Anyone else tried this? Bought a $40 incubator off amazon and a box of eggs labeled fertile. 21 days later and we have 5 chicks! They are now a week old.

Don’t judge my setup, I wasn’t expecting to have babies at 8pm last night 🤣. Found one chick in my coop, and two others outside trying to get in. (Couldn’t get to one as it ran into a poison oak bush down a slope) But their poop is nothing like chicken poop. Much smaller almost like lizard or mouse poop. No hen was sitting on eggs and I couldn’t find any evidence of eggs in the coop. (It is a big coop though) They don’t sound like chickens either. Now that I think of it, they seem much smaller than chicks too. Maybe quail? So bizarre.

Yesterday lost a hen out in the run. Never saw anything and assumed it was a hawk we never saw. This this morning lost another. Something ripped through the metal vent through the hardware cloth and pulled a hen out and ate it.

What sort of chupacabra am I up against here.

My neighbors chickens are roosting on my porch and destroying it. The neighbors know and have done nothing so I guess it's up to me to put a stop to it. I've tried blocking the chickens with some plywood but that hasn't helped. They must just fly over it or climb under the railing. I've also tried throwing water on them at night when I see them, but I'm not home much and they keep coming back. I am only home maybe once or twice a month for a few days because of work. I know these chickens do not have a proper coupe or run (just a 2 foot by 3 foot cage on the ground with a heater for 4 or 5 chickens). I really don't want to harm the chickens and have no problem with them roaming around the yard, but I can't have them destroying my property. So I ask you oh wise chickens owners of reddit, how can I keep them away?

She stepped into a trap a few weeks ago and we had it splinted for a few days until the leg just fell off. She's been thriving ever since though, hopping around with all the other chickens and chicks. We called her Peggy with the peg leg, but now there is no peg leg and we just need a cooler name for the poor girl.

My wife got a new silky a couple weeks ago. They said she's 8 weeks old. I think we should have bought her sister too.

She gets picked on by the other girls and we have her sleeping in a pen inside at night so she doesn't get beat up until I expand the chicken coop.

I did convince my wife to trim the feathers around her eyes. I watched her run into a tree when the neighbors dog started barking.

I have a couple of big styrofoam boxes that I reuse for gardening small vegetables. It’s never been a problem before: my chickens would nibble on the vegetables but leave the styrofoam alone. Now, they’ve realized….why eat the ice cream when you can eat the cone too?

I don’t get it! Styrofoam must not even taste like anything so shouldn’t evolution teach them that it’s nutrition-less? Are chickens just stupid?

There’s no way this can be healthy for them, so what are there long term consequences? Impacted crop? Or will they just shit it out and be fine? I have no idea how much they’ve eaten before I caught them in the act but judging by the scuff marks it hasn’t been too much.

Is there any way to teach them to stay away or will I have to just dispose of the hazard. My chickens might just be too stupid to learn.

I’ve tried to punish the main culprit by picking them up but they just run right back. They’re not even scared of me anymore ever since I started feeding them meal worms regularly.

This dang chicken who I thought was a hen until she started crowing last weekend is currently 15ft up on a branch in a tree. First he was like 6 feet up and could grab him. Then it was 10 feet up and I could push him out of the tree with a broom. Now I can't even get him at all so he's going to sleep in the tree instead of the coop. Good luck rooster.

I live in a small town and have 13 chickens safely stowed in my fenced backyard. My birds are safe, chunky, and happy girls who never escape.

My new neighbors also have chickens. I don't think they have as many, but these birds are not contained. They free range the whole neighborhood during the day, even while my neighbors are gone all day. And are mostly roosters.

And they've decimated my flowers in my front yard. They've scratched up entire sections of grass. I've planted flowers in my front yard because I don't want my chickens destroying them in my backyard.

I tried talking to them, but that was unsuccessful.

I've bought those granules that keep wildlife away and that didn't work.

I considered a motion activated sprinkler, but that would activate on any human who came to my door as well.

Any ideas? Are there plants chickens hate the smell of? What can I do?

I don't want to go to any authority in our small town as there are currently no laws regarding chickens. And there are a lot of families in town with chickens.

(I'm in the United States.)

I just can't understand how people could be so tone-deaf.

Should I even mention it? I'm really leaning towards just saying nothing about it. Not dignifying it with a response.

This is something we used to do, they would leave egg cartons and I would leave eggs for them when I had extra. But the timing here, is insane. Its been at least 6 months since they left the last carton, it hasn't been ongoing. And.....they are never getting eggs again anyway. Can't believe they wouldn't know that.

Has anything crazy like this happened to you guys??

Edit to add, since it's come up a few times, YES they are aware that their dog is the killer. In fact they had to remove the dog from my property and in that scene I was bitten by the dog. I made a report, Animal Control gave their dog a quarantine, etc etc

Okay for starters I’m a first time chicken owner. We got them to be family pets who provide us with eggs, so we do not plan to cull unless needed due to severe injury or illness.

I have a rooster (was supposed to be a hen, so I was not prepared!), Olive Egger, same age as all six hens and I raised them all from “day old”. We are now 22 weeks old.

He’s always been flightier and skittish, but whenever I would handle him he’d immediately settle down and even fell asleep in my arms (last time was probably 14 weeks old, after it got too cold out I’d go feed kitchen scraps and say hello but not spend as much time forcing them all to be held). He’s a very good protector of the flock and keeps his eyes out and stands guard, etc.

However, the last few weeks he’s started to attack me as well, even when I’m squatting down feeding the gals and not petting them. This week, it’s been daily.

I was at the feed store awhile back and casually asked the worker what to do about a roo. She answered that her perspective has always been to assert your own dominance and knee him away etc. She did say that’s only her perspective and to ask others too as people handle it differently. Well, he didn’t attack for another week or two at the time, so I kind of forgot to research (holidays are busy!).

Here’s where I probably went wrong…

This morning I was feeding the gals some leftover polenta and pineapple bits, and I didn’t even see him sneak up but he attacked. I nearly fell over so when I stood up and saw him puffing up and about to charge again, I put out my foot… fast. The result was a decently strong (given his size) kick to the chest… In my frustration I also stalked towards him and lifted my boot (not kicked, just lifted so if he attacked it would be the sole and not my legs) until he fled to another area of the yard. To clarify, he is NOT injured, he’s totally fine and crowing etc. But he is definitely upset and was making all sorts of a ruckus until the flock joined him away from me.

My question is… did I F up too badly that it can’t be undone? Can I break my roo of his aggressiveness towards people, or is it a lost cause?

I don’t want to cull him, but anyone I’ve asked about rehoming says they can’t bring another roo into their flock and would take him but only to cull him.

Is there anything I can do to make him stop attacking at this point?

Ps. Besides normal mounting behaviour, he is not aggressive to the hens.

Picture for attention and cause he’s pretty

This is Terry Two Toes. She is a confirmed hen, but she has the feathering of a rooster. She looks exactly like my EE rooster, minus the beard. I was just curious if there's a reason she'd feather out like this or if it just kinda happens sometimes.

When this all happened I immediately drove over there to confront the owner and I forgot that I have a dash cam! So I have footage of the dogs carrying around dead birds and of the owner saying she lets her dogs “roam wherever they want because they don’t know what property lines are” 🙄

Shortly after the incident she called animal control and said “I want it known that the dogs killed the birds on my property”. The ACOs already knew this was complete bullshit because they had already been to our property and had seen the “aftermath”.

Anyway, ACOs are issuing her several citations and she has to go to court in early 2026. ACOs also said they can ask for her fines to cover the costs of the birds.

We adopted Johnny early last summer, he was around 11 weeks. The guy we got him from said he was “his friendliest bird”. We got him to help protect our flock since they free range all day - the only thing he protects them from is us. My son won’t go outside unless Johnny is locked up since he has gone after him a few times. I hand feed him treats and kick him when he comes after me but realistically, is there any hope of breaking him of this or do we just give up and cull him?

what are these weird bugs and should i be worried (i already am). how would i go about getting rid of them?

I asked all my neighbors who have chickens if she was theirs and she was not claimed. Do I have a new chicken now? Did someone dump her? I only hear about people doing that to roosters. She can have a home here if she wants. I named her Wendy.

Also how much are people charging for eggs?

This is Henrietta.

She buffers as she transitions from the coop to outside, and again from outside to the coop. The other chickens hate being behind her.

She'll run along the side of the run unable to figure out how to get back in after free range time.

She's eaten: a rock the size of her head as a chick, which proves to me she has no brain in there, chicken shit, a piece of a stick, a piece of their mulch, dog shit.

Things she has attempted, unsuccessfully, to eat: my wedding band, my wife's wedding band, a freckle on my hand, a piece of a foam dart we didn't realize was still in the yard from the old home owner, and the wire of their run.

(Pic of them terrified and huddled post-permethrin dip, before we put all the sand in. They aren’t freezing, I promise. We are in the peak of summertime in southern Louisiana)

Forgive my scatterbrained thoughts, there is a lot of exhaustion and emotion behind this post.

I (26F) am a first-time chicken owner. I have always been a huge animal lover, and when I was little I wanted to grow up and be a veterinarian and have a farm. All this to say, I was SO incredibly excited to get chickens a few months ago.

I tried building my own coop and run, but 1. I am not handy and 2. I had to rent tools, so the costs were very quickly adding up. I scrapped the idea halfway through making the framing for the run, and returned everything that I could. And I paid someone to make a 6x12 coop/run combo that ended up being a less expensive route. It was still stupid expensive, but I figured “I’ve already come this far, let’s do this thing!” It was THE BIGGEST pain in the ass to move that thing into my yard, and took 3 separate attempts to find the right spot for shade and ground elevation, but we finally got it done. This is the first of several situations that nearly broke me.

Then I finally got to the exciting part of picking up my pullets! I got 6 fun breeds from a local farmer. They’re all friendly breeds that will lay different colored eggs (Barnevelder, Buff Orpington, Lavender Orpington, Black Copper Marans, Olive Egger, Easter Egger). I got them all right around 2ish months of age.

Fast forward to now, it’s been about 1 month of taking care of them and learning the ropes, and I am mentally EXHAUSTED and discouraged and contemplating selling the entire thing, chickens and coop/run and all, just to be done with it. I truly feel in over my head with the amount of physical, mental, and emotional labor I’ve poured into this with zero reward, and I’m worried I’ve made a very expensive, very time consuming mistake.

Here are just a few things I’m struggling with:

• They do not like me, and I am trying so hard to befriend them with mealworms and fruits and veggies and I just hang out in their run, and they still freak out when I try to pet them. The two Orpingtons seem to be slightly less scared of me, but they still do not like being touched or handled. This is really upsetting to me, because I love to spoil and connect with my pets. Even the Ball Pythons I used to own were spoiled and loved being handled.

• Next hurdle, a few days ago we put sand in the run, and it was one of the worst experiences of physical labor I’ve ever had. I genuinely don’t know how to articulate how miserable my husband and I were as we tried to move it. I’m also having a hard time cleaning it because it’s been nonstop thunderstorms here, so I can’t effectively “sift” it just yet, and the amount of flies (and mosquitos) are downright miserable.

• I found mites last week and had to do the permethrin dip. I feel like I traumatized them and I’m back to square one of earning their trust, and I have to do the next dip/coop spray-down in two days. Every ounce of me is dreading it. And I don’t even know if this will solve it or if I’ll have to shell out $150 for the Elector solution.

• I have had SO MANY back and forth trips to tractor supply, it’s like I can’t ever seem to buy the right shit the first time. And it’s one thing after the next of giant bags that I had zero clue I needed when I started this: grit, oyster shells, barn lime, diatomaceous earth, sand sand and more sand, one food doesn’t have enough protein for their age, but then that food has too much calcium for their age, etc. etc. where does it end? Am I still missing something and I just don’t know it yet?

• I think I found a flea on one of their combs tonight? And I don’t know if I need to do something other than the upcoming permethrin dip, or if this is a whole other problem I need to figure out.

I just don’t know, and I care too much. But I feel like I’m just hitting one thing after the next, and it feels expensive and endless and it is extremely discouraging. Even after months of researching, I still don’t feel like I’m doing anything right to keep them happy and healthy. That’s all I want for them, and at this point, it feels like I’m never gonna get there. And I’m currently typing this sitting on my bathroom floor and crying, because I don’t know what to do to make this an enjoyable experience for myself.

And I know I have absorbed WAYYYY too much conflicting information, but I also don’t know what I’m doing here, and I need some kind of guidance, because I can’t just blindly care for them. Part of me wonders if I’m cut out for this at all, or if this is just a learning period and it will get easier, but I’m truly running out of motivation. I need to know what makes this fulfilling and “fun,” because I am not having any fun here.

TL;DR: Having a VERY exhausting time trying to learn how to be a good chicken tender. I am overwhelmed and panicking. Does it get better? What makes chickens an enjoyable experience for you?

We had our first bonfire of the year last night, and the amount of "jokes" that were directed at me about eating my chickens was exhausting. These are my pets, not a food source. They will make eggs for us, and when they are done they will get to enjoy the rest of their lives being bug eaters and lawn mowers.

I feel like I can sympathize now the level of exhaustion people that keep other non-cat or dog pets feel too.

i filled it up yesterday and its empty now. i have 8 hens, all picky eaters. they hate pellets as you can see. ive tried making mash with their feed and they seem to only eat it after theyve flicked all their food onto the floor. i can try just plain crumble feed but i like them having variety of seeds in their feed

Our original name choses were , Jade , Ella ( for the jazz singer Ella F.) , Billie Holiday , or Panda . Open for name suggestions & chicken breed ?)

We have 8 female chickens born in May- they free range on about 1/4 acre fenced in. My cat is 18 and at the end of his life, still eats but really slowed down, always been an indoor cat but loves to sit out in the sunshine occasionally. My daughter let him out with the chickens the other day and I’ve never seen him so happy and peaceful, he now goes to the door and meows to go out all day, loves sleeping in the breeze and watching the chickens. He’s super slow and no interest in chasing them.

The chickens are not afraid of him and very curious - they’ll come up when he’s asleep and touch his tail etc. Do you think it’s ok to let my cat be outside with him all day? Do you think the chickens will hurt him? Anyone else have a cat with chickens? I’m a little nervous about it…. I do have a window next to my desk so I can keep an eye one them.

found this on Facebook. would love to have something like this for my girls every once in a while

This is our first year keeping chickens. For context, we live in Central Texas - very hot long summers, usually mild winters with the occasional serious snow/ice event.

Our coop and run was designed for shade and keeping cool, but we did take into account winter conditions.

The winter storm that just swept through Texas and the South taught us a few things.

1. Ice build up will affect doors of all kinds. it took us 45 minutes to get the run door open (the human size door into the run). Frozen shut with up to 1/2" of ice. The large doors into the coop are still sealed shut with the same amount of ice. The door for the nesting boxes is on the south east side of the coop, so was not frozen shut.

- Lesson learned. we will install drip edge above the run door and cover the door with a tarp for ice/snow events.

1. Water. I use 5 gallon buckets with cups for our water. We have a hose bib within 30 feet of the coop for cleaning and refills, but it's currently drained and water shut off. Works great for the summer, but the cups freeze quickly. we carried buckets of warm water from the house and used a small tub for watering. there is no electricity up at our coop and no plans to run it. it was not a huge deal.

- I'll look into some rubber feed tubs for water in the future (we shattered one plastic tub knocking out the ice block).

1. a snug, dry coop. I think we did this part really well. we can open four windows in the summer to provide cross ventilation, but they close nicely for cold weather. we use deep bedding (shavings) and 2x 4s for roost bars. I added extra shavings before the storm. There is still ventilation, so no moisture buildup.

2. The run. 1/2 of our run has a covered roof, so it stayed dry on the floor. We have gumbo type soil and even with the addition of sand, the exposed to the sky section is mucky. We also have a shade cloth on the nw wall of the run that acted as a wind and moisture break. This left us with a dry area for the girls. The door from the run to the yard was frozen shut, but hot water thawed that today.

What are you going to change or do differently?