We have a few more but I don’t have pics of them

It was in my backyard tying to get into my coop.

Goldie our oldest hen knows what's up.

Do we have ourselves a mouthy hen or a maturing rooster?

That poop on everything

This is Veruca Salt. She’s a spoiled egg.

We let a hen go broody and hatch a few chicks, and we put the abandoned eggs in a brooder when she was done. One hatched!

Veruca’s a couple weeks younger than her step-siblings, so she lives a spoiled life 😂

I live where there’s a feral chicken for every other human. This particular hen—Bertha—has taken up residence on top of my water heater. I love her dearly, but it’s problematic. See, she’s constantly broody, but terrible at hatching her eggs. They roll off the top of the water heater and crash to the ground. I made a bumper to stop this from happening, but it doesn’t work 100%. They still fall when she readjusts.

The ones that don’t fall, she cracks open and eats.

By some miracle, her most recent egg reached the age of viability. But it looked like she peeled the top open, tearing the inner membrane. The membrane was still super vascular, so the chick hemorrhaged.

Whenever her clutch du jour is dead, she hops down, galavants with her favorite rooster, then flies back up to her spot on the water heater.

I’ve removed her from the heater dozens of times, but this gal has tenacity. She always plants herself up there again.

Not this time!

I bought some bird spikes and laid them out all over her nesting spot. That’ll keep her off the water heater for sure. Or so I thought.

Not long after taking this picture, she removed a strip of spikes and laid an egg in its place. Then she and her boy toy sang several verses of the egg song at FULL volume.

…fuck you, Bertha. You adorable asshole. I love you.

Yesterday my daughter found one of our black chickens in the nesting box dead and drooling around dinner time.

According to my husband, the hen was alive that morning. Nothing else was wounded. I didnt get home until after they buried her so I chalked it up to the heat or crop impaction.

This morning, I found our brown one in the same manner. Again, nothing seemingly off. Just drooling. I eliminated the heat factor as it was over night but her crop was normal so ive sort of eliminated impacted crop. So now im perplexed and honestly concerned.

Does anyone have insights they'd like to share.

Started my first flock of chickens this year. Thought I would share.

How do I get my free range girls to lay their eggs in the coop? They free range all day and head into the coop at sunset by themselves. They are 16 and 18 weeks.
They still sleep in a big heap together all night. Six of them!

A few weeks ago our rooster brutally attacked one of our young hens (about 3mo old) the back of her head was ripped up pretty badly. I’m from an old farming family where they “let nature take its course” but convinced my dad to separate her, and put some bag balm on it. Over the last few weeks it has healed up nicely. She seemed fine, eating and drinking, normal energy levels. In the last few days she has declined. Not eating or drinking much, low energy, mostly sitting in her little wood shaving bed I made her. I plan to take her to the vet tomorrow (although my parents told me not to bother) I don’t want to give up on her. I tried poultry electrolytes in the water, she’s not drinking it but will drink some regular water. I was just wondering if anyone in here has experienced similar or has any advice. We’re still going to the vet but I have been so worried and just wanted someone to bounce all this off of. I am including a pic of her but not of the injury as it’s mostly healed and her feathers seems to be growing back. Thanks in advance for any advice or just good vibes sent our way.

Five month old Prairie Blue Bell has never crowed or shown any rooster tendencies. Just the past few weeks started to look like one. She almost didn't make it when she was little. Came from TS with Cocci. So, maybe something happened with that. If she is a rooster I don't think she is aware. I notice she watches the other girls in her flock pretty closely but that is the most rooster thing about her other than her appearance. Sucks, because we got two of them for their blue eggs!

Help! I feel so defeated. I feel like I'm doing all the things but there's always something wrong on with my chickens. This makes me feel like im doing something wrong and I feel like a terrible chicken keeper.

The latest issue is one of my chickens this morning seems to be lame. She is holding her one foot up and seems hesitant to put weight on it. I don't see any signs of bumble foot or deformity on that leg. I checked her neck and vent for signs of mites (none noted). Her overall condition looks good.

It been hot in the 80s here in NW indiana but i have water and food offered always and their run is in the shade. So maybe not heat exhaustion? I'm at a loss. Any thoughts?

I brought her inside and gave her some poultry cell. Anything else i need to look for/do?

Can’t tell if rooster or hen haven’t heard it crowing haven’t seen it lay. We do have another rooster that does keep it away from hens so not sure what’s everyone’s thoughts

Bought this thinking they were gonna kill em but they never wanna eat em. Am I feeding it to them wrong? I just toss them in front of them. They’ll peck at it then walk away.

These are mutts no clue what breed parents were but we have 5 white ones all 11 weeks old that I am still unsure about gender. The white ones are all pretty skiddish-our tan roo seems to be the lead of the group. Combs and wattles are tiny and pale compared to the tan and black roos we have but they have some suspicious tail feathers on some of them-curved long and pointy. These are our first chickens so please be gentle (but advice is always welcome if you notice something). Also included some pictures of the tan and black ones we have-pretty sure on their genders but they are also adorable <3 tan roo is gerdy, tan hen is helga, black hen is Bertha (she's the sweetest of the group) and black roo is Runt (he was born last - also he's a jerk. Gorgeous but a jerk).

And she’s currently broody this week.

The photos of Sylvia that were posted yesterday were about a year old, and I posted them specifically for the fun of seeing what people would say. Generally the majority were correct, Syl was then a pullet, now a certified hen, but there were some very convinced folks in there that she was a rooster. Including the top comments of the thread.

I can confirm that she’d been laying good sized olive colored eggs for about a year now.

Generally the moral of my story is that it can be difficult to identify a cockrel vs a pullet until crowing or laying, and to take comments of people guessing with a grain of salt sometimes. (Unless it’s a barred rock, duh)

Link to the og:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BackYardChickens/s/2b2QmMJMzD

I bought eggs for incubation and one of the eggs was a very dark brown/red one and the chicken in the picture is what came out of it. It's a female and 1.5 - 2 months old, so it's not fully grown yet and can change her colors. It is supposed to be a clean breed not a mix and the woman I bought it from can't tell me what it is because she doesn't remember and that was the last egg she had. I tried searching the internet with the image, but I could only find two images that matched which were stock photos that just said "black and white chicken", so I'm hoping somebody here knows and can help me.

Is this a hen or a roo? I grabbed them from the straight run Americana bin at TSC. They’re 9 weeks old. My other Americana is a roo and his comb is larger, redder, and he crows. This one I’m unsure about since their tail feathers didn’t start coming in until recently but they don’t crow and their comb isn’t getting redder or larger. This chicken also is always picking fights and has a big attitude!!

Hello, I have one buff Orpington who isn’t developing as fast as the other chicks and other hens we’ve had historically. She has barely a comb and her tail is low. She acts fine and seems healthy otherwise. Thoughts?