Bannon

One of my RIR's seems to have a white discharge from each of her ears. Any ideas guys?

Our pair of two year old RIR's have suddenly decided to peck and eat their own eggs. Going broody from time to time I can cope with, but how do I deal with this? Any advice welcome

My chicks egg production is down and I have seen both squirrels and rats hanging around. Could they be taking the eggs or is this just and old wives tale?

Thanks Olly. We still get the odd sparrow but nowhere near as many. Lets just home the sparrows don't start laying more eggs as well!

Neither will the cat... we have a small terrier

Sorry, chickens Chicks was just a term of endearment

We suffer from sparrows pinching our chicks feed. A few were OK but it has now got out of hand and the only cure we've found is to give them just laying pellets. Is this a bad thing? We've seen those treadle feeder wotsits but they seem a bit expensive

What do others do with dead chickens - and please don't tell me you provide a little plot with a headstone As with my other post on rats it was suggested somewhere that they can go on the compost heap (But I'll give that one a miss) but chickens?

Thanks guys. Not sure if I'll ever totally get rid of em' though because one neighbour also keeps chicks and the other keeps birds of prey so it's going to be just a matter of keeping the numbers down. What with the wild birds eating the chicks feed as well it's costing me a fortune. I have one of the Eglu feeders but find it to heavy to hang on the wire (thus keeping it out of the way of the rats) We have a young Jack Russell, but he's not quick enough to catch em despite his best efforts!

I expect we all get this problem but can anyone recommend a decent rat trap to put in the chicken run? At the moment I put out a conventional spring trap once the chicks have gone to bed but the other morning I found I'd caught (and killed) a robin in it.

Been reading your tips on keeping chicks in the shade. Our two tend to go under the hen house but this morning I've dug out an old B&D 'Workmate' bench from the back of the shed and put that it the run. With the top of the bench tipped over at 45 degrees I think it should do the trick.

Like most I suspect, our chicken run looks rather barren. Even with just two hens nothing it seems has a chance to grow. My question is - is there anything I can plant that chicks are not keen on and that will provide em' with a bit more shade in the future. I'd need to fence it off during early growing of course. Any ideas guys? The Mrs suggested bamboo - but I'm not so sure.

..... and another member! Not a big chicken keeper, just the two Rhode Island Reds (called em' oi and you), as we have a small garden in our new house. Our last place was much larger so we had quite a crowd of em' and can well remember our first lot of baby chicks - six in all and not one hen among em - amazing! Six months down the line and so far our two have been slow layers with just two or three eggs each week. Not sure if it's the breed or the feed but no doubt we'll find out soon. What has amazed us is how tame they are after the last lot which were all Sussex - again, maybe the breed.