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Hello and welcome. Sorry to hear you have lost one, but sudden deaths are not unusual. We have always buried ours in the garden, both in the UK and here because they are a slow release fertiliser for the ground. Hole about 18" deep is sufficient, backfilled and compressed with a slight mound...

Hello Trevor and welcome. We used to keep Orpingtons and Leghorn bantams and also bred Wyandottes, but took the decision not to have more when we realised that the Avian Flu regulations here would result in them all being slaughtered if there is an outbreak within 1 kilometre. There are several...

Mentioning "bringing them around in a van" reminds me of a trip we made to Cheshire to buy Leghorn Bantams. The breeder/farmer told us a friend had phoned him the previous week to say that he'd seen a van parked on the lane with the back doors open and an empty cage in the back. He finished the...

If you were posting about chickens I would immediately say coccidiosis. Are they pooing blood (black and sticky)?

I'd just get her warmed up and give her water. If you have a thermometer you can check her under wing temperature which should be 37C, basically the same as our underarm. Warming her is simple, just put her under your coat and keep her close to you. Food isn't important immediately, but when she...

Yes, as above which are the instructions given with the feeder. But to get the chickens to adapt to the feeder more quickly it needs 'tuning', so you can improve things considerably by making it less 'clanky' and greasing the pivot points plus balancing the treadle pad by adding self- adhesive...

Hi Icemaiden. Why they wouldn't let beginners shoot outside puzzles me? Common sense would say "make the sport as attractive as possible to newcomers". Congratulations on your win. Always very busy here. On the face of it this place was in good condition, but neglect, ignorance and downright...

I think someone on the forum is/was an archer. I'm looking for something to do for recreation during the Autumn/ Winter closed season for clay target shooting. They have a closed target season here for safety reasons during the hunting season. So I thought archery was worth another try having...

And there was a time when you killed all your hens and replaced them, because you were not getting enough eggs Marigold. Ours are allowed to live a full natural life as a 'thank you' for the eggs they provided.

We have a Mac which was infected with a virus after closing down a pop-up advert from this site. The browser 'Safari' was locked up all morning until our local expert confirmed the fix. It is Safari that is vulnerable so I am now only using 'Chrome', as a precaution. If anyone else gets pop-ups...

They are now vaccinating industrial poultry here against avian flu, it said on the news last week. Haven't any more details about it. Our chickens are supposed to be registered at the town hall, but we haven't bothered.

Give them newspaper for beding and they will clean it up in moments- nothing wasted.

We do have problems with foxes, but only at night, so chickens do need to be locked into a secure coop. I have seen a fox crossing the fields during the day, but only one in 10 years. Often hear them calling at night and I heard one squeal as it hit the 8000V electric fence last week- it hasn't...

We have bought Oystershell grit in England which was all ground-up shells, but ended up not using it after realising that it could mess up the Calcium/ Phosphorous balance (8:1) and make the thin shelled egg problem even worse. Here you can't get mixed grit only shells, because the way chickens...

So I'm puzzled by the sign (which I haven't seen) saying Disappearing Chemist as well @Marigold . When I learned to read they were experimenting with the phonetic alphabet and as a result I struggle with spelling. As we all know that experiment didn't work well, but it did get me started on...

Not sure the grit is oyster shells crushed up? Looking at the stuff we have in our mixed grit (bought in England) it contains much smaller pieces of broken shell which look like cockles?

TV here published the result of a survey about Valentines Day. 20% said it was about love and 80% said it was just commercial and took no part in it. In our case it was an excuse for fizzy wine, fillet steak and a large chocolate gateau, paid for in part by not buying cards or any other...

We removed our brambles using a small sharpened spade, to cut the roots about 4" down. Of the approximately 10,000 taken out a few came back, but only 20 or so a year which is easily managed. Some areas where the growth was very weak they were strimmed off a few times and then they stopped growing.

Our smart meter electricity account tells us that we have reduced our usage by 15%. Will it save us any money? No, the price went up 15% from today! But there was a report on French TV which said that, excluding space heating, the average household uses 20% of their electricity for fridges and...

Reading about your bird species count Marigold made me curious as to how many we have here at the moment. My total is 17. Some of the more unusual ones are Kestrel, Nuthatch, Egret, Jay, Woodpecker (lesser spotted) and a Black Winged Kite. There will be several more later in the year including a...