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Category: Chickens

Cochin Pullets at 16 weeks

Cochin Pullets at 16 weeks

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Below are the latest picture of our five bantam Cochins.  The pullets turned 16 weeks on Monday.   The kids have managed to name them all, even though my husband explicitly told them not to: Penguin, Lady Cluck, Daisy, Harly-quin, and Greasy Chicken.  My daughter wants to change Greasy Chicken to Bockachelli, but my son is standing his ground with Greasy Chicken because of her odd looking feathers.  In general, they are very gentle, outgoing, pretty quiet (unless they see me…

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Cochins at 4 weeks

Cochins at 4 weeks

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The chicks are growing very quickly.  I still only can tell that there are two cockerels for sure due to their very slow feathering and slightly larger and pinker combs.  Statistically there should be more males.  There are two others that just this week got a tiny bit of pink in their combs, but the combs are still mostly yellow.  We have 13 chicks, and I doubt we could be so lucky as to get 11 pullets. Even though they…

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Expensive Eggs

Expensive Eggs

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Raising a few chickens in the city sure isn’t about saving money.  The organic eggs our chickens gave us cost A LOT!  Since June of last year when they started laying, we had approximately 950 eggs or about 80 dozen.   After looking back at all our expenses, it worked out to about $2.83 a dozen.  It is still cheaper than organic eggs in the stores around here, but I also invested a lot of my time, hard work, and love…

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Cochin Chick Gender- Development Pictures

Cochin Chick Gender- Development Pictures

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Summer 2010, we ordered bantam cochins, Pekins as they are called in the U.K, and they aren’t sold sorted by gender at day old because of their tiny size.   We had 13 straight run chicks.    I have read around BYC that most of the time gender in bantam cochins is pretty easy to determine between 4 and 6 weeks and that the males feather in much slower than the females on the back, tails, and wing bows especially.  I…

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Chickens in the News

Chickens in the News

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I always enjoy seeing media articles about city chickens, especially from sources that usually have nothing to do with chickens.  Some of them are pleasant stories about living with backyard chickens, but a lot of times they are about disputes between chicken owners and their neighbors or city officials. Here are a few I have collected and hyperlinked.  Keep checking back.  I am always updating and adding to this post. Man of the House: As with all poultry, just follow…

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What is wrong with backyard chickens
The Darkside of Backyard Chickens

The Darkside of Backyard Chickens

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Although I absolutely adore having backyard chickens, living with chickens isn’t for everyone.  The magazine articles that promote chickens as a cool new green trend typically don’t mention the downsides that come with owning an urban flock.   I had a friend seriously considering getting baby chicks back in January 2010 when she saw how much benefit and pleasure we got from our hens.  When I shared my flock experiences with her, I tried not to candy coat it.  Below…

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1918 Vintage Poster Promoting Backyard Chickens

1918 Vintage Poster Promoting Backyard Chickens

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Keeping a Victory Garden and having home produced eggs are really old traditions, and not some new fad.  Here is an old patriotic propaganda / wartime advertisement from 1918.  Apparently, Uncle Sam expected everyone to all have backyard flocks of hens and raise chickens.  If we still followed Uncle Sam’s recommendation, my family should have 8 chickens! To see more patriotic propaganda, war garden, victory garden, women’s land army, and more vintage posters from the early 1900’s , here is…

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Maintaining A Garden with Chickens

Maintaining A Garden with Chickens

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I have to admit that it was NOT easy at first gardening with chickens in small yard, but it is definitely doable.  My garden has changed a lot of over the last year having had chickens, however, most areas of my garden have never looked better.  Despite the hassles, I now will ALWAYS have a few chickens in my garden to help me.  The benefits far outweigh the problems.  If you are willing to take a few extra steps to…

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Backyard Birds and Biosecurity

Backyard Birds and Biosecurity

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What Is Biosecurity? Biosecurity is what you do to reduce the likelihood of an infectious disease being carried into your backyard and to your chickens by people, animals, equipment, or vehicles. Good biosecurity helps keep infectious disease from spreading to your chickens and causing illness or death.  I am not an expert on avian diseases, but just like with plant diseases, practicing prevention and sanitation is important and far easier than trying to cure a disease.  I agree the following…

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Top Ten Chicken Questions

Top Ten Chicken Questions

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As an urban chicken keeper, I get a lot of questions.  Here are the ones I answer most frequently:1) How long do chickens live? I know a lady with a 15 year old hen.  Most sources say 5 to 8 years. 2) Don’t you need a rooster for them to lay eggs? No.  Think about it…does a human female need a male around to release an egg each month? Ummm, no!  Same with chickens. 3) Do they wake up the…

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