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The dog started barking at midday, which is usually because the postie has a package that needs signing for. So I went outside to see and was confronted by the sight of a TANK parked in the driveway. A soldier wandered over to me and explained they were on manoeuvres and could they park it in...

Hello Jay and welcome. Tasmania must be an amazing place to live. You mentioning Turkeys reminds me of our trip out yesterday to order one for Noel, because you can't buy a whole turkey in the supermarkets down here. The place breeds about 100 for sale every year -Gers Noir (black Gascone)...

Hello from the warm dry hills of Gascony (at the moment) Themuttsknutts. Thing about here is it can be 20C one day and -10C the next though! Do you breed these chickens or are they just 'pets'? Nice that they have so much land to roam in. Ours have to be very securely enclosed here because the...

Hello Eleanna and welcome to the forum. I visited Alonissos by Dolphin from Skopelos many years ago (perhaps 30). Seem to remember half the island was a military base and no-one at all spoke any English- a lovely unspoilt place. Rhode Island Reds are a good laying breed. Yours have travelled a...

Welcome to the forum Exotica. I've read your post- sounds like the breeder is a complete idiot. Setting aside the money, those chicks should have been properly transported. Hope your others are doing fine and keep any dogs well away from them. Even if they don't get eaten it will stress the chicks.

Hello Bev and welcome to the forum. We've had a few cockerels just dumped on us but managed to re-home most of them. When you add birds you need to increase space. This can be achieved by reducing the available run area and restoring it when the new birds are added. As you say, stress could...

Basil is a 5 year old Buff Orpington cock. Built to show standards unfortunately, this means he is as wide as he is long and weighs in at 6Kg. This also means he has very poor tolerance to heat and yesterday it hit 39C in the shade. Having given him extra drinking water and stood his feet in...

We put 12 Wyandotte eggs into the hatcher, which is a Suro20 (without the rocking cradle) wrapped in extra insulation. The temperature was 37.0C and humidity set to 75%. It took over 24 hours to stabilise the humidity, which I think is an inherent problem with the software controlling the pump...

Hi Dimo and welcome to the forum. I assume you are in Southwest Texas? Quite a collection you have already and lucky with the bug problem- we are plagued with red mite here because of all the wild birds.

Our Blue Laced Wyandottes are getting old (5 years now) so we decided to let a local breeder have eggs to get a stock of our bloodline and save us breeding because space is limited. Our line is much larger than the breed standard. The breed standard is over 4Kg for a cock, but most lines run...

Now that Spring has arrived we are spending late afternoons in the chicken enclosure watching and listening to them. Our TNN cock Jean-Claude and our Wyandotte cock Zebedee have the clearest outlook to the surroundings. Their alarm calls are universally recognised and send all the hens running...

I've always thought that cankers in the mouth were a fungal growth, but apparently that isn't the case at all. They are the result of a parasite attack, the organism causing it is Trichomonas Gallinae. It is therefore contagious, but fortunately it has poor resistance to an external environment...

May be worth sharing this recent experience. We don't use feed additives at all believing that the pellets contain all they need. But this isn't necessarily the case in an older bird that may need a boost of something. I have read that a chicken eating excess grit or soil is suffering from a...

We've ordered some of these because we have a major sparrow problem and the run isn't big enough for a Grandpa's treadle feeder. They are very cheap at £5 each plus £3.50 postage -but it is only one component in the feeder assembly -you have to get the rest together yourself. Anyone have any...

Hello ChickMomma and welcome to the forum. Breed standards around the world have differences, so it can be rather difficult to identify them. The second photo looks something like a Cream Legbar crossed with Faverolles and I think it's her that laid the blue egg. The hen on the left in the first...

We have three Buff Orpington sisters, now nearly 5 years old. Each one has in turn has had a digestive impaction characterised by a full crop in the morning but not eating and very little poo. The first was Verity. Her problem appeared to be caused by a cherry stone jammed against worms in the...

Hi Janukey and welcome to the forum. Unusual thing to be hatching at this time of year, but if you have the space that you can keep them warm then it's not really a problem. Good result if you got 5 from 6 eggs. What incubator were you using and did you run it 'dry' to start?

The www.accidentalsmallholder.net is probably what you are looking for Dave. Loads of info and a forum as well which covers every aspect. This forum is still the best place by far to get chicken advice though.

Welcome to the forum Dave. Registering as a smallholding is a rather confusing term. What you will actually be doing is registering each category of your animals with DEFRA and Animal Health. In our case we had sheep and more than 50 chickens, so we had a Holding (CHP?) number allocated for the...

Hello Kel3 and welcome to the forum. Afraid I know almost nothing about ducks -hand reared a couple of stray Mallard chicks and that's it.