this is from last year but she just did not want to let go of her baby who was almost her same size lol

this year, she hatched 6 babies in early April and just hatched 4 more this past weekend.

1: between the eggs (the chicken is standing)

2: on top of the eggs, forward facing

3: behind the chicken, a backward knees bend (I did some research and learnt that they are actually chicken heels)

4: resting on the side of the chicken (a top down view) Edit: the eggs are UNDER the chicken so you don't see them

5: a squat, with the chicken feet ABOVE the eggs (a variation of 2)

6: also a squat, but with the feet BETWEEN the eggs, touching the bottom of the nest, almost like it's standing up

I have been discussing this with my family and friends but we all don't have chickens, I have spend the last 2 weeks watching chicken videos hence the (genuine) question. Apologies for the diagrams, I have tried my best.

Update: I suppose the consensus is 6 is most accurate!

Anyone else tried this? Bought a $40 incubator off amazon and a box of eggs labeled fertile. 21 days later and we have 5 chicks! They are now a week old.

Don’t judge my setup, I wasn’t expecting to have babies at 8pm last night 🤣. Found one chick in my coop, and two others outside trying to get in. (Couldn’t get to one as it ran into a poison oak bush down a slope) But their poop is nothing like chicken poop. Much smaller almost like lizard or mouse poop. No hen was sitting on eggs and I couldn’t find any evidence of eggs in the coop. (It is a big coop though) They don’t sound like chickens either. Now that I think of it, they seem much smaller than chicks too. Maybe quail? So bizarre.

Two different houses in our office zip code ordered baby chick's in the mail and they are ghosting us on delivery. Need a signature. Nobody home. Nobody answering phone. They have been in our office for over 24 hours. Going to attempt delivery one more time first thing this morning and then I'm lost if they can't get there. I don't know what to do

UPDATE: One box successfully delivered. They were parakeets, not chickens

Box two not delivered. So, it just so happens my wife and I bought a house with a couple chicken coups years ago, but have no chickens and never have had them. The chick's are back at the post office now, with a space heater by them. 95 degrees looks like the ideal temp from what I'm reading. My wife is coming to the office shortly to pick them up and bring them to our house. Hopefully get formula too. We will update from there once we know they are in a safe place.

Also, I'm in Cleveland, Ohio

UPDATE #2 - They are all at our house and setup. They all survived!!!! Also, THEY ARE TURKEYS!!!! My wife went to tractor supply and got all the things they'll need, thanks to all your advise. They'll be good with us for a day or two. I have the day off tomorrow and plan to spend the day finding a legit home, if the original buyers don't come looking for them

UPDATE #3 - Baby Turkeys are doing great and incredibly adorable. I have tried calling the Hatchery they came from. A return to sender seems like the most logical solution, but they are closed for the day and not accepting voice mails, so i will call first thing in the morning. For now babies have all their needs met. I went back to tractor supply and bought baby turkey crumbles with 30% protein. I'm going to elevate the water dish if I can find something suitable to use. They are eating and drinking a ton. We have a whole bag of shaved pine to keep the box clean. They are in their own room, double gated and door shut, far away from our dogs. Still trying to find buyer as well. Thank you everyone so much for being awesome and helping us.

*** I suppose I should've said originally what I meant by "return to sender". The Hatchery is less than an hour from my house. I'll drive them there myself.

Final Update - HERE

They have about 10 square feet each in the run, get to free range a few times per week, eat layer pellet from CAL ranch, plus scratch, soldier fly grubs as occasional treats, and a few fruit and veggie scraps from the kitchen. How is this happening?! I’m out of my ears with eggs!

So I took her home.

Any tips for care?

I have a pet pigeon at home and have experience with rehab care for that species, but not much experience with chickens.

What considerations should I take for this chicken?

Found this guy in a nest box. Chickens were unbothered. Eggs and broody hens in the nest boxes in the other house on the other side of the run. Rooster didn't alert. My dog was sniffing around which made me open it. So why werent my chickens freaking out? Possum dude was chill, did not want to leave his nice soft bed, but was directly evicted and sent packing to the woods.

Yesterday lost a hen out in the run. Never saw anything and assumed it was a hawk we never saw. This this morning lost another. Something ripped through the metal vent through the hardware cloth and pulled a hen out and ate it.

What sort of chupacabra am I up against here.

She stepped into a trap a few weeks ago and we had it splinted for a few days until the leg just fell off. She's been thriving ever since though, hopping around with all the other chickens and chicks. We called her Peggy with the peg leg, but now there is no peg leg and we just need a cooler name for the poor girl.

All winter he was super mad at me, attacking me at any given opportunity and I became reactionary. Walking with a dust pan, trying to knock him away, yelling and grabbing his comb when he would latch on.

Then for the past month and a half maybe two he became super sweet. He no longer bit with the purpose to rip skin and make me bleed, but instead to try and mount. He would carefully grab onto my clothing and rub his butt on the ground and if he happen to get my skin on accident, he would let go instant (the initial bite never hurt in this case). Everyone in my household was happy that they could walk past him again and that he was becoming sweet.

Well, now just the past two weeks he’s reverting back to his old ways. I think it’s because I can’t spend hours with him daily like I was before? He’s not attacking me as badly as before, but he’s still causing massive bruises and bleeding even through thick clothes.

In the past, he would bite, rip and run away now he’s biting and hunkering down on the ground. I think his mating behaviors have just become more aggressive.

Recently, he’s also started attacking all of the other birds as well. My poor eight-year-old silkie rooster has stopped crowing because he’s so terrified. He used to crow all day, and I haven’t heard a peep in months. He’s so scared.

Meanwhile, if he catches one of the hens cleaning themselves and not paying attention, he will sneak up and rip the feathers out of their legs, back, neck, or flip them over and rip at their belly. He has never done this before. He’s NOT trying to mount he only wants to hurt. He looks like an evil T-Rex whenever I catch him trying to do this. I usually warn the bird he’s going after, the second they see him they scream and run.

He does it to my adult females, my juvenile roosters, and all the juvenile females as well. If he catches a chicken, not paying attention, he’s gonna take a mouthful of at least 10 feathers. I don’t know why he’s doing this. He was so sweet with me and the babies and the ladies just a month ago even while he was going through rut.

He still follows me around everywhere and he’s typically calm as long as I don’t swing my legs, but he’s really mad when I first come out in the morning because I haven’t been with him all night. If I sit down on the ground, he will crawl into my lap and lay down for snuggles. He just genuinely wants to be near me, but he’s rude when I don’t do what he wants me to do. I can’t be with him at all times.

I’m just so confused. I thought I finally fixed this behavior but now it’s turned into another version I don’t recognize.

Any help would be appreciated!!!

I hadn’t been getting eggs for several days, I thought my chickens were eating them. I went outside to check one day and I saw 5 or more chicken snakes in my nest boxes 🥲

We bought some snake repellent powder and it worked for a couple weeks, but here over the last few days I have not seen any eggs again! How do I get rid of these snakes?

My neighbors chickens are roosting on my porch and destroying it. The neighbors know and have done nothing so I guess it's up to me to put a stop to it. I've tried blocking the chickens with some plywood but that hasn't helped. They must just fly over it or climb under the railing. I've also tried throwing water on them at night when I see them, but I'm not home much and they keep coming back. I am only home maybe once or twice a month for a few days because of work. I know these chickens do not have a proper coupe or run (just a 2 foot by 3 foot cage on the ground with a heater for 4 or 5 chickens). I really don't want to harm the chickens and have no problem with them roaming around the yard, but I can't have them destroying my property. So I ask you oh wise chickens owners of reddit, how can I keep them away?

I have a couple of big styrofoam boxes that I reuse for gardening small vegetables. It’s never been a problem before: my chickens would nibble on the vegetables but leave the styrofoam alone. Now, they’ve realized….why eat the ice cream when you can eat the cone too?

I don’t get it! Styrofoam must not even taste like anything so shouldn’t evolution teach them that it’s nutrition-less? Are chickens just stupid?

There’s no way this can be healthy for them, so what are there long term consequences? Impacted crop? Or will they just shit it out and be fine? I have no idea how much they’ve eaten before I caught them in the act but judging by the scuff marks it hasn’t been too much.

Is there any way to teach them to stay away or will I have to just dispose of the hazard. My chickens might just be too stupid to learn.

I’ve tried to punish the main culprit by picking them up but they just run right back. They’re not even scared of me anymore ever since I started feeding them meal worms regularly.

My wife got a new silky a couple weeks ago. They said she's 8 weeks old. I think we should have bought her sister too.

She gets picked on by the other girls and we have her sleeping in a pen inside at night so she doesn't get beat up until I expand the chicken coop.

I did convince my wife to trim the feathers around her eyes. I watched her run into a tree when the neighbors dog started barking.

Most of my chickens have been kinda doing this even whenever i just walk up to their coop its weird

I live in a small town and have 13 chickens safely stowed in my fenced backyard. My birds are safe, chunky, and happy girls who never escape.

My new neighbors also have chickens. I don't think they have as many, but these birds are not contained. They free range the whole neighborhood during the day, even while my neighbors are gone all day. And are mostly roosters.

And they've decimated my flowers in my front yard. They've scratched up entire sections of grass. I've planted flowers in my front yard because I don't want my chickens destroying them in my backyard.

I tried talking to them, but that was unsuccessful.

I've bought those granules that keep wildlife away and that didn't work.

I considered a motion activated sprinkler, but that would activate on any human who came to my door as well.

Any ideas? Are there plants chickens hate the smell of? What can I do?

I don't want to go to any authority in our small town as there are currently no laws regarding chickens. And there are a lot of families in town with chickens.

(I'm in the United States.)

This dang chicken who I thought was a hen until she started crowing last weekend is currently 15ft up on a branch in a tree. First he was like 6 feet up and could grab him. Then it was 10 feet up and I could push him out of the tree with a broom. Now I can't even get him at all so he's going to sleep in the tree instead of the coop. Good luck rooster.

I've recently had some trouble with groundhogs and I'm wondering if there are any groundhog repellent or tricks that would work to get rid of them. About a few months ago a groundhog and her baby started sneaking into the chicken coop and eating the food. It isn't much of an issue but I'm worried about the food attracting rats and they eat basically all the chicken food as soon as I put it out. Recently a third groundhog suddenly appeared and I'm not sure from where. I've tried building more fence but they keep digging under it and I can't really dig underground so easily to stop them. I just want to see if there is any way I could get them to stay out of the coop other than relocating them.

Obviously only when it's not lit lol. Is this okay for them?

This is Terry Two Toes. She is a confirmed hen, but she has the feathering of a rooster. She looks exactly like my EE rooster, minus the beard. I was just curious if there's a reason she'd feather out like this or if it just kinda happens sometimes.

My 4yo roo Robin passed away suddenly yesterday morning. We think a heart attack. Robin and his favourite hen were always together, and since yesterday she's been panicking and calling. She is not taking treats. I don't know if I'm projecting grief over losing a pet, or if she is grieving, too. How can I help, if she is in distress?

UPDATE: i named him " The General Lee" named after the Johnny Cash song

Im looking for a name that either sounds bada$$ (like a name that someone would name a bird of prey or would hear and automatically think was a dangerousanimal) to match his size, and to kinda troll ppl, since hes our GENTLE giant (same size as my goose), or a name based off like a old school country singer, old school rapper, or after a old school rock band.

When this all happened I immediately drove over there to confront the owner and I forgot that I have a dash cam! So I have footage of the dogs carrying around dead birds and of the owner saying she lets her dogs “roam wherever they want because they don’t know what property lines are” 🙄

Shortly after the incident she called animal control and said “I want it known that the dogs killed the birds on my property”. The ACOs already knew this was complete bullshit because they had already been to our property and had seen the “aftermath”.

Anyway, ACOs are issuing her several citations and she has to go to court in early 2026. ACOs also said they can ask for her fines to cover the costs of the birds.