Watch the birds for a bit--are they pecking each other and yanking feathers? Are they picking themselves? Do you find feathers on the ground, or none? If a bird does yank a feather, does it then eat it or spit it out? How is their skin--dry and itchy? Eating feathers can be a sign of a nutritional deficiency, usually protein. Overcrowding and boredom can lead to pecking and picking in general. Since you say the feathers are dull (dry skin can go along with this), you might try adding some oils to their diet--pet stores sell some feed supplement oils for birds that you can mix into their daily feed ration, or set some vitamin E capsules and mix a few capsules contents into the daily ration. Don't mix it into the feed barrel itself, you don't want it to spoil and go rancid. Try changing up their diet a bit-- offer some table scraps once in a while, live mealworms, fresh greens--chickens are omnivores, like you and I, and like you and I, don't thrive on just one type of food. Velvet ~:>

Good advice here so far! If you Google 'keeping chickens in the city' you'll find a ton of pages with great advice also. :) I live in suburban Los Angeles and have a backyard flock. I have a coop for them at night and they roam the backyard by day. I do not allow them to jump fences or wander the neighborhood, and I keep the coop strictly clean so there is never an odor problem. You may have to trim the girls' wings at first, when they are young and are all horsepower and wing and not heavy enough to stay grounded. I always trim a new flock members' wings, by the time they have grown out again the bird has learned where it lives and doesn't roam. Make your yard the most atttractive to the chickens with lots of fresh food, water and nice nests and they'll prefer to stay home. Banties are the worst for wanting to explore, and as a general rule I trim anyone's wings whom I catch flying like a freakin' eagle. :) Usually the problem is in your cities zoning laws, and the issues with chickens fall under the noise ordinances (roosters). Also they must be housed so many feet from houses, etc. Some cities will be OK with a small number of hens, say 3, but will say 'No' to roosters because of the crowing. In my opinion hens are just as noisy or noisier during the day with all the 'Hey, I laid an egg!' cackling, but roos tend to start crowing in the pre-dawn hours. One thing you can do is to make sure and handle your birds daily--get them super tame and used to being picked up and petted. The less you allow them to run wild, the more they'll want to stay home, and if they DO hop a fence, they will be MUCH easier to catch. This also helps if they become sick or injured--trying to catch and help a wild chicken is nearly impossible. A few things you can do is check the home owners association guidelines to see if they specifically mention chickens one way or another. Check the cities zoning laws and ask the people at city hall if the homeowners association laws take precedence over city laws--I doubt if they do, so it may be that if the city says yes and the association says no--tough luck for the association! If neither one says no to chickens, talk to your neighbors--get them to sign a petition saying that they wouldn't have a problem with a small number of hens (offering fresh eggs and letting their kids come over to see the chickens is a great help in this area!) You can also see if you can get your home certified as a backyard wildlife habitat (check out the National Wildlife Federation's site), that might help protect the chickens. If you can use the birds in an educational manner (take them to local elementary schools and give a talk) that might help protect them, too since the animals are being used in an educational manner. You can also try to get them certified as therapy animals (you and your birds get some training, then you take them around to hospitals and visit patients) through the Delta Society (I'm going to see about this for some of my chickens). http://www.deltasociety.org/ So even with draconian statues, there may be ways around it, some kind of umbrella of protection for your birds. Be as sweet as pie to your neighbors and make good friends with all of the households surrounding yours and you'll most likely have no trouble from them by keeping chickens. :) Good luck! Velvet ~:>

I had read that too. I don't know if you'd really be doing the little guy any favors by clipping him instead of "doing the deed". I used to clip the flight feathers of my pet Lovebird so that I could catch him more easily. With shortened flight feathers birds can still use their wings for gliding, but they can't get much loft. And as soon as I adopted my kitty, I stopped clipping Newton so that he'd have a fighting chance to get away should he ever be accidentally out when the cat is around. Seems to me that clipping a HOSP would simply prolong what is sure to be a death sentence anyway - he'd be cat food in pretty short order, I think.

crushedpurple, they will flop if they don’t get enough sun, too much water, or too much fertilizer. Also, they prefer a leaner soil I think. Chances are yours will stand up once they get adjusted to their new environment; if you just recently got them they were probably not getting the light they needed especially if they were growing indoors. From what I can tell your first 2 containers look to be a good size to start; they made need uppotting by the fall depending on growing conditions this summer. One piece of advice for storing, I have found that tipping over larger pots helps to prevent possible root rot when temps start to warm up and fluctuate in the late winter/early spring. This is particularly true for hostas anyway (I have lost some due to this reason); may not apply to grasses but it might not be a bad idea to try. Good luck!