Forced Molting In Hens

“I’ve heard that large egg producers will cause their hens to molt early. How do they do this and what is their reasoning? Why would they want their hens to go out of production? Aren’t they in the business of selling eggs?” ~ David Horton, Marana, Arizona Thanks for the question David. You can induce…

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“Should I Be Worried If My Hens Don’t Molt?”

“I have a lovely flock of 21 hens and 3 roosters. 14 are standard sized and 10 are bantam. My standard sized flock are all good / very good layers. The bantams are fair layers. Its actually been pretty cold, its definitely been at least cool since October. Not ONE has gone through a molt…

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Is It Ok To Eat Fertile Chicken Eggs?

“Dear Duncan, Thanks you for what you do we have learned so much from you and Wendy. Like a lot of your readers we are new with chickens as well. We have a few young hens and a rooster who we think is the coolest. We are worried about the rooster in the hen house…

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Watching What Your Chickens Consume

I had another question I planned to answer this week but received an e-mail today that I think takes precedence over my original plan. You see, we received word of a chicken that had died because it had apparently eaten a CD that was hung for it’s entertainment as per advice from me. My first…

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Does High Temperature Affect Egg Production?

“Hello Wendy, I have 5 hens that are all under 2 years of age and I used to get 3 or 4 eggs a day. Just recently only 2 eggs are being laid. I live in Queensland Australia and the weather is definitely warming up some days are 30 degrees Celsius and over. Does the…

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Caring For Your Flock Over The Holidays

I don’t know about you but around here things get awfully busy at Christmas time. Despite our best efforts to keep things simple each year, it gets hectic with the gift making, the get togethers, the church productions, the cookie baking, etc. I bring this up because of a situation we experienced recently, in the…

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Butchering A Chicken For Christmas Dinner

“With the holidays coming, we were considering butchering a chicken for our Christmas meal. We’ve never done this before but I think you have to butcher before a certain age. Could you clarify this for me? Thank you for your informative newsletter” ~ Pat Rowland Hi Pat, this is a timely question that I would…

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The Color Of Chicken Eggs

“We are new at the Chicken raising and I find your newsletter very helpful every week. In June we received 3 hens and they started laying for us in September. We were getting approx 1 egg every other day, maybe 2 between the 3 hens, and then as your newsletter explained to me the days…

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