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Category Archives: chickens
One-dead-baby-chicken, two-dead-baby-chicken, three-dead-baby-chicken …
The day I found that first dead baby chicken (Thursday) I left town for a conference in British Columbia. On the train that evening, I got a call from the homestead. Our friend Darryl said, “There is an egg with … Continue reading
Posted in baby chickens, broody hen, chickens, eggs, nest boxes, update
Tagged exposure, hatching baby chicks
3 Comments
One is the loneliest number
This morning I found a beautiful, perfect, dead baby chick in the nest box with the fertilized eggs. Down still matted, eyes still shut tight. Calamity Jane, the would-be mother hen, was sitting on a clean empty nest next door. … Continue reading
Posted in baby chickens, broody hen, chicken coop / run, chickens, eggs, update
Tagged broody hen, dead baby chicken, hatching eggs
3 Comments
Broody Hen
[caption id="attachment_1505" align="aligncenter" width="425" caption="Calamity Jane, our Dark Brahma, went broody in February"]
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My young hen Calamity Jane sits in the nest box. She has done very little else for weeks now. She spends the day in there when the other chickens are out having dirt baths and fighting over the compost pile. She spends the night in there when the other chickens are sleeping on the roost. She makes distraught cluck-cluck-cluck sounds when we force her off the nest. There is no doubt about it – she is broody… Continue reading
Posted in baby chickens, broody hen, chicken coop / run, chickens, eggs, nest boxes
Tagged broodiness, fertilie eggs, hatching eggs
6 Comments
Homemade Gravity Chicken Feeder
[caption id="attachment_1378" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Mason jar chicken feeder; Calamity Jane, Blanca, and Roo, Spring 2011"]
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We have always used a gravity feeder for our chickens. For chicks we use the mason jar feeder (above). This works great, but only for a couple of months. By then the chickens eat enough that it must be refilled every other day, plus it is easy for Continue reading
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