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Category: Chickens

Removing Burmuda Grass for a New Vegetable Bed [With a Little Help From the Chickens]

Removing Burmuda Grass for a New Vegetable Bed [With a Little Help From the Chickens]

I want to start a new vegetable bed adjacent to our driveway, one of the few areas left in our yard with half day sun. The full sun areas were all taken up by my obsession with fruit trees long ago. The area I plan to use has been sitting pretty much empty ever since I let our Baba raspberry bed die out, back during Southern California’s last major drought. I know I have mentioned it before, but I really…

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Training the Puppy: How to Be Nice to the Cat, Chickens, and the Tortoise

Training the Puppy: How to Be Nice to the Cat, Chickens, and the Tortoise

When we started talking last year about getting a new dog, the safety of the hens and the tortoise were one of my bigger concerns with bringing a new dog into our household. An untrained and unsupervised dog can easily hurt or even kill chickens or tortoises out of fun or boredum. When we first got baby chicks 11 years ago, I learned everything I could about training a dog to be trustworthy with chickens. But back then, we started…

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Life is better with a dog

Life is better with a dog

Our beloved Golden Retriever passed away in 2018, and for a long time I was unable to move past the loss of my canine friend. I had not realized until he was gone what a big part of my life he was. For more than 12 years, he had been my constant shadow around the house and yard and on twice daily walks. He helped to keep me motivated to be active. He was wicked smart, loving, friendly with everyone…

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Hot Chicks get Sponge Baths

Hot Chicks get Sponge Baths

Don’t blame me for the title. That’s what my teenagers told me to title it. But that IS what this post is about.  We are in the middle of a heat wave, just like most of the country, but I honestly don’t remember my town ever hitting 107, or maybe it was 110 depending on the source reporting.  My car said it was 114 in Signal Hill at 2:30. We haven’t acclimated yet to summer temps since just last week…

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Darn Bumper Crop of Berries

Darn Bumper Crop of Berries

Most of my flowers and perennials these days are generally low water users, at least once they became established, however the same is not true of all my edible plants. When the state officials announced the need for even deeper cuts to our water use early this year, I decided what my most prized or hard to replace plants were, mainly the fruit trees and camellias, and then I diverted the limited grey water from our front load washer machine…

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Urban Wildlife Sighting…Osprey in the backyard?!

Urban Wildlife Sighting…Osprey in the backyard?!

Yup. On Monday, I was in the back yard doing some pruning, when I heard an angry crow.  Looking up to the power in the next door neighbors’ yard, I noticed a huge hawk trying to enjoy its lunch in peace with a crow incessantly harassing it.  In addition to bugs, chickens, and plants, I am also a nerd about birds.  I ran inside and grabbed my old camera.  When I uploaded the photo on the computer to see it…

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How To Distinguish Male Chicks From Female Chicks in 1 week old Cochins

How To Distinguish Male Chicks From Female Chicks in 1 week old Cochins

Can bantam chicks be sexed as day old and if so how do I sort baby pullet chicks from cockerels? Telling the gender of my bantam chicks was a problem for me when I first started keeping chickens, but through a bit of research and careful observation over many clutches of chicks, I learned how to tell the genders with better accuracy. I share what features I compare in the bantam baby chicks in this post.

How to Gently Get A Brooding Hen to Stop Setting

How to Gently Get A Brooding Hen to Stop Setting

Bantam Cochins are one of the best breeds of chickens for small urban backyards, mainly because they are generally quiet, curious, very friendly, easy to handle, kids like their small size and docile nature, they don’t fly like other bantams do, and they do well with confinement to a small coop or tractor.  Some people are reticent to keep them as part of their flock because they are also known for going broody often, just like Silkies.  Well, the part…

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Meet Our Newest Pullet: The Little Black Silkie Chick, All Grown Up

Meet Our Newest Pullet: The Little Black Silkie Chick, All Grown Up

My favorite backyard chicken breed is bantam Cochin, but Silkie might be a close second.  Penguin along with three other hens at my friend’s house, went broody all at once last summer.  We drove out to Wes’s Pets and Feed in El Monte where she bought some fertile silkies eggs for the ladies to sit on.  Almost all of them hatched.  After that, Penguin came back to live with us, and we let her bring two little chicks with her….

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Update on the Science Project about the Old Wives Tales of Chick Sexing

Update on the Science Project about the Old Wives Tales of Chick Sexing

I just realized I never posted an update to my daughter’s science experiment on the accuracy of old wives tales of chick sexing. With Spring baby chick season just around the corner, I thought other backyard chicken keepers might be interested in the results of her odd little science project. We split the shipment of assorted bantam cochin chicks up between two broody hens so everyone would have plenty of room to grow, with one mama hen at my house…

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