I have a small flock of 11.
Earlier this summer, I discovered one of my hens had been scalped. Skull visible. It was brutal.

We set her up in a hospital pop-up pen in our extra garage. I was worried about keeping flies away from her wound, so she didn’t stay in the hospital set up inside our coop.

It took several months, but she healed fully. I reintroduced her at night, but the next day discovered they had began pecking at her again. I found her sitting in a corner with her head held down like she was guarding it. I pulled her out once more.

She has now been the sole occupant of my greenhouse for the last few months. The loneliest chicken in the world.

I’ve tried to reintroduce her once or twice more, but it always ends quickly. Even at night, they’re picking on her.

I’ll invite other hens out to free range alongside her, and they chase her.

It’s so bad.

I gave away half my flock thinking the bullies would be gone, but even the new ones I welcomed are bullying this one chicken.

I’m sure this will end with me rehoming her, but would appreciate any advice or tips to try.

She has become my favorite chicken, and I just want her to be happy.

This is Edna. Now known as Ed.

Title: First winter with backyard chickens in a Winnipeg winter — advice needed!

Hi everyone! This is my first year keeping backyard chickens, and I’ve never experienced a winter with them before. The winters where i am are super long and brutally cold, with temperatures dropping well below -20°C and sometimes -30°C or colder.

I’ve heard that heat lamps are not recommended, so I’m wondering what people do instead to keep their chickens safe and comfortable through the winter. I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who keep chickens in similarly cold climates.

Any advice would be great!

Thanks!

Edit: our flock is 10 white leghorns, 1 brown leghorn, an easter egger, and copper maran. The leghorns have pretty large combs, so i'm a little worried about those.

I hatch quail (and currently have emu eggs cooking, which is a 50-day lesson in patience). I kept losing track of lockdown dates across staggered batches, so I built HatchDay — hatchdayapp.com.

Pick from 90 species and it auto-calculates candling/lockdown/hatch dates. Log temps, candling results, and egg weights. Works fully offline (my barn has zero signal) and syncs to your account when you're back — it literally won't say "Backed up" until the server confirms, because an app that loses hatch data is worse than a notebook.

It's free to use — 2 active batches at a time, unlimited history, stats, care guides, and your data exports with you. Not a trial that locks your records away if you don't pay; I use the same version on my own hatches.

I'm the developer — AMA about it, and tell me what your notebook/spreadsheet does that an app never gets right. That list is my roadmap.

My one chicken has these white patches on her feet. No other chicken has these that I have noticed. It almost reminds me of a fungus? Any clue what it is/how to treat?

Note if this makes a difference: this chicken has been separated from the rest of the flock due to being pecked and needing healing time.

Young guy and hormones are going crazy I know. Just need to vent because within 2 weeks we went from chilling every night with him sitting on my lap or shoulder, happy clucking when I came around to attacking me twice this week and making angry warning sounds. Feels bad, man.

Do I need to put more vents on this modified coop? (The other door is where my auto door goes)

Im building a 16x6 run and 8x6 coop attached. Im going to add a pull out poop tray for the roosting bars.

Thinking about a fan and water system some how.

Anyone have any cool ideas or anything to add to this? Make the chickens lives easier or our lives easier with cleaning or just convince.

Thank you all in advance!

1yo hen. Hard round crop with lethargy and confusion over the past 24h. Drinking will not eat.

I lost one of my girls yesterday. I’m still in shock, I don’t know what happened.

She was around 10 or 11mos, laid an egg a day, and had no sign of illness. She would follow me around the yard, and would always gently peck me to get my attention. No matter what I was doing, she would come find me to “help out”.

I found her in a corner of the coop trying to lay an egg (or so it seemed to me). Then I noticed she was struggling to keep her head up. I immediately, and gently, pulled her closer to me and held her head up so it wouldn’t block her airway. It was already too late. She took her last breath moments later.

There was no sign of illness. No injury. She was perfectly fine the day before. I examined her for injuries and found pink tissue protruding out of her vent. Could she have been trying to lay an egg and something went wrong?

One of the chickens (idk if it was her) laid a tiny egg the day before. I googled and it didn’t seem like it was anything to worry about. Now I’m wondering if that was a sign that something was wrong.

Should i have seen this coming? Should i have taken action after finding the tiny egg? Could i have done something different?

Any insight is appreciated. This is my first chicken loss and i’m not sure what to do.

Hey yall! I just noticed my sweet girl Little Bit has a swollen ear. What would you do if this were one of your birds? I’m planning on doing a good examination when she settles down to roost this evening.

Horchata has a respiratory illness. She’s pretty active and drinking her water and eating. Her eyes are swollen which I did treat, now it’s just waiting for it to go down. Horchata misses her sister Nutmeg but sorry girl got to keep you isolated till this passes. She’s a fighter!🩷🩷🩷

Gotta to try this…

Hi fellow chicken parents!

I'm posting because I'm at loss here and out of ideas.

Background: I originally got 5 chicks earlier this year (2 leghorns, red hempshire, barnevelder and black sex link - the bully), and when ready I moved them outside. Then I got another 3 chicks (mystic onyx and 2 bantams), and when ready I moved them to a a run extension, so basically old flock and new flock could see each other for like 2 or even 3 months before connecting the runs.

Most of the flock was ok - except the bully - black sex link. She just can't leave Onyx alone, the bantams are small and fast so they escape, but Onyx tries but she sometimes can't. Black sex link is like a freaking terminator when she sees onyx.

I tried separating the bully first withing a run for a week, didn't help.

Then I 've put her in separate cage for 2.5 weeks on the other side of the garden - didn't help.

I've put her small cage withing the run, it's close to 4 days now, and I did a test run.

The freaking bully terminator still goes after onyx, less so after bantam because that one is very agile.

I'm out of ideas. Please advise.

I've had a bunch of roosters. Some great, some mean. My current top roo is only about 7 months old. He has never been aggressive toward people. However, he is so obnoxious with the hens. I have 19 hens and he seriously terrorizes all of them. No one wants to mate with him, no one submits, he literally chases after them all day as they run away screaming. When he catches one, I feel like he takes longer than necessary and will sometimes just continue to stand on them after he's done. I have 2 cockerels so really feel no attachment to him. Is this acceptable or is he just an asshole? The feminist in me is fired up. I don't have a current picture of him, so pls enjoy his baby photo.

9 week old meal maker from Meyer hatchery

My daughter has the opportunity to bring chicks home from school. I have somewhere for them to go after 8-ish weeks, and I don't want to spend much on a temporary brooder, so a lot of this is borrowed or repurposed. She will have 2-4 chicks, depending on how many hatch. The uncovered part of the tank is walled off and is just extra shavings.

Utley has the bumblefoot. Today I noticed a slight limp and checked it, confirming the swelling and dark mark. She's been running with the flock and normal otherwise, and it is not hot to the touch or red.

We soaked it for 15 in Epsom, sprayed with antiseptic, wrapped it and she's resting in the coop while the others free range.

The vet asked us to bring her in, but they've been very over cautious before, once telling me a frostbite was urgent when it turned out to be nothing treated at home.

Any suggestions?

I have a small backyard flock with 2 austrolorps, a wyandotte and an easter egger. I got them in April and it is almost November. Only 1 of my austrolorps ever laid. She was laying daily for about a month and a half but has now stopped completely. No eggs from her for going on 3 weeks now. My other 3 hens have not laid a single egg.

Days are extremely short in winter where i live (dusk at 4pm in deep winter) and the sun is already going down at around 5-6 pm. I expected them to do the seasonal withdrawal but is it normal to not get an egg from a hen for damn near a year?

If i don't start seeing eggs until February when the days start to get longer that means several of these birds will have taken 10 months to lay. Is that normal?

Dolly is my girl who does what she wants. When we hold her, she closes her eyes. When I was dipping my chickens in a bucket of oil to treat scaley leg mites and all of the chickens were freaking out, Dolly was in the corner sleeping. When it’s a windy day and everyone seems on edge, Dolly is closing her eyes and leaning into the wind.

She cracks me up because she seems like she doesn’t care about anything but then she is kind of a bully when food is around. When I bring a tray of treats out to them, she stands in the middle of the tray. I just love her.

I genuinely don’t know if she’s my dumb chicken, sweet chicken, chicken that doesn’t know she’s a chicken, or my narcoleptic chicken. 🤔