Hi all! I am just wondering how folks who farm chickens are thinking about the recent avian flu news. How freaked out are you by it?

(Lots of recent articles, thinking about the Daily today: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/podcasts/the-daily/bird-flu.html)

How come introducing a group of chicks to hens is difficult. What’s the disconnect between a hen hatching chicks and them roaming freely amongst the other chickens and introducing chicks to hens without one attacking the chicks? Why does the hen tend to go after them? What stops other chickens from going after chicks that have been hatched with a hen when they are in the yard together? I don’t really understand the dynamics at play here. Sorry it’s a lot of questions I’m doing my best to learn this.

Hi, I don’t know if this even applies for this group but it’s my best bet, I already have chickens in my garden but I wanted to get more, so here I am, it has been 23 days since we put them in the incubator and I’m starting to get worried. So we candled them again last night and they are moving and it’s very obvious they are alive, and last night we heard them cheeping inside the egg and them moving the egg, but they haven’t hatched, now this is the point I think we screwed up on, I recently read that for the last 3 days of incubation you aren’t meant to turn the eggs, I read this when it was only a day to hatching and since then we haven’t moved them,

Have we killed them? And can anyone please give me advice?

Before anyone attacks me and thinks I’m a first timer, I’m not, we have had 3-4 (I don’t remember the very first) batches of chickens, the first was about 10 years ago and she’s still alive, although the others aren’t, but that’s understandable, the second batch was all good aswell, one or two are still alive, this was still about 5-7 years ago, and the last was only 4 years ago, all are happy layers and that’s why I wanted some more, all have been successful (except one chick in the first batch but that’s normal), my incubator is the same one I used for all of the chickens, and the bulb has been replaced, I do not know what I’ve done wrong so I came here for help

UPDATE= As soon as I posted this, I checked the incubator to see if I could hear cheeping and instead I heard the egg break!! One is hatching!! Thank you all so much for your support

I have two 6 week old turkeys but was considering buying two full grown hens. Would it cause any problems? Would the adult hens attack the younger ones?

As the title says. I rehomed some quail yesterday and this evening I’ve noticed one of the birds with yellow loose stool. All the birds appear happy and healthy with no obvious signs of illness, eating and drinking as usual. What is the likely cause and what should I do?

My family purchased some “bargain mix” turkeys last year. It was mostly white broad breast, but there were also five Spanish Black turkeys (definitely not brown broad breast based on face and feather coloration). Of those five, we kept the three hens and one Tom. A couple months ago, after visually confirming the Tom was able to mate, we started gathering eggs (the hens didn’t choose nests well and something kept taking the eggs, otherwise I would’ve preferred the hens brood). For reasons I won’t get into here, we had a horrible hatch rate of two hatches out of seven fertile eggs. What emerged was a black Spanish turkey…and a white turkey. I’ve looked where I can but couldn’t find white recessive genes in black Spanish turkeys. I’m wondering how on earth this could’ve happened.

TLDR: my Black Spanish Turkey made a white poult. How?

Hey everyone

My friend has some baby chicks that I’m taking care of and this one seems not to do great. His leg is not working properly and he’s falling behind with eating and activity, today I’ve been looking for him but he’s been degrading fast. I’m trying to give him some electrolytes water for energy but I’m not sure how to save him (both me and my friend never personally had chicks but our grandparents had and she bought these as she wants to get into it herself and the breeder said it’s fine but i think they’re less than a week old and they’re silkies)

Is there anything i can do for him or is he too far gone? The others are doing fine and very active, they have food and water (chick proof) and heating pad for warmth (although he seems kinda cold, but warm on the part of body he sat on the heating pad)

I want to either raise ducks or chickens. I have a huge natural pond in my backyard so I figured I would just need to get a little house for them and put it by the pond and the ducks would be less maintenance.

However, chickens would produce more eggs so it would be nice to have the eggs.

I only wanted to get a few, maybe 3 or 4. I was probably just going to pick some up from tractor supply. Is there any specific breeds that are better than others (as far as being more docile)?

Just looking for some thoughts. Also if I were to get ducklings or chicks, at what age would I transition them over to a coop outside?

Obviously once I decide on what I want I’ll do more research but I’m torn between ducks and chickens.

I also saw starter kits with a heat lamp, feeder, and waterer at tractor supply, are these any good? Would I be able to use a 20 gallon sterlite type tub to house them in since I’m only wanting a few?

I think it looks like a target so my guess is yes, but would like some others thoughts

My mom thinks it might be black chickens but i have no idea what breed they are lol. Id appreciate some help

Are there any suggestions on what to use to get rid of micoplasma from a coop? We’ve lost the majority of the chickens from this and want to get more but don’t want to put them in the coop without disinfecting it.

Has anyone crossed Jersey Giants with another breed? If so, which parent was the giant, how fast did they grow, and what was their full size as adults?