chickenNutter

She has been wormed and her crop was quite full early on in the day , so considered impacted crop as it was full and fairly firm. After giving syringe of water, massage etc it softened immediately and emptying the crop only produced a few drops of water. There isn’t a strong smell to suggest sour crop. I will check for plaques in her mouth for plaques, but I think it will be a vet visit on Monday. ☹️

I have a flock of 11 chickens and a cockerel, most of them cream Legbar in two large covered runs currently joined as one with two coops. The cockerel and all but 4 of the Legbar are in one run and the other 4 who I think are low down the pecking order go in the other. One Legbar is always the first to go to roost every night in this run and for the last 2 weeks spending a lot of time sitting around often with her eyes closed and a bit puffed up. and carrying her wings low. She is eating and drinking fine but just appears depressed. In case she was ill I brought her indoors for the last 5 days but she didn’t develop any symptoms and just appeared depressed. Can bottom of the pecking order get depressed. Any illnesses you can think of that show nothing but lethargy? Mystified.

I thought as much. It's not my cockerel, just one looking for a home, and my girl is on her lonesome.

I have a lavender Pekin who is now on her own as her last pal died and I wasn't planning on getting any more bantams as I have moved on to full size chooks,( light Sussex cockerel and 4 girls) who are in an adjacent run and have a different free ranging area. It is not possible to integrate her with the flock, but someone nearby is looking for a home for a young Pekin cockerel. I know a cockerel should really have 2 or 3 girls but I have also heard from more than one person who have 1-1s that work well. Does anyone have any experience with a set up like this?

Think yourself lucky it is only pigeons. Our runs are in the paddock and after hubby cleverly created the pophole too large, I found all three ewes and four lambs in there eating the layers pellets one day! Have now put a frame inside the hole that they cant get through but the cooks can!

Hello Major B, We moved to a small holding a year ago leaving our WIR behind and I also remembered the sticky and couldn't find it, as we also were looking for ideas. Over the last few months we have built two runs in an L shape as we want to breed chickens for meat as well as eggs, and the latest pullets will go out into the second run from the hatching nursery (an extra bit on a garden shed we had designed and made and we built. I will go out and photograph it this afternoon for you. I have to restrain my husband's DIY as he tends to over-engineer things 🙄 Subsequently it has been built with huge timber posts and could withhold a raging bull. One thing I would mention for your roof is that we used bitumen corrugated robin panels which if you don't use enough cross members (we didn't on the longest stretch of roof) it tends to be very flexible and bows allowing rain to collect. Trying to gently push the sagged areas to get rid of the standing water actually distorted the corrugations. We have managed to fit in some more cross members but as it is now distorted hubby is thinking of removing it and putting OSB board and felting instead.

I think I was here, I had a break for a few years too.

I wish I had realised that chickens become a habit.

Cheers, seen it but just wasn't sure

I am new to breeding and want to know whether or not my cockerel is firing blanks. Cracked a couple of eggs today, and the white dot seems to be a circle rather than a filled in dot. does that mean they are fertilised?

Thanks both.

Mine never used it either. Chucked mine away as was grubby

Well after advice from chickens people on here and other fora I tried popping my Pekin bantam in with the big flock -Light Sussex cockerel, 2Light Sussex girls, 2 Bluebell girls- late evening. All was quiet. This morning however she was sitting in the hen house at the top of the ladder, with a bleeding comb. ☹️ having been in an eglu I am not sure she knew how to get down or even wanted to join them in the run. Have treated comb with wound powder and put her back in her own run. is all lost or do I try again? She started off wanting to join them, but now tried to get as far from them as possible. They have free ranged together but not really as a flock.

Thanks both, yes I looked at Both the Incubator Shop and Brinsea but neither has the one I want and the nearest alternative is out of stock on both sites 😡

I have been looking at buying an incubator and as Brinsea seem to be hot property during lockdown I had seen a company called Strangford Incubators selling Brinsea and wondered if anyone else had used them. Google says their website is insecure which set alarm bells ringing.