Backyard Chickens (and Other Birds)

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[Were you a mod of backyard chickens on Reddit? Message me if you're interested in modding here.]

This is a community for people who keep chickens in their back yard. This includes pets, layers, and meaties at levels that are sub-industrial. Family farms and homesteads are included.

EDIT

The Fediverse is small. There probably aren't enough people here to make up a community for every type of bird that someone might keep so for now, everyone is welcome. Bring us your ducks and geese, turkeys and quail, Guineas and Peacocks, emus and parrots. The community will be focused on chickens but until there are enough of each bird community for their own community they will find care and comfort here.

/EDIT

There may be discussions of animal processing. This is part of chicken keeping. If you don't like it leave and block the community.

You may also be interested in:

Homestead

Parrots

Cockatiel

RULES:

  1. All Lemmy.ca rules apply here.

  2. Everyone (see rules 4 and 98) is welcome.

  3. If you've seen a question 100 times answer it the 101st time or ignore it. Even better, write a complete, detailed answer and suggest that the mod(s) pin it to the community.

  4. There will be ZERO tolerance for shaming, brigading, harassment, or other nonsense of those who keep and process chickens. You will be permanently banned the first time.

  5. No, it's not a calcium deficiency. Wrinkled eggs are the result of insufficient or insufficiently viscous albumen. Tiny eggs and missing shells are misfires. They happen.

  6. If you post a picture that includes a dead animal or blood mark it NSFW. We're not going to tolerate the militant anti-hunting and anti-farming bullshit here but we're also not going to tolerate people rubbing their hunting and harvesting in people's faces. See rule 98. If you post blood, gore, or dead animals and don't mark it NSFW it will be removed and you might be banned.

[Did you actually think there were 98 rules?]

  1. If you present something as fact and are asked to provide proof or a source provide proof or a source. Proof must be from a reliable source. If you fail to provide proof or a source your post or comment may be removed.

  2. Don't be a dick. Yes, this is a catch-all rule.

  3. The mod(s) have the final say.

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I will be moving to a house with a bigger garden soon, and I want to keep some chickens and ducks. I've been looking at coops from this brand: Omlet because they look easy to clean. I had rabbits before, and the wooden rabbit houses you can buy were always bad quality and hard to clean well. Any advice you guys can give me?

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Our laying flock is mixed. We have some purebred chickens and some mutts. Some years we hatch our own. Other years we buy chicks from other farms we trust. We also buy day olds and ready-to-lays from Freys and Mill Pond.

One of the things you learn in your second or third year of keeping a small laying flock is that you need to maintain your flock each year. We rotate out some of our oldest birds and add new birds each year. We identify the different groups in our flock with one or more nylon ties on their legs. This year's RTLs have a black band on their left leg.

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Most of the chickens ran outside this morning when I opened the chicken door. I let them out then go inside to do chores. This morning as I was filling the feed can a few of the ladies came in to inspect what I was doing. They're not hungry. The feeder is never empty. They just don't want to miss out on an opportunity to eat from the top of the feeder while it sits on the floor.

You will notice that the girl in the left foreground has a nylon tie on her leg. We identify the different groups in our flock with one or more nylon ties on their legs. This year's RTLs have a black band on their left leg. This helps us keep track of who is oldest so that we can rotate out a few of the oldest birds each year as we replace them with younger birds.

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Made out of wooden pallets and remaining of roof covering material. Automatic solar door + building on stilts to prevent fox attack

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Made out of wooden pallets and remaining of roof covering material. Automatic solar door + building on stilts to prevent fox attack

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We do two batches of between 50 and 100 Cornish Rocks per year. We start the first batch early in the spring so that they finish before the heat of summer. We do the second batch late in the year so that we can take advantage of the late summer heat and they finish after it starts to cool down.

We use 250W heat lamps and 200W Cozy Coop panels to keep the littles warm. We generally have a very low loss rate.

This year our abattoir started two weeks later than usual so we ended up having our spring batch for two weeks longer than anticipated. Our largest bird finished at 4.5 Kg (10 lb).

We generally process around half of the birds ourselves for our freezer and have the other half processed at a licensed abattoir so that we can sell them off farm.

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These were laid by Azure Blues, a blue egg laying variety of White Leghorn.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by MapleEngineer@lemmy.ca to c/backyardchickens@lemmy.ca
 
 
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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Awa@lemmy.world to c/backyardchickens@lemmy.ca
 
 

Adult female hand for scale

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INB4 - Rule 5! It's not a calcium deficiency. This is an egg from an older bird with insufficient albumen to support the shell during its formation. There are a number of things that can cause this including dehydration, illness, and the number one cause, old age. This is a perfectly good shell, it's just wrinkled.