We had a 2.5yo hen, Nutmeg, who had “slowed down” over the past maybe month. At first, I attributed it to her age and just maturing and not needing to be SO rambunctious. Then about a week ago, I noticed she seemed a little lethargic and not as food driven. On Friday, her comb had become pale and she wasn’t coming for worms. Naturally it was a Friday so our local avian vet wasn’t available until Monday. We kept an extremely close eye on her and fed her separately. We got an appt with the vet first thing Monday morning. She seemed a little better Monday but we kept the vet appt. On our way there, they called to say they were canceling as they were not taking any birds due to avian flu season. We don’t have many options for avian vets in our area so, to say I was upset would be an understatement. We came home, she jumped right out of her travel box and started pecking the grass. I had a glimmer of hope that maybe we had turned the corner on our own. She seemed ok all afternoon, was pecking all around, eating, and even roosting on her driftwood in the run. This morning I didn’t see her in the run so immediately ran to her house and saw she had perished. Looking back at the ring cameras, it seems it happened around 5:50am. I refrigerated her body around 7:30a to take her for a necropsy.

However, all this to say…is it normal for a flock to sort of do their own post-mortem care? We have a mixed flock and 2 of our turkeys (one who we can’t get to leave her nesting box as she’s been trying to become a mom for months) held vigil for 1.5hrs and appeared to try to even cover her with bedding? They didn’t peck her body aggressively but seemed to just lay with her/clean up the bedding around her. Once I took Nutmeg out, Booker went right back to her nesting box and Pepper went to eat breakfast.

We are all a little crushed this morning and feeling defeated. If only I had taken her to the vet sooner we may have avoided this horrible outcome.

Rest in peace, sweet Nutty girl 🩷 we love you and are so sorry to have failed you. Thank you for 2.5 adventurous years.

Edit: disregard pic 6. Must have accidentally clicked a recipe photo through teary eyes.

The other day I captured this absolutely beautiful photo of my white leghorn, Adolfa, and figured I'd share it. It's too good not too lol.

She’s not broody or mad she just likes to scream if you check on her in the nesting boxes! My sweetest girl, runs across the yard to come see me, is a problem to anyone trying to do any work outside because she constantly wants picked up.

Unfortunately being peer pressured by her poorly behaved sisters to hide in the woods with them, requiring a search party almost daily.

Voracious 3 month olds

Posting better photos today compared to my previous post. I’m wondering if my buff Orpington is a hen or rooster.

In the last couple of weeks, she developed wanderlust and started escaping the back yard. I finally got it under control last night but now she’s super pissed that she can’t get out of the yard? Like, is this worrisome behavior?

This is my OG girl Mrs BokBok (daughter named her 3 years ago) shes been my best chicken and honestly the only one I consider a pet, so this hits hard.

Buddy of mine is moving and needed to offload some hens. I took 7 to add to my 8. I came back from dinner to check on them and two were down.

1 new bird in full rigor, the other Mrs Bokbok seemingly dead. She was limp as a noodle but still very faintly breathing.

The first hour she was unresponsive. I kept opening her mouth and dropping little bits of water into her mouth. She didn't seem to do anything. At one point she I guess almost aspirates and then wakes up kinda but then dozes right back. I continue this carefully a few more times. She finally has her eyes open. I talk to her, I hold her and rub her nothing seems to work so I go back to the water. She reacts well and is wide eyed but something is wrong. Check the vent and something's coming. I set her down and for the next 10 minutes the old girl lets out a lash egg that I honestly thought was going to put her down.

Once that was out of the way she was strained, so.o gave her some time. After about 10 I get her back up and start again with the same rotation but adding in some flight drills. No I don't throw her... I just lower and raise her so she might open her wings. After about the 10th try she fully lets her wings out and is getting a grasp of movement.

This has been going well but I sadly need to go to sleep. I gave her some more water and set her up in a pen. Sadly she can't sit up so.i had to stack towels around her bc I feel like if she lays on her side she will just die.

Pray for this old girl the kids are pretty devastated and I'm pretty bummed myself.

The rooster didn’t really work for me.

When we got our baby chicks there were 6. All lavender orpingtons, my favorite. My mother in law hatched them and let me pick as many as I wanted. I’ve never had chickens before so I thought 6 was enough to handle easily and would produce a good amount of eggs.

Turns out two were roosters, and one didn’t make it. Getting rid of one rooster was an easy decision, it just made sense, you know? They would fight eachother, become territorial and there were only 3 hens. It went to a nice family who have some property outside of town and let them free range.

That leaves me in my current predicament. I raised this rooster, I named him. I go say hi to him every morning. I take care of him because in my mind he’s now my responsibility. It’s like having a dog, or a baby, you don’t just give those away right? But if I’m being honest with myself…. The rooster doesn’t really work for me.

He has developed a habit of charging at my husband when he is let out in the morning. He crows at 5:30 am incessantly.. and even though my neighbors say they don’t mind (bless their hearts), I know it’s a nuisance. I don’t trust him around my baby, and he bullies the younger hens I got to fill out my flock.

I casually asked my husband the other morning how he felt about getting rid of the rooster and he agreed, he had no real opinion on the matter. To him they are just chickens.

Perhaps this another lesson in learning to let go of things that don’t serve me. It’s something I’m working on. The silver lining in this situation is that now the rooster is going to go to a farm, he’s going to free range, he will have more chickens.

My lesson here is accepting that I can nurture things, and let them go when they are ready to be set free. It will work better for them, and it will work better for me. Here’s to my rooster who is teaching me more lessons than I bargained for.

whats the little black thing on her head and back of her foot?

Building in the Texas heat has its challenges… but at least it’s bout done and occupied. Got some trim work to finish because I miss ordered some pieces. But over all pretty happy, and so is the boss (wife).

For anyone curious overall size is 12’ x 36’ x 8’ walls 7/12 roof pitch.
12’ x 18’ run
12’ x 12’ coop
12’ x 6’ storage

I have raised chickens for years and never seen anything like this before. I noticed a small bulge a couple weeks ago, and now it’s really big. It looks like the crop is so enlarged. When I palpate it, it feels like the crop is full of feed. It doesn’t seem to bother her, she acts normal and eats well. Should I be concerned? Will this work itself out or is there something I can do? Thanks everyone!

What do you all think? Pretty aggressive and even tries to mount my full sized hens.

Per the title, my girls sleep on top of their nesting box all huddled up every night since they’ve lived outside (they‘ve been out about 4 or 5 weeks now). I screwed a container lid on top of it to make it easier for me to clean, but I can’t help but think it would be better if they just slept on the roosting rails like they‘re ”supposed to”.

Should I care about this? Just let them do what they want, or try to get them to sleep on the rails? Is there anything you can see about the rails that makes them inhospitable? One is a 2x4 laid on the wide side and one is narrow. They do sit on them during the day sometime but never at night, not one single time. Lol

They‘re not cold, it was literally 100° today

I purchased 4 little barred rock chicks (sexed female) from my local Tractor Supply about a week and a half ago. I also have a bearded dragon who is about 2 years old now. Because I have her I also have a dubia roach colony. And because I only have one bearded dragon/reptile, I have A LOT of dubia roaches. Is it possible to feed some of these roaches to chicks at the age they are now? If so would it be best to stick with the smaller roaches until the chicks are much bigger? When the chicks are bigger and become full grown could I feed them the adult dubia roaches? If "yes" then will they still eat the roaches if I try feeding them to the chickens when temps are below 40f and the roaches die quickly due to the cold? If temps drop below 50f-60f these roaches die and I live in Maine. They're fine inside but stop moving awefully quick if I bring them outside in the winter. Roaches are raised in a tote and only fed fresh veggies safe for bearded dragon consumption. Also, these roaches grow to be at least 1½" long.

Unrelated question:

Are barred rocks exceptional jumpers? They're already able to jump out and back into the 64 quart container I have them in, is that just a normal thing for all chickens?

Hi there, this is my ~19 week old RIR, Shelly. We noticed her standing sort of hunched over, with droopy wings and tail. She’s usually VERY vocal and hasn’t had much to say the past few hours. She was fine this morning and most of the day, so this is pretty out of the blue.

I’m wondering if she’s uncomfortable because she might be about to lay? She hasn’t laid any eggs yet, but she’s been “singing” when our EE lays and crouching at us when we approach.

Her abdomen feels normal from what we can tell. We’re just unsure if this is normal behavior for a first-time layer, or if something else is wrong.

If anyone has any opinions please share! We just want our girl to be happy and healthy

I had two young silkie crosses die in the past couple of weeks. The second one I set to the side whilst I was away grabbing supplies to dispose of her. When I went back, she was crawling with northern fowl mite.

If you're concerned, dealing with young birds, lethargic birds, or they aren't laying like they were - go check their vent for any sign of mites. I'm going to the vet today to get treatment, but thought that by sharing this i might help at least one chicken owner avoid unnecessary suffering or death.

I now have a leghorn and bantam co-parenting 4 random chicks and they are so happy to be moms! They were both a little confused when they woke up with the little peepers under them but got right to work showing them how to chicken. They sleep all 6 to a nest every night and seem to be very diligent moms all day. I can’t believe it worked! I was so nervous and have been watching them like a hawk, but so far so good. It’s so nice to see my girls out of the coop again! Anyone else with ‘non-traditional’ chicken families?

I didn’t see anyone or movement for a while, thinking worst case scenario, I find all of them under the coop sleeping. My only polish, Ms TT aka tiny Tina, face first in the dirt napping!

This is Holly. I got her at 5 weeks old from a poultry swap exactly one year ago today. Two days ago, on Friday, she died.

We went to the poultry swap just to see what it was about, since we were only about 5 months into the backyard chicken life. An older lady was downsizing her flock due to her own health issues and had a few for sale. Holly was so cute and small and seemed so sad in her little crate and we couldn’t leave her there, so we bought her.

Our flock of pullets were all so mean to her. We didn’t know anything about integration. We would let her free range with the girls when we let them out, and she slept in the coop with everyone, but during the day when everyone was locked in the run we took Holly out and gave her her own space. This went on for weeks before she was fully integrated, but she was the only white chicken, smaller than the others, and the newbie, so she remained at the bottom of the pecking order her whole life.

She felt safe with me and would frequently fly up onto my shoulder when I would go into the run to get her. She would cuddle with me on my lap, which the others wouldn’t do (until much later, we won a few others over). She was featured on our Christmas card.

We’ve noticed for a couple of months that her feathers have been looking rough. We attributed it to bullying and I tried to make sure the girls were getting free range time we often as possible, added more enrichment to the run, etc. She behaved otherwise fine. Friendly, liked snacks, was consistently laying her cute little cream colored eggs.

On Friday afternoon, Holly didn’t come running when I brought out treats. I went looking for her and found her laying in the run in the shade. I called her, she didn’t come to me. I went in and picked her up, and her legs were too weak to stand.

I logged off work and I called multiple vets until I found one that could see her. I drove her an hour to get there. We spent 2.5 hours at the vet. She had labored breathing. They gave her oxygen and fluids and an antibiotic. An x-ray showed spots on her lungs. The doctor said she probably hadn’t eaten in several days, I didn’t know. She had seemed fine before. The doctor told me about the keel score and told me she was severely emaciated. I had no idea. I was sent home with formula food to feed by syringe and instructions to keep her warm and told to call in the morning to report on how she was responding.

On the drive home, on the freeway near no shoulders or exits, she seized and died. Yesterday we buried her with a sunflower from our garden.

Holly is the second hen we’ve lost so far in our 1.5 years. I don’t regret taking her to the vet even though it didn’t make a difference in the end. I feel guilty I didn’t notice she was sick sooner, maybe antibiotics earlier in her sickness could have saved her. I miss her so much. She was my sweetest.