EDIT: ha!! Holy moly!! Well we stand humbled. This is our first time having chickens. The girls are spring hens so they haven’t lived through a Quebec winter so we, (apparently VERY wrongly) assumed a bit of heat would keep them cozy. But your “loud and clear” comments lead to me to look into it a bit deeper. We will be re-considering the heat lamp! 😊

Made an incubator out of an old smoker I had in the barn

Upon further inspection and a few days of putting my rooster in a bachelor pad, I let him out today. I supervised his release and watched how the chooks received him. Well... I realize my one ameraucana hen is the aggressor.

My hen keeps going after my rooster! Both born July 5th.
Rooster isn't aggressive or trying to mate with any of them.

What do I do? It's my hen that is after him. He is hiding all around the yard and she is hunting him. No chickens fight like this - with her, eachother, or him. It's just these two. I put her in a separate area so she cannot interact and let him free with the rest of the flock.

Is this the correct move?

Here was my original post from a few days ago - https://www.reddit.com/r/chickens/s/EASdf7dBKe

EDIT: I have two got'damn roosters.

Since he's been my favorite since hatch day and these are my first chicks, I wanted to be sure he's a cockerel before I give him to my friend for her backyard flock. He's 10 weeks old and his comb started turning pink around the 5 week mark. He's second in the pecking order and has been known to chest bump with the top cockerel. Facebook is divided. Someone pointed out that you can see at two ridges on his comb, but I'll need to look closer when I go out tomorrow. I see what they see in the picture, but I haven't noticed it in person.

Got tired of the muddy run after the rain and wet poop getting trudged into the dirt so after letting it dry in the sun for a few days I cleaned everything up and covered the run in pine shavings.

When I put the chickens back in the run they FREAKED TF OUT bouncing from wall to wall trying to escape lmao. Granted, they have been in the dirt run for the past 5 weeks but they spent the first two months of their lives in a big doggy crate with the same shavings! Here they are acting like this is the first time they’ve seen pine shavings in their entire life! Silly butts!

I was too slow to grab my phone so I missed most of the chaos. 2nd pic you can see one of them frantically trying to fit on top of the feeder. Last pic the tiniest little girl was the only one brave enough to step onto the shavings.

My daughter raised this hen from a day old ,isn't she lovely?

She was given to me as a gold laced wyandotte but she is a much lighter gold than my others. One of my other gold laced is in the pic for comparison. Just a color variation or a different breed?

Please disregard Petunia at the bottom, she is going through a molt.

Yesterday....she didn't leave the run until I made her. Stood with her head down, eyes closed, very lethargic. After about an hour of seeing that, I gave her meloxidyl. About 30 minutes later, she seemed mostly normal and then completely normal all night, except for some thicker, pastier yellow urates.

Today...seems completely normal. Digging for bugs, good color to her, stool is normal but slightly yellow urates. She's eating, moving around and foraging all day long, like nothing ever happened. This morning, out of panic and because it was really early and wasn't sure what to do, gave her one dose of liquid Baytril. (Someone on BYC told me she's be dead today if I didn't and convinced she has reproductive disease) I've had her over two years and she doesn't lay eggs...don't know her age but she's at least five.

So....it's been over 24 hours since the pain med and would be due now for a second dose of antibiotic if I continue it. But....not sure if I should continue baytril out of precaution OR not give since she seems fine now and the last time she had baytril she ended up with sour crop.

So...please...what do you think? What's the smart move here and what the heck happened yesterday? Pic was her yesterday....NOT today

All hens hopefully??

We inherited a shed and are looking to convert it a coop after we finally move the stuff inside to our garage. Inside seems more solid than I originally thought, aside from the decent sized gap in the door that we need to find a fix for (as well as general painting and maintenance)

But we also want to make sure it's predator proof of course, make sure it's suitable for birds - and check for issues I probably am missing. The bottom as you can see is crying for some kind of filler as well.

Please let me know what you think

I have 4 black australorp hens that are a little over 3 years old now. All 4 are egg layers, I have video proof of all 4 of them laying eggs over the last couple years so I know for a fact that isn't some mistaken rooster identity thing.

Last spring I bought 3 buff orpington pullets from someone local. 1 of them ended up being a rooster, he's a great rooster, takes great care of his flock and is very kind to all of us. He was a late bloomer though, he didn't start crowing until almost 30 weeks. Around week 20 one of my australorp hens starting crowing, not your typical cock-a-doodle-doo sound more like a combination of a rooster and a goat, just screaming. She will jump on something high and "crow" every morning. As my rooster matured she slowed down considerably, however she is still the top bird. She will puff her neck feathers, occasionally correct him and he takes it, like he knows his place. She will crow a half dozen times sporadically throughout the week.

The weirdest thing too is over the last 6 months she has started growing spurs. They're about 1-1.25 inches long now on each leg.

She still lays eggs, but rarely, maybe 4-5 per month instead of 4-5 per week.

Is this some mental illness, some hormonal change, or did acquiring a rooster when she was 1.5 years old do something to her that caused her to evolve?

Has anyone seen this before?

One of my hens has yellow urates far more than white urates. Do you see this in yours? I started paying more attention a few months ago to stool in general and wondering if it's an issue or just her "normal?" She otherwise seems totally fine. Pics for examples.

My very broody hen decided she was going to be a mom. I just had surgery so I couldn’t really fight against her wishes. 😂 Found her and her babies this morning! 4/6 eggs have hatched. Hoping the last two eggs are just late bloomers.

Today we had an interesting discussion I did not thought of by now. We have chicken first time, it will be our first time with chickens during the fireworks. How do you handle it? Chicks are so frightened of noises, and there's lot of fireworks in our village.

One of my roosters developed these white spots on his comb overnight. Anyone know what this could be?

I'm in a pickle. at night, my ducks are in an old barn, in a converted stall that I've stapled hardware to on the outside. it's hard to describe, but it's very safe and predator proof. HOWEVER, part of the floor is cement and part is dirt. rats have managed to tunnel under the dirt, bypassing the hardware cloth. ive tried putting hardware cloth on top of the dirt, but because of the concrete part, I can't really secure it and the rats push it up. I know excluding would be the best answer but I just can't. I've got rat traps but they ignore them because they know they'll get fresh eggs at 5am. Anyone have experience with this and found a solution?

Noticed this lump between one of my chicken’s toes. Checked for a lodged stone but it was clean and couldn’t find the classic “dot” that is associated with bumble foot. Lump feels hard and she hasn’t been limping at all except maybe not putting full weight on that foot when standing. What is it? Do I leave it alone or treat it? No vets where I am

These are 2 of 4 hens inherited from a neighbor who moved away last spring. The sultan looking one seems very old and behave like rooster, she calls other hens when she find food and throws it on the ground for them to eat. She is never seen inside a nesting box. Notice the size of the spurs on her legs.
The second hen looks like Americana or Easter egger but I noticed that it had 5 toes. She isn’t having a great time integrating and she gets picked on by my younger hens all the time. They kick her off the roosting bars and chase her during the day. She produced bluish eggs but rarely.

Silly Sapphire Olive Egger had a Mohawk all her baby years, then got a full head of hair.

These Sapphires (gems/olive-eggers) have thrown me in for a loop, so many weird little quirks in those breeds

(feat. Marble)

Just finished making a brand new chicken coop for a hen flock, 3m x 4m, 1/4" hardware cloth on all sides including the roof underside and beneath the 5" of soil, nipple watering system, low tech PVC pipe feed dispenser and deep bedding with pine shavings and an easy cleaning door for access of the inside of the coop. I also included very big vents for the summertime (it's very very hot here during the summer) that can be partially closed during the winter.
Later on I will add a hardware cloth tunnel leading to an enclosed outside run that I haven't had time to do yet.
I have been reading a lot here and on YouTube about coop designs before making this, and I wanted to thank everyone here for sharing the good knowledge.
What do you think ?