End of the week means it's time to hand out some grades for your flock's performance. 🎓 How to play: Give each of your birds a letter grade (A-F) in a few categories and tell us why: - Looks: Is she a total showstopper or rocking an awkward molt? - Brains: Does she outsmart the run, or walk into the same fence post daily? - Drama: Peaceful flock member or full-time chaos agent? - Egg production: Reliable layer or on permanent vacation? Example: "Peaches gets an A+ in Looks, a D in Brains (she's tried to go broody in the food dish twice), an F in Drama (she starts it daily), and an A in Eggs. Overall GPA: solidly mediocre, but we love her." No bird is too chaotic, too dumb, or too perfect for this report card. We want the honor roll students and the ones who are clearly repeating a grade. Drop your flock's report cards below — who's getting valedictorian and who's on academic probation?

Time to show off the real MVP of your chicken-keeping operation: the coop itself. 📸 Post a photo (or a few) of your setup and tell us: - What's the one feature you're most proud of? - What did you build or buy that turned out to be a total waste? - If you could redo one thing about your coop from scratch, what would it be? Example: "Built my coop out of an old shed and added a hinged roof for easy nesting box access — genuinely changed my life. The automatic pop door I splurged on, though? Jammed twice in the first month and I've been manually opening it ever since." Fancy converted sheds, budget pallet builds, hand-me-down coops with fifteen add-ons — we want to see it all. Nothing's too humble or too extra for this tour. Drop your photos below 👇and let's steal each other's best ideas (and laugh at the stuff that didn't work out). What's the best upgrade you've made to your coop?

Bringing home new chicks or hens is exciting — until your established flock decides the newcomers are not welcome. Here's how to introduce new birds without starting a war. What triggers conflict: - Skipping quarantine and introducing new birds cold, with no adjustment period - Tossing new birds straight into the coop with no escape routes - A size or age mismatch — young chicks with full-grown hens rarely ends well without protection - Limited space, food, or roosting spots forcing competition What's normal: - Some chasing, pecking, and posturing as the pecking order gets renegotiated - The newcomers hanging back, eating last, and roosting lower for the first week or two - A few days of tension before things settle into a new normal What's NOT normal — step in: - Repeated attacks that draw blood or leave a bird cornered with no way out - A new bird refusing to eat, hiding constantly, or getting ganged up on by the whole flock - No improvement in the dynamic after 2+ weeks How to do it right: quarantine new birds for 1-2 weeks to check for illness, use a "see but don't touch" setup (a wire divider or adjacent pen) for a few more days, then supervise the first free introduction — ideally in neutral territory with multiple food/water stations so no one has to compete. Add extra roost space too. How does everyone handle bringing new birds into an established flock? Any integration horror stories — or wins? >>> I have two separate coops with attached runs (one is my OG set-up, and the one we replaced it with once we realized chicken math beat us lol), so we use the old one to assimilate new chicks/pullets into the existing flock. We just integrated our 3rd Gen girls into "gen pop" with great success. I think the OG girls are thinking, "Oh great...THIS AGAIN?" They seem to have a "whatever" attitude about the whole thing. The 2nd Gen girls are the ones giving us a little bit of pushback. I think the lowest hen in the pecking order, Frenchie Mohawkian, sees this as an opportunity for advancement, and she is chasing the "babies" (some of them are bigger than her), and she's trying to climb the social ladder. Sable Brown-Barnes is doing the same, just to a lesser extent. They chase the new girls away from whatever they want for themselves (or just don't want the young girls to have). But they aren't being overly aggressive or hurting them, so I'm letting things play out. I got a funny video of Minerva McGoneggall (I think she may one day take over the world) challenging our head hen, Dottie Dotcom. Dottie doesn't seem to care until Minerva tries to bite at Dottie's comb (it's just so big, red, and floppy!) They chest bump each other, ruffle their hackles, and Dottie shows Minerva she's still the boss.

Let's play a classic with a coop twist. Time to see who in this group is a convincing liar. How to play: Post three "facts" about your flock or your chicken-keeping life — two true, one totally made up — and let everyone guess which one's the lie in the comments. Reveal the answer after a bit and see who got fooled. Fictional example: 1. My rooster once chased off a hawk mid-air. 2. I have a hen who only lays eggs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 3. I built an entire second coop just for my flock's "problem child." (The lie: #2 — no hen's calendar is that reliable, though I wish mine was.) Doesn't matter if your truths are wild or your lie is obvious — half the fun is watching people talk themselves into believing the craziest one is real. Bonus points if your actual truths are weirder than your lie. Drop your three below and let's see who can out-lie the group. Which one do you think is the lie? Last time we played this game, @Beverly Raby won by correctly guessing which one of my outlandish tales was a lie! Well played, Beverly!

Welcome to the community where it’s all about chickens and all about connecting with other chicken tenders like yourself. Let’s keep this simple. Share your story that includes the following: - Where you’re from - How many chickens you have - How many years you’ve had backyard chickens And of course, add any other info. Members, be sure to like and comment on each others posts. Also, create a new comment for yours, don’t thread your comment below someone else’s. Let’s go!