Recent content by chrismahon

I've just been doing the daily rounds checking feeders and drinks and cleaning out the coops @Elowen . It occurred to me that i have omitted a very important point which is the ratio of hen coop capacity to nest boxes. Generally they all want to lay earlier in the morning and they can be in...

It is the capital costs of egg production that are the biggest burden for the industry. You would look at automation when it became necessary to employ people, as a means to offset labour costs. At that stage you would have around a thousand chickens at a guess?

I kept with the 18" floor height @Elowen, so smaller fixed coops are on legs, as opposed to mobile coops being on a chassis with wheels. To move the fixed coops I made a frame that fits underneath so two people can lift them. But as they are all at the same height and all share the same run...

You have picked up on a very complicated subject @Elowen. The perfect coop doesn't exist as all the features become compromises to satisfy other features. To be avoided is a coop designed for ease of manufacture, because invariably you end up with something quite unsuitable and a good example is...

They are probably carrying 'immunisation viruses' which are weak live viruses from several infectious (and fatal) virus groups administered in stages to infect the birds and give them resistance to the serious variants. Can't remember all of them but Infectious Bronchitis is one. These mild...

We celebrate 14th July here, which is 'Bastille Day', so our Independence Day. The French peasants overthrow the monarchy and the entire royal system and then start chopping their heads off with a guillotine in Paris. Great spectator events and a lot of blood; so much in fact that it became a...

It's been pretty stressful here @Icemaiden . Our second heatwave was pretty severe with 4 days reaching over 40C. The two from the top enclosure were rehomed in the bread oven room behind the kitchen for the first heatwave and stayed there two weeks. I've insulated the roof so it normally...

For whatever reason, which may be due to the embryo being stuck to the side of the egg due to a turning angle problem during incubation, this poor little chick appears not to have developed on one side? Now that isn't necessarily a problem as development may continue to the extent that in a few...

I just wouldn't mix turkeys with chickens.

Quick look at Wikipedia says that it's the other way round, so Turkeys are more susceptible to 'Blackhead' than chickens and can catch it from being in an area that chickens have grazed. Sorry, my mistake. Mareks is an unknown quantity to me, having no experience of it other than reading of...

I don't understand how or why getting them prevents Marek's and in who? I remember going way back to when we had our first chickens and in a panic called the vet because I thought we had an outbreak of 'blackhead', which turned out to be cherry juice and soil on the combs and wattles. But I...

Ex-batts can be pretty aggressive towards other chickens and shouldn't be mixed. If she shows signs of depression perhaps think about a pair of youngsters, otherwise I'd leave her single and spend time with her. Look at pure breeds not hybrids, as UK hybrids carry some infectious immunisation...

I haven't either for a reason. They are very cute indeed, so if rearing for the table it probably won't happen. Read plenty of reports where people bought chicks for Christmas dinner and then couldn't despatch them. They ended up as pets, as I'm sure ours would.

Hello @mandyRS and welcome to the forum. They are not ex-battery hens, the photo looks like a hybrid layer. A sloppy, slimy looking poo like that, particularly green in colour says to me a sour crop problem. This is where food in the crop doesn't pass through quickly enough and begins to rot...

Starting with what we have had (large fowl unless stated otherwise):- Orpingtons- Jubilee, black and buff. These are big birds laying surprisingly small eggs and not that many. A very docile breed and easily bullied. The cocks can be huge and prone to hip joint problems rendering them unable to...