Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Egg binding is when an egg gets stuck moving from the oviduct into the cloaca before being laid. It can happen for several reasons-narrow cloacal opening, rough egg shells, inconsistent calcium depositing in the shell, abnormal pelvis bones...all kinds of reasons. Usually if a hen is egg bound she ...

29472313_1741583145884627_5317199968061095936_o[1].jpg Afternoon here in cloudy Pa, snow again last night....sheesh, enough already. At least it didn't stick around this time. The fluffys are not very fluffy anymore and are looking so funny with their spikey pin feathers and the spiderwebs in the b...

i actually drove home in white out conditions yesterday. that was crazy! and there were some branches down and stuff....but amazingly (given that the incubator and heat plates are on) we didn't lose power.....so glad the wind is down today. busy weekend coming up. tonight i pick up a new barred roc...

Oh my goodness! What about a MINK??? that is my menace...thought fox, weasel, raccoon...until I met him face to face doing his worst at 2 am one cold rainy night, watch him and helpless to do anything. He took both my blue barnvelders, the black barnvelder, both pure black auacaunas, both flower hen...

salt blocks out to the cows pens and chicken feed barrel filled, had 7 eggs out of my 8 hens day before yesterday and only 2 yesterday...they are all older hens that survived the mink attacks so guess that's pretty good. My hubbys pet duck has been keeping company with the one black americauna roo t...

no new calves in the past week....have 26 so far ...2 sets of live twins. Took one away from first timer...she was already starting to slim down after only 3 weeks, too much to expect from a young momma. Baby went to a friend who is starting a science farm for kids, teaching them about agriculture a...

forgot how to add photo....

21 eggs out of 42 hatched....lost 2 of the late hatches, one was dragging a long umbilical looking cord around...didn't expect that one to make it, another I don't know what, it was a weak one that I helped out before disposing of the unhatched....and sloshy sounding eggs. The rest are doing well, l...

well I found the culprit....never would have guessed this one. A large chocolate brown MINK!!!! Caught him killing in the small chicken hut I'd put my best in to keep them safe away from the holey old chicken house. Dug a hole under the corner of the run and was happily tackling one after the other,...

Three more dead hens....in the henhouse....no chewed heads or anything on these. I've sealed up all holes, I'm stumped. put out 2 live traps...caught my barn cats...SEVERAL times ...nothing unusual. If this keeps up I'LL be out of chickens in another week or so....grrrrr. Thinking about putting a ga...