Looking at the photograph it's possible she is just bunged up with a solid plug of poo, probably stuck to feathers. Needs to be washed/ soaked away and her rear cleaned up immediately. Could be poo is rotting inside her and she is egg bound. It's not a prolapse and as said it's best not to isolate h...

Straw makes a great hiding place for red mite Rick, as our neighbour found out. Nothing much could be seen, but the chickens wouldn't go into the coop at night and inspection of the perch in the dark revealed it was absolutely crawling with them. All the straw was burned and the coop sprayed repeate...

Is it something simple like their perch is too high? We've found 15" is the maximum and it needs to reduce as they get older.

Wonderful article Shadrach. I completely agree with everything you have observed, as we have. We were lucky enough to have a tame cock- he lived in the house with us for nearly 7 years. He used to peck on our legs (or visitors) for a cuddle, at which point he would fall fast asleep and snore. We too...

Reminds me of a story my friends father told me. He was a fitter at Rolls Royce aero engines and said that the spitfires had an emergency boost level which, when activated, broke a wire seal. If the seal was broken the engine was immediately returned for a refit. During the war tools were scarce, so...

Another reliable indicator of them coming into lay, regardless of their age, is the size of their poos. A week before they lay the poos will increase in size dramatically, from dozens of small ones to a few big. If you clean out the coop every day and particularly if you are using newspaper under th...

They won't be moulting as such, but they do lose small feathers and grow bigger ones as they themselves grow. At the moment they should still be on rearer pellets- change to layers pellets when you get the first egg.

Storey's Guid to Raising Chickenswritten by Gail Damerow ISBN 978-1-60342-469-1. This covers everything in great detail and is the only book you should ever need.

Isn't that MP's all over. Same here- they are paid so it's a job worth grabbing. Amazon- what a horrible employer. I Had a similar experience working for Toyota. I had quit before I hit someone- the 'Management' were just a load of bullies and at the time I had a hip problem which meant I couldn't r...

We tried this and concluded the resulting mess with poo and shavings in the water and feed wasn't worth the effort. A 2'x3' house is not enough space for chickens to be awake in and they need time to rest from laying anyway. We used a large (and heavy) leisure battery so there was no dependency on s...