thankyou Richard, i will agree to disagree as three of my hens had their rings removed two weeks ago with no problems now.

on that note the big bad wolf olpoll will leave the forum

GOOD BYE

whoops the posts been removed because of myself and lucys disagreement
sad that....despite the sniping at each other there was a lot of interesting and helpful coments.

Have just come back from poo picking only to discover one of my battys bleeding from her tailfeathers.So out i go with the flour and the purple spray and now my poor little girl(always a little flighty)looks like a refugee from "blue peter"Purple and slightly gluey and has definately gone...

ive a broody call duck at the moment and i love her... she has her own coop and ive built her a small run round it to keep the other ducks out she is sitting on seven eggs and i only see her every morning at the same time she comes out has some food a wash in her own little pool then she makes as mu...

on a more serious note how about some branches like i have in my pen, my girls love them

One thing I am enjoying at the moment is putting different things into the chicken run and watching how they react to it. So I have tried putting in a couple of bundles of weeds from the garden and some dried leaves. Is there anything that isn't safe to put in with them? What do you put in for thei...

redd_angel55 wrote:Wow Andrew, the run looks fantastic!
Do you live far from Aylesbury?

LOL....... the other end of the country redd !

i just use normal builders sand i think any sand would do the job the best thing with sand is it doesn't turn to mud when it gets wet it also drys out fast (ive been using it for 12 months now with no problems) here's some pics of my 20 foot chicken run with its new 10 foot extension for my call duc...

my run is 20ft x 10ft originally i put a tone of sand down over the earth then every two weeks i give it a rake over and remove about a wheelbarrow load which goes in the compost i then top it up with a barrow or two of fresh sand the hens love it its one giant dust bath to them, i also never get a ...

i use sand and wouldn't use any thing else my run is also covered so the ground stays dry.

so sorry she never made it wendy

i had two hens that came to me with leg mites (left on wet ground and with out perches the problem i think)
i use a mix of paraffin and chainsaw blade oil, i just mix it in a jam jar and dip there feet in it,
it took about 4 goes but theres a vast improvement

kate egg wrote:Ah so sweet, except where he tried to eat his poo

ah! LOL....had to give the bath a good clean before Mrs olpoll comes home
he's now asleep drying off under his heat lamp (what a life)

in little duck having his first bath now one week old......

just leave her the chanses are that when she stops laying for a rest that when she starts back up the eggs will be fine. i have ten hens last summer i was only getting four eggs a day all of wich were soft and getting eaten, on sunday i got ten eggs from ten hens all of them had good thick shells ap...