Keeping Chickens Newsletter

Jump To Page

Pam Noonan : What if we have one chicken that on some days decides to eat an egg? What do we do about her? Thanks so much. I enjoy your letter.

My Reply : Chickens can develop a habit of eating their own eggs (including the shells sometimes) - it can be difficult to break the habit if they have it. Solutions usually amount to tricking them into eating (well, attempting to eat) a false wooden or ceramic egg or an egg that has been tampered with so that they won't like the taste, and then hopefully they will stop trying. Another practical way is to collect the eggs more often so they don't get as much time to try to eat them. Some people also use adapted nest boxes so that the egg will roll into a separate compartment that the hen(s) can't get at. (I don't know if you saw it or not but there is a little bit on egg eating in the April Newsletter which is available in the members archive). If you have any predators such as rats (or snakes etc.) they would also try to eat / steal your eggs and may be 'framing' your hen (unless you are actually seeing her do it).

Joy Chiplin - We have had a couple of chickens with bad eyes. The eye swells up and when it's cleaned it's very puffy and eventually the chicken loses the sight of the eye. We had some eye cream from the vet but even he didn't know what is causing, what looks like a very bad eye infection. Would be very grateful for any advice. Many thanks Joy.

My Reply : It is not something I have directly experienced, but if the vet has seen your chickens he will probably have already done whatever is the most likely to help. It may or not be relevant, but for what its worth I have a subscribers experience and solution for their girls eye infection on the blog here:
http://successwithpoultry.blogspot.com/2007/12/eye-infection.html

Cliff Dennis : What Is green bone?

My Reply : I just double checked in the Success with Poultry book and it says there that green bone means a bone that is fresh from the butcher's, contains all the natural juices and has more or less fresh meat stuck to it.

Betty Marshall : Hi there! I'm in my first winter with chickens up in NH and currently my 6 ladies are fat, feathery and happy...but I'm wondering if I should be offering them grit for their crops while they can't get to any pebbles out in the run (due to the 2 feet of snow we have!!) I'm so afraid they're going to get crop bound from the horror stories told to me by my father. Their diet consists of Layena chicken feed and a handful or so of a chicken scratch as a treat (it's a combo of seeds and cracked corn) and of course water which is kept unfrozen

Jump To Page