A great vid there Fiona, thank you. I only found out recently that hens dont suffer hearing loss and roosters have a form of ear plug that protects them when they put their head back to crow. I thought that was so cool, you know how loud the lads can be👍👍
Interesting as always. The fact I like (and wish I could do) is that chickens can use each of their eyes independently so both their eyes can focus on different things at the same time. Ours enjoy catching small snakes and slow worms, the ducks are the worse as they happily catch and eat any unsuspecting sparrows that stray to close to them or are off guard sharing their food bowl.
Get well soon. Regards from Botswana 🇧🇼 Thank you so much for the video 🙏 you made me a chicken farmer by sharing your knowledge 😃👍 I started with four then 15 now I have 70 plus 🙏.
I watched a video showing a chicken grab a snake, shift it with it's feet & beak until it got one end in its mouth, and swallow repeatedly until the whole thing was down...the snake was small, 15 inches long or less, and less than 1/2 inch in diameter, but it was still something to see!
Thank you that was really useful (and good to see that your leg is healing). I have always wondered about saddles and preening - especially how they affect the hen's ability to access their uropygial gland. I have only kept a cockerel once and put a saddle on his "favourite" hen as she was getting damaged feathers but I was then worried watching the flock preen that this was interfering with her normal preening habits. I know saddles come in different sizes and this was the "right" size. What is your experience of this? Thanks
I have a video showing the crucial measurements to make sure the saddle fits and she can still reach the gland ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bRxkXWjJ-Ns.html
Hi Fiona, good to see progress with your leg. Can I ask if I should beak trim please? I don’t want to as my chickens are hard to catch and I’m not an experienced hen keeper.
There are butterfly saddles which protect theirs shoulders over the top of their wings. You can see them in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bRxkXWjJ-Ns.html For cleaning their bottoms, I just simply use water and take my time, drying them off with a towel and a warm hairdryer. You can see me cleaning Gannet the Orpington and the whole process in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Og2SohFGVf4.html
Our chickens are in a large are of about quarter of an acre protected by an electric fence. If we keep the numbers liw the grass is fine. In Winter when the growth slows down, we only have 15 birds in the enclosure
Hello there chicken chaps, or is that chap and chapess ? Anyway, I like to plan ahead and as and when chicken Isla is ready we will be getting 2 replacement birds. So how do you go about introducing them to the existing 3 ? I have watched several videos on how to do this but they are all from the USA and as you can imagine there are conflicting pieces of advice and some weird and wonderful. The common ground is mostly what I suspected, ie let them mingle but seperated by a physical barrier for X number of days. But how many days ? And during this 'getting to know you' period ( cue Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr 🎶) do the new birds need a temporary coop and how do you go about transferring them into the existing coop ? Now I know that you breed your own chicks but you do buy in some new cockerels from time to time and as you are the font af all chickeny knowledge I thought you might be able to help.
@@chrishamilton-wearing3232 Hi Chris, actually we only ever buy eggs & hatch unrelated cockerels. As regards introduction many do keep them in a separate coop but visible & let them get used to each other. When introducing wait till the main flock are asleep at night, then put them in the coop. With placid breeds you can go straight to this. The next day ensure the flock has lots of room so that the new hens can escape bullying. Let pecking order fights play out unless injury occurs
