R.I.P. Gilly the transgender hen

Be strong in these difficult times

Condolences

#opposumlivesmatter

not in Denton county

Dam hawk got our golden, piss me off

Seems like the girls stay inside with heater going instead of outside today.

I lived in Austin and we had hens crow all the time. It must be in the water.

I moved early enough for the water not to affect me.

I have had chickens for over 35 years but this year was the worst, all because of a snake ( I didn't know it at the time but it was a rattler ) I had over 60 hatch-lings all the way up to teenagers and the snake was getting in through 1X2 inch wire and killing them right out from under the mother chicken/Guinea. The snake wasn't big enough to swallow the teenagers but it would try so it would swallow them half way then spit them out & try another & another until he got a small enough one to eat whole, Then the snake was too fat to escape the way he came in through the wire so he'd spit out that one too.... killing 3 or 4 in one night but staying hungry because he spit them out to escape and come back in a couple of nights and do the same thing all over again. I kept moving the coop, even moved it acres away right near the porch, hoping he wouldn't travel that far or I'd catch him on my middle of the night spotlight snake hunts. That snake pretty much wiped out all the chicks and bit 3 & killed 2 of my dogs & costing me a couple of thousand $ or so on vet bills. Until one night one of my random middle of the night spotlight hunts paid off.... Killed him with a shovel, I had to make the 1st hit count so he wouldn't get away, he was small only 3 ft long with 9 rattles, but he was the Plague and mean.
I found out all the predators including the snake preferred to go after the Guinea fowl and their noise was calling them in.

Yes. & a Rooster will call the girls when he finds something good to eat, like bugs and gives them 1st pick.

Had a male Guinea jump up and fly to hit a hawk in midair knocking the hawk to the ground to protect his hens & chicks.
Also seen him take turns taking care of the chicks, I've never seen anything like it, it's a real team effort 2 females, 1 sits on & hatches 20 or 30 eggs, the other 1 hen collects the hatchlings then she and the male take care of all the babies, the male is constantly with them helping & protecting.

Wow! Good info to know! Thanks for sharing.

I had collected the eggs this evening. One of the eggs was soft like it had no hard shell. Has anyone ever discovered this? Should i need to do something about this? Please help.......

Young hen? If not, it's most likely deficient in calcium. A good quality layer feed and oyster shells should offset the deficiency.

It happens from time to time. Unless it happens a lot don't worry about it.

First time it is an older hen. The first one I found they free range half the day. Yesterday I kept them in because of the weather. Thanks for the replies.

interesting ... my wife popped up last night asking if I wanted a baby chick for Easter. I said I would love to have a few chickens and raise our own eggs. the conversation kept going about how would we keep chickens, to which I said buy or make a chicken tractor, it would also be good for the yard. other than coons, foxes and other wild critters, I think my blue heeler would destroy a chicken unless we kept them tightly penned up.

my parents had a few chickens in the back yard when I was a kid growing up but I know absolutely nothing about them. just looking for pros/cons of having a few chickens (if my HOA will even allow).

You can buy or build movable chicken coops at the feed stores or on line. That way not permanent structure. They have the runs attached. Move with 4 wheeler or lawn tractor. We have four chickens they lay from 2-4 eggs a day. We give away what we don't eat.
They do get expensive, lost 5 to hawks while free running. Most time you have to buy chicks and raise them in the house, been there done that.

so I would need to let them out of the coop from time to time to free range? between my blue heeler and other critters that is likely a non-starter

My chicken coop has a automatic door. It opens about 8 am, and closes about 30 minutes after sunset. I loose chickens to critter, but I just have enough it doesn't matter much. About to switch from dark Cornish, to buff brahmas.

I never let mine out of the coop/run. They wouldn't last a day between my dogs, coons, skunks, hawks, buzzards and bobcat.

so if I had one of the "chicken tractors" that can be moved around the yard, I could possibly leave them cooped up all the time? that might work ... we have a farm supply place about a mile from us that has baby chicks for sale ... so I could get a few and release in the tractor and just move it from time to time and they would likely grow up and start producing eggs??? of course, I assume I would need to have water available.

Have to train the dogs. I have always had dogs and chickens, some dogs take more work than others. I lost a chicken to a coyote last week, got the bastard on video.

Can you do a coop like Nav's? I looked at Gtown's ordinances, they allow coops.













They're neighbors and have some issues......

You can legally deal with that, chickens are livestock.

They're my dogs, from left to right it's the coop, feed room, pig pen, dogs. Something is always going on among them.

I had one dog that was a real challenge about killing chickens. Had another that killed about 15 of my rabbits. But eventually I can get them to stop. My Anatolian shepherds never killed any of our animals.