I am beside myself. To clarify, a vet will be performing their amputations. I had one, now two, chickens with severe cuts on their toes. I have had no changes to my yard and somehow these little sultans have managed to severely slice open their little fingers. I’ve had them in ISO and finally went to the vet and the vet was like ya these things need to go. I love my birds! I don’t have any kids and treat my girls like my daughters. Of course I will pay for expensive surgery. I just feel so bad like I failed them as a mother. I’m still looking for what cut them. I was just wondering if anyone had experience with this and can share optimistic recovery stories. I know they will be ok eventually but I am just beside myself with grief. One has to have her big toe removed and I am more worried about that and the other has to have her 5th toe so recovery might not be as bad for her. Will my little ladies be ok?

https://preview.redd.it/1g15ujbl6ige1.png?width=667&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf738331e9024993bee3c58493fee1ed549981ec

So i was doing some dishes, minding my own business, thought oh what the hell, it's 38 degrees (celcius) outside ill open some windows so i don't melt. Now it's important to note that:

a) one of my windows doesn't have a flyscreen
and:
b) i have an amazing set of noise cancelling headphones i use to listen to whatever while I'm doing chores.

10 minutes in to this i feel something peck the back of my leg and my soul left my body cause I was home alone and i don't have any other pets. Turns out three of my hens had found the open window and were desperately curious to see what kind of nonsense the big featherless biped gets up to in the human coop, and i was completely oblivious to the noise. So that's how i almost had a heart attack.

Remember, the chances of getting killed by a chicken are very low.
But never zero.

My 10 week old has no pooped much at all today maybe 3-4 little ones. I’ve checked its crop but it hasn’t really eaten anything

My husband and I have 3 chickens but we’re keen to expand our flock. Before we do we’d like to make sure we’re giving them the very best conditions for bedding, food treats and diet, enrichment and life, in general.

So hit me with your tried and tested best advice for creating the very best environment for your chooks.

We are going to get 3 pullets. We live in a neighborhood with a medium/large sized backyard. Looks like we have decided on a production red, ideal 236, and black australorp. We saw that all 3 were very high producing egg layers. Thoughts on these being our first hens?

I’m making this post to try to come to a consensus weather it’s better to treat your flock with ivermectin once a year or not treat at all. I want everyone to weight in on what there thought are and as to why they agree to treating to not to. To me it seems like a balance of weather to expose your flock to slight chemicals to rid all parasites or risk no chemicals and allow the parasite load to live within your flock. At the end of the day what is better? What will allow your flock to thrive and live longer? Is it better for your chickens health to allow the parasite to live and feed off your loving chickens or is it better to expose them so a mild chemical like ivermectin to ensure there are no pests feeding on your chickens. Which one outweighs the other is it’s healthier to live with the parasites or receive treatment and live parasite free? Which route will allow your chickens to live a happier longer life? What path so you choose for your flock? I would like to hear every chicken owners thoughts on this. If you do not own chicks pls don’t bother commenting lol. No offence.

What are these black spots on her comb? Nobody else has them and it seems to be getting worse. Pecking is unlikely, as she is the largest bird in the flock and pretty well respected by others.

I posted under another account but lost the account login.

We want to build a small 5 x 5 chicken tractor with PVC and the like that's moveable in a back yard. My neighbor is blind, so we want the eggs to be easily accessible and a bit raised up. He'll have myself and other family and friends to help him out with their care but we want him to be as independent as possible. Does each chicken need its own nest box? Does anyone have any photos or tips?

He does not want meat chickens. He wants them to lay eggs. Thanks! :)

Hello, I need to replace some chickens that I lost to predation this year. I have a Buff Orpington hen who gets very broody so when I get chicks I’d like to see if I could put her instincts to good use and give her the babies that she wants.

I know that I would have to quarantine the chicks (especially with the risk of bird flu); what else do I need to set up to introduce, shelter, and support them?

Thank you for the advice!

I found that two of my majestics have leg mites. I've never had this issue before, so what's the best way to go about this? I have ivermectin paste, so will that work? I read that drench works but it's a little on the pricey side.

I kind of wish we had a daily thread; because I don't feel this is worthy of it's own post.

So, the hens have made it through the polar vortex with a few weeks in the barn. I had them out in the cold and snow until I saw signs of frostbite. I hastily built a roost in the barn and moved nest boxes, water, shavings, and the entire flock into a space in the barn (~18'x~18'). It is an unheated space, but at least the flock has been out of the wind and off the snow.

Until moving, the hens had reduced to zero to one egg daily; I was not surprised given the conditions.

After moving, the hens started laying three to five eggs daily, and I was a little surprised by that. This space has several windows (south-facing), so I knew they were getting natural cycles of light and dark. It's not a space with lights.

Just during the past handful of days this week, the hens are laying twelve to thirteen eggs daily. The flock has twenty-three standard-sized hens, so that's quite a change. Each hen laying about every other day!

Hopefully, they will be continuing to increase until we return to twenty-three eggs daily. (We did lose two hens during fall, but we were seeing twenty-five eggs daily until those losses.)

All these hens were hatched in 2024, so they are coming close to one year-olds. I expect we'll have good layers all this year.

With the egg shortages business is booming and can’t keep up with demand. If you sell, how much are you charging for your eggs ?

Most of these facts I didn’t know, and I’ve had chickens for many years!

Hi folks, I work at an agricultural facility (a legal cannabis grow) and we keep a small flock of chickens and guineas for bug control (we have 10 hens, a rooster, and 12 guineas so I think we still fit in here). We've had a harsh winter but our chickens have been doing great. 2 of our 12 guineas have been limping for the last couple of weeks. We've attempted to catch them but they've been... Resistant. Today I managed to catch one, expecting to have a sore that needed drained or an injury of some other sort but... Nothing. The foot and leg are fine, no pain response to anything I checked. The nails are a little long, I would imagine from keeping the leg up. I didn't get photos as I was letting the flock out for the morning since yesterday was too cold and snowy, and I didn't expect to have the opportunity to grab the bird so I didnt have my phone on me. Any ideas? I haven't been able to catch the second bird yet, that one is bigger and the limping has done nothing to decrease it's agility.