plants that needed it,… Read more →
When we first got our “girls” last April they were pullets, or teenage chickens. I spent hours and hours sitting in their run tossing raisins and grapes and trying to get them used to me. After a while both the Golden Sex Link, Lily, and the Wyandotte, Lucy, lost their fear, even letting me hold them. Lacy, the little Barred… Read more →
Cooped up in their run all day the girls don’t get much in the way of fresh greens…something that bothered me from the beginning. Not enough to let them roam my garden and destroy it, but enough to supply greens from the garden and refrigerator on a regular basis. But, with a little research, I discovered a way to “grow… Read more →
The first time I saw “the girls” flapping around in the corner of their run, throwing pine shavings and dirt all over the place, I figured this was the famous dust bath routine. It was kind of cute how they tossed dirt about with wild abandon…until I realized that’s why I find their water full of dirt and have to… Read more →
I’d been checking on Lily for a few days, wondering if I was going to have to do something about her little “fluffy butt” not being so fluffy anymore. As the clumpy mess that didn’t seem to be cleaning itself off during her dust baths began to weigh her down I decided I had to act. After checking out all… Read more →