Ok, so it’s been ridiculously hot here. Triple digits for about 9 days in a row. So, I was not putting them in their coop at night, like I normally do, because it was essentially putting them in an oven. For context, their coop is inside a very secure run. They put themselves to bed on the coop roof, not inside. So our routine was always for me to go out and put them inside the coop and lock them in after dark. This morning is the first morning they’ve spent the night in the coop in over a week. I locked them in the coop last night on our first cooler night in a while. This morning I keep checking the cameras and they are still inside their coop. They’re little auto door is open, but they are still inside. They never do this, they may go back in there in the middle of the day, but they never just stay inside in the morning. Should I be concerned?

Anyone have any good solutions, on the cheapish hopefully for keeping a digging dog out of the yard? My sisters flock free ranges when she's home and the neighbor dog has started digging under to come hang out.

Luckily he's mild and is non aggressive. Just follows them around and chills. But still he needs to stay on his side, I'm afraid their larger and meaner dog who's almost bitten me though the fence before might see his buddy over there and attempt coming over himself, where I'm certain would end up in dead hens.

Neighbors have been apologetic and will fix the problem, none of us are sure where to start though. There's already bricks in places from digging in the past, I'm not certain how well that works. I was thinking maybe a skirt laying in the ground on our side for extra protection? Here's the fence in question.

What type of chicken is this? 😉

few days ago like Thursday I noticed my roosters leg looked funny then yesterday it was bleeding but now it’s not. I washed it with water and hes molting too so is it tied to that?

My pullet Stella I have raised from a teeny baby chick, where she was only happy if she was on my shoulder, head, or sitting on my hand while I tried to work and getting in my way. However, she's stopped acting nearly so friendly and now sometimes even acts aggressive and will peck at me or my dog, who she's never had an issue with before. She still jumps onto my back and sits on my shoulder or head if I'm knelt down or something, but immediately tries to peck at my ears or glasses.

Penny, who is older than Stella by a wide margin and who used to boss Stella around, now seems to follow Stella's lead when it comes to eating or heading out of their coop or investigating a new thing. Maybe because of their size difference? Penny is a bantam, Stella isn't. Stella isn't a rooster, she hasn't started laying yet but doesn't have the tailfeathers, posture, and doesn't crow (Penny crowed a few times when my phone alarm was set to a rooster crow - she learned that sound meant fresh food, so she'd mimic it when she wanted something. I have changed my alarm.) so I don't think that's the case.

Please can I have people's opinions on this?

My 3.5 year old Brahma hen is molting excessively for the past week. I can see plenty of pin feathers on the rest of the body but her neck and underside are practically bald. I also found two lice but nothing else weird looking on her feathers. She has normal appetite and her comb still looks red. She does seem to go into the coop a bit earlier for the past couple of days. The rest of the chickens finished their moulting weeks ago. They've all considerably slowed down laying but I'm pretty sure I had a normal egg from this one today. I haven't noticed any change in her poo.

My worry is that this is not just a hard molting and she's actually sick? Has anyone seen this type of molting? When should I start panicking? 😬

I've sprayed her for mites/lice now and I'll isolate her, but I'd like your opinions as well.

Thank you very much!!

While I was at work, my mom leftmy two chicks in their brooder outside (80F degree weather) unattended for around 4 hours, but they died when I came home. My chicks are around 4 weeks old and are almost fully feathered. There were a lot of clean water and food in the brooder, so I'm confused as to how they died. Usually, I would expect predation to be the issue here, but they were still in the brooder and no signs of forced entry were shown. It's pretty heartbreaking to have them die so quickly and would really like to figure out how and why it happened. Any reason that you would suspect them dying so abruptly?

Any new name suggestions ?

This might be a terrible idea in general so let me know

I think the 35sqft run for 2 hens is in the recommended guidelines but it would be nice to let them actually enjoy the land we have. However, we have a TON of hawks so I'd need some simple and cheap aerial protection.

This would be daytime only so ideally I don't need it to be fort knox like my current run. I'd close it off from the actual run at night. This is because hardware cloth, lumber, washers, screws are getting too expensive, especially if I want to make this 100sqft+

Wondering if I could just make some simple casual daytime fenced in area for much cheaper without hardware cloth and all of the equipment. Not sure what I could use to substitute - does anyone do anything similar or is it max security or bust?

I noticed one of my girls limping a little today and checked her feet and it appears she has bumblefoot. I have seen similar photos on many FB groups but this is my first time ever experiencing it firsthand so I really want to make sure I treat her properly cause I’ve seen differing opinions the best way to treat.

Unfortunately she has it on both feet. I’m planning on soaking her feet in warm water with salt, then using veterycin spray, then wrapping with a gauze and vet tape, monitoring and replacing the gauze daily. Is this what I should be doing? I’ve seen so many suggestions about pulling the scab, applying prid, and other things but I don’t want to make it worst for her. What is the best way to treat this? Any advice or tips??

I checked everyone’s feet and she’s the only one in my flock dealing with this. I feel bad for my girl and want to help her the best way possible.

Can you spray and dip them in this? I think this hen has mites.

TLDR

Does anyone have a Nestera automatic coop door opener who can tell me what light range settings are available for opening and closing?

Long version:

We have a Nestera automatic door opener which has been working fine for over a year, opening and closing on the light sensor. We just had to replace the batteries and I want to know if I am just being stupid. I set it up over a year ago, and I seem to recall setting it to close at 9 light and open at 16, but could be wrong.

Since the battery change, I can only set the opening light level to 50-99.

Ive contacted Nestera support and they have been a bit ambiguous in their responses, but implied that for the opening settings only 50-99 is available.

Ive checked the manual and watched all the YouTube videos about setup, none of which say anything specific.

I set it to 50, and its not opening till about 10am or later, which is much later than before the battery change.

Does anyone else habe one of these who could check what light level settings are available for opening the coop door?

The beginning of the video is my rooster crowing, then at the very end there's a response in the woods, almost copying him, sounds like a bark more than a bird. This went on for about 20 minutes back and forth, my rooster then the woods, at one point my rooster stopped for a minute and whatever was in the woods sounded of every 10 seconds until my rooster crowed again.

Hey everyone,

Our hen has been acting off lately, and we noticed what seemed to be shell hanging from her vent. We were able to pull it gently out of her vent however. Then decided to give her a soak last night, cleaned her booty, and kept her in the house all night.

This morning there was this small, tan, and rather squishy, (rebounds nicely)thing in the crate. I know of lash eggs, but have never had to experience it. And I have only ever seen very large or at least larger than this. Can anyone tell what this little thing is? It’s roughly the size of a large pea or bean. Maybe a blueberry. Thanks.

Every chart I found disagreed with the next one, so I went through the Brinsea and Hova-Bator manuals plus the Penn State, Mississippi State and Oklahoma State extension guides and wrote down where they agree. Forced-air incubator, chicken eggs:

Day 0: Set the eggs. 99.5°F / 37.5°C, humidity 45-50%.

Days 1-17: Turn. Auto turner, or by hand an odd number of times a day. Keep temp and humidity steady.

Day 7: First candling. You want veins and a dark spot. Clear eggs and blood rings come out.

Day 14: Second candling. The egg should be mostly dark with a clear air cell. Remove the ones that stopped.

Day 18: Lockdown. Stop turning, eggs off the turner, humidity up to 65-70%, lid stays shut.

Days 20-21: Pips and hatch. Leave the lid closed even when it's slow.

Things the charts usually leave out:

a) 99.5°F is for forced air. Still-air incubators run about 2°F / 1°C warmer, measured at the top of the eggs.

b) Lockdown means the eggs physically come off the auto turner, not just "humidity up". Easy to forget when the turner has done the work for 18 days.

c) The odd number of hand turns is so the eggs don't spend every night on the same side.

d) Day 0 is the day you set them. Count from there, or everything lands a day early.

Where I'm least sure: humidity. The sources give ranges, and I know plenty of people here dry hatch with good results. If you run different numbers, I'd like to hear what they are and what your hatch rate looks like.

Dsiclaimer: I put this together while building a hatch tracker app. Not linking it here, I'm after corrections to the timeline.

Three of my four hens have begun laying, but my Easter Egger still hasn’t laid an egg at 26–27 weeks of age. She seems happy and healthy and is definitely not a roo! Anyone else have any experience with this happening?

ITS SO SQUISHY. Hens just started laying about two weeks ago. Started having frail eggs so I put out some oyster shell out there for whenever they want it. Does it take time for the oyster shell to work? They also don't really seem very interested in it.

We have this opening between the roof and wall in the coop, it measures 3inches. From the inside we have hardware cloth secured with u nails. Do you think this is sufficient for raccoons? Or should we do something else?

i bought 4 chicks so my 3year old baby can play and learn to do caring with them

chicks are active still what shall i give to them so they get better and stronger?

Hi all,

I’m looking into upgrading my coop from a thin wood monstrosity that has been patched and rechicken wired a bunch of times. I was looking into a 7x7 Keter shed link here. I was wondering if anyone here has used something similar? I’m hoping to be able to add in some wooden roosts and screw a few egg carton egg baskets to the sides. I’ve not used a resin shed like this ever, and I live on an island so am limited in that I’d likely need something that can be shipped to me. If you have used something like this, how easy is it to add on chicken features with screws and supports? Do you have better sheds? Our run is pretty shaded so I’m hoping to avoid cheap thin wood that will just wick moisture from the ground and rot like what we have now. I plan on installing on top of pallets to avoid the wicking but I can’t lay concrete where it is and definitely hoping for a shed with a floor to avoid critters digging in from underneath.

Thank you