That is wonderful! The first crow is like the first egg...I was so proud of my...hen. hahaha...We did find new chickens. Actually our wedding photographer ( we are getting married in May)...her sister raises chickens, so she is bring out 5 new hens for us. 3 RIR's, 1 red sexlink, and 1 blk sexlink. I hope my rooster girl likes them. ;)
Masacre at the farm..only one survivor.
Congrats to you mc. and those chicks are almost like a wedding gift.
We are right at 5 months from our 48th aniversary. once in a while we look back and laugh at some of our times together. and gee if only we knew then what we know now. LOL It is wonderfull having friends that help out when you have a problem.
Yes, congrats mcamden! I missed your last post somehow. And how exciting to have a wedding coming up. You know DG requires that you post wedding photos, right? :)
I'm glad you're doing better. I'm getting over the loss of twenty five 6 week old hens. Particularly eight that were our close buds. It was terrible. Over the course of three days all but one were killed. Some missing in action, others dead, some with missing heads, and the worst part was the blood and eyeball thing: ( UGH! The children and I cried for hours. I'm still not quite right yet, I keep seeing everyone sunbathing or flying onto our shoulders. It really sucks when this happens. I know I let them down and that really hurts the most.
Patchouli, that sounds like a horrific experience. Do you know what got them? Did it get in their coop? I know about the guilt thing, but don't beat yourself up too badly.
A cat must have been the culprit the night Hewey was attacked. He's been showing up every night/morning since then. The roosters are spooked and don't sleep on the front porch any more (the two that are left). They've been coming to the back to be close to the fenced in dogs and, unfortunately, Hewey flew into the dog yard and was killed. Dewey and Louie are choosing roosting spots too close to the dogs causing them to bark all night. I'm making flyers to post at the vet's office and around the local area looking for a good home for them. I sure hate to give them up - I'm so attached to them - but it's not fair for them to not have a protected place to sleep. Besides, I'm about to have a nervous breakdown!
mcamden, do you and your fiance' come from farming families? Is farming your profession or just lucky enough to live on a farm?
Patchouli78, As a veteran back yard chicken raiser I can tell everyone that poultry (nationwide) are not safe from raccoons, feral cats, dogs, weasels, skunks, mink, fox, coyotes & hawks ..... if they are allowed to free range. I am pretty certain my chickens are in danger from possible mink attacks (nothing else is much of a threat). I do not have the finances nor the time to defend them from mink. We have seen 1 in 5 years so they are few and far between. We have neighbor's dogs and cats to worry about and the rest of the predators on the list have been reduced to manageable numbers to where they are not an issue. Our neighbors have learned and are cooperating for the most part by keeping their dogs on their property. Everyone here understands the law and most take advantage of it to eliminate every threat to their stock animals and poultry.
A chicken run needs fencing that is impassible for mink and raccoons. Raccoons can climb any fence. Real predators require that fencing be on top and underneath or be buried underneath. This kind of 6 sided fenced structure costs big bucks .... or else reduces the size of the chicken run to a small area. If the fencing is not used underneath and above ...... you're gonna lose chickens. This is not a matter of IF.... just when or how long your chickens live till predators kill them. Killing animals is not my 1st choice but I do not have bad feelings about trapping a skunk or feral cat or shooting a roaming dog out in the pastures. These are understandable measures given the stock and income at risk and the fact that we all have a right to protect stock from trespassing animals that pose a threat to our livelihoods. Kelly
Kelly...you ought to add 'badger' to your list! Ha...since that is what killed all but one of ours. We do have our new hens (came just last night). In fact...Ryan called this afternoon very excited that he found two very small eggs in one of the nesting boxes! They were out all day...so at least we know they are smart enough to go back into the coop to lay their eggs. We may have them with our steak for dinner...and I am sure they will be very tasty.
Fleursdefouqeut, Neither of us come from farming families really...I suppose I do have an uncle who farms and raises pigs, chickens, cows, and crops. But we both grew up in town. I never liked it in town, even when I was little I always wanted to go stay with my uncle since he had the best job ever! Ryan said one day (several years ago) that he could never live on a farm. He didnt understand what all the hype was that I was making. After I moved away (two hours) onto my first farm he started coming out every weekend. We were 'just friends' then after two years of that I went on a date and everything changed. I loved him since I was 13 (or so I thought at that age). He wanted me to move back and I said that I would for the right commitment...but I wouldnt cross the border. I moved from the farthest part of Nebraska...to Iowa. He agreed and we found this farm. 20 acres...about 8 miles from the border. We work in Omaha, NE and live out here. Its a nice compromise.
Patchouli78, I am so sorry for your loss. I know how it feels, and its something I dont EVER want to experience again! I know that racoons like to bite the heads off, and leave bits and pieces all over. Fox, badger, and I think mink will all take the animal somewhere else to leave. Cat, dog, or coon would be my guess...IF it were a cat or racoon you could try setting the live traps. That is not what killed our chickens...but we caught one of them each night! Neighbor plays a radio every night on an AM station. HIs setup is horrible, and anything could just walk right in and eat 100+ birds if they wanted...but since he installed the radio he has not lost one single chicken (in a year). Maybe worth a shot. We are installing a radio in our coop that will be on 24/7 as an additional precaution. (even though the coop IS Ft.Knox). Good luck! Let us know if you catch it!
Melissa
Thanks I appreciate the kind words: ) We strongly suspect barn cats. Maybe mother teaching her young to hunt also. I'm definately going to give the radio thing a try. Also going to put in a light. I have some three week old chickens inside and am waiting for some more from ideal. (I hope my straight runs turn up with hens too). I got the current three week olds from My Pet Chicken and it looks like they may have missexed a silkie. But it's so hard to tell, anyways hope to have better fortunes with this go round. Naughty cats!
Patchouli78, When I mention 31 cats (+ 30 skunks) on my place have been dispatched from just 4 traps set within 50 ft of each other...... I'll be standing by my fire-pit and pointing at the traps.... my friends and relatives just sorta gasp in disbelief. "What do you do with them" is always their big question? I say ....well ...we have a dumpster but they aren't to nice to look at once they're dead ..... so I usually bury them. They're asking the big question ....holding out hope that I'm gonna say I take some ugly, shaggy, mean, mangy feral cat to the Humane Society so they can try to get it tame down enough to give away to someone else (in a year or two). They haven't had a close-up view of these cats. These are bad cats full of every possible disease they can get. We endure the same battle every year here. But before long we're gonna be cat & skunk proofed ...... meaning I won't have to be concerned about them to the point of trapping and killing. It is terribly unpleasant but necessary or all the little guinea keets and chicks would be go missing 1 or 2 or 3 at a time. On an annual basis that would be like losing a combined 75 ......1 day to 5 week old poultry babies to feral cats that no one owns or cares about. The decision is easy.
Well, I guess Louie was carried off by a coyote this morning. In broad daylight! About 8:00 am this morning we heard the sound of a rooster in distress and all we saw was one coyote running away (no rooster in his mouth). I'm sure there were others and one had Louie. Poor Dewey.....he was freaked out of course. He headed away from the area and over a hill into the woods. That's probably the end of him, too.
fleursdefaouquet! That is SO sad! Have you seen Dewey since this happened? Our rooster was so terrified after all his fellow chickens were killed that we had to keep him in the garage each night until we made the coop safe for him, and got him to calm down. i hope things get better.
I agree with kelly. We do what we have to do. Our humane society wont even take farrel cats. They put them down right away. We made a desision that if we catch a nice cat we let it go, if it comes back again...then we take the other route. The mean ferrel cats dont get that chance. There are so many of them, and it just causes far too much trouble for everyone. They are dangerous in many cases, and they do like to eat chickens!
mcamden, has your traumatized rooster recovered? Do the new chickens make him feel more secure?
No, we haven't seen Dewey since he topped the hill. It's possible he's over there scratching in the woods and eating bugs but DH didn't see him. I almost hope something got him right away. It's 102 degrees and he doesn't have water. He would spend a very long and frightening night alone - then probably get eaten later. I'd rather he didn't suffer any more than necessary.
I couldn't believe it when we saw the coyote running away. We know we have them but rarely see one. And certainly not that close to the house. I guess the smell of the chickens drew every predator within a mile's radius right to them. We feel terrible about it and realize we do not need to have chickens. That's the end of that!
fleursdefouquet, If its just coyotes that are a problem then a fence will keep them seperated from your poultry. However, there must be many other predators in your area capable of killing chickens besides coyotes. If I had to contend with raccoons I'd have never chosen to have chickens. The idea of a six sided Ft. Knox chicken run leaves too little exposure for myself to the chickens to be happy. I think one can get away without the overhead and under the fence digging precautions by having a remote chicken door that opens and closes on cue. That can provide folks with significant more interaction with their chickens in the daytime. Realize that raccoons & weasels will sometimes attack in the daytime. Most of the other predators wait till you're inside for the evening. A timer on a door is a means of eliminating the need for a Ft. Knox type environment but it does require significant monitoring by the chicken owner.
I'm with you on that one Photographer. I love animals, that's why I decided to live in the country, but if I have to protect my family or my pets I will. These chickens are something that I have wanted to have for a long time. It really brings me back to childhood, as I spent large amounts of time in our family's chicken pen. I refuse to give up and WILL have my chickens. The predators that kill my chickens will have to look for food elswhere or risk what I might do to take care of my own. They are my investment, my pets, and my hobby not the neighbourhood cats.
Our rooster 'crowing hen' as we still call him, has recovered. He bonded with the neighbors rooster until our hens came on Thursday. The biggest hen picked a fight with him and won. He stays clear of her, but he picked one of the smaller RIR and we find those two off in the grass...or sleeping in the horses stall together! its like a young couple in love. We got our first two tiny eggs yesterday, and we actually watched as our black sexlink layed one at noon today! That was pretty cool. We are going to let our rooster fertilize eggs from the blk sexlink..then put them under a sitting hen to hatch.
We are watching the pregnant horse on the camera now hoping she has this foal tonight! Everyone say a prayer!
Automatic door eh? yeah...I was joking with that idea and Ryan decided between his father and himself that they could make one that went off of a photocell, and opened in the morning, and closed in the evening. Since we got the badger we have not seen or caught anything else...including cats, and racoons.
Good news....maybe.....Dewey did show up this afternoon. He's the lone rooster now. We have coyotes, raccoons, opposums, cats, skunks, fox, hawks, snakes, dogs....what else????? I hope he survives until we can find him another home.
We got the 4 roosters from a family that only has free range chickens. They usually roost in their barn or sometimes in trees. The differnce is....they have a barn/we don't and they have several unfenced dogs (including a Bermese Mtn Dog) that protect their chickens/our dogs are fenced and kill chickens. I'm not sure we could have kept them even if we already had the coop. They would be turned out during the day and the coyotes snatched Louie this morning well after daylight. Keep your fingers crossed that Dewey lasts long enough to be adopted.
mcamden, that's such a sweet story about your rooster and his new love. He must be very protective of her too. Can you get a photo of them together?
Well he let her go off long enough to lay an egg. She is in the coop now working on that. I will take a picture of the two of them together as soon as I can. The heat and humidity are so horrible today that we are going to the lake to try to keep cool. Take care of Dewey. We have coyote here also, but we dont have problems with them during the day. Maybe try the radio idea until you find him a new home. I cant say for certain that it will work, but its worth a shot.
How do you strap a radio to a rooster??? LOL! Since he's not fenced in, he moves around during the day. The location where the coyote got Louie was their favorite spot. I'm surprised he returned there but he did. He's there now - hunkered down in the leaves in a nice shady spot. Any time he wishes to get up and scratch there are plenty of bugs and worms available. They had a routine of making the rounds 2 or 3 times a day to eat bugs in my flower beds - traveling the full length of our house, crossing the concrete driveway and eating bugs around DH's shop - then working their way back.
Enjoy your day at the lake. Stay cool!
Ummm, walkie talkie? Small headset? MP3 player!!!
I'm really sorry to learn of the losses.
Hee hee. I'll ask him which he prefers, Badseed. LOL!
Well...could you maybe just put a few things for him to roost on around the yard? I guess it would depend on how far away he likes to hang out as far as the radio idea. I suppose an easier idea would be to dress him up like a badger...I head that coyoye wont even mess with those things! Let us know how it works out.
Odd Iowa weather...102 degrees...then suddenly (out of no where) this horrible thunder storm with 70mph winds! We were outside working when we saw it...it was here before I could get my mare in her stall and the chickens in the coop! One of our hens refused to come out from under the car so I climbed under it in the mud and grabbed her! At least everyone is safe and no one drowned in all this rain!
Wow - that's a storm! Glad everyone made it safely.
The door opening at dawn and shutting at night is a nice thought
But the fox who almost wiped me out a few years ago had no time table
I was out feeding the birds at 10 am and he ran within 10 feet of me and tried to grab a chicken
I had the throw the feed bucket at him to get rid of him
other times he came at noon
I should say they....
there was a male and a female
both ended up at the taxidermists.....cause thats when I learned to shoot a gun
There ya go! Make trophies out of 'em!
LOL! I'm sorry, but that was just funny ; )
I'm thinking a coat
That is great! I would have made something of the badger we got...but he had a few too many holes in him. :( Se la vi~
Badger lace, now that's novel. Not sure how it would go on the wedding dress though.
crestedchick, A good fence and a chicken friendly dog inside the fence will keep foxes out. I don't have a dog because there is a huge task involved in making a dog into a chicken protector. I've heard of big dogs like Great Pyrenese costing close to $50/mo in feed and vet bills. May as well just not have a fence and feed the foxes a chicken or so every other day if you're gonna spend that kind of money to keep them safe.
I have a 130 chocolate lab. He eats anything and everything offered or left in the garbage) He loves my chickens. Too much. When I first started letting the chickens out to free range, I would come in the house and find one or two sitting in the living room like they were waiting for someone to turn on the TV and serve snacks. I'd take them back out and later there would be chickens in my living room again. I couldn't figure it out until I heard some of angry squalking from the back room. There was Moosie, a fat chicken gently in his mouth. He was carefully backing through the doggy door so he wouldn't have to use the chicken to open the flap.
The chicken did not appreciate the courtesy, but then it's hard to please a chicken being transported against it's will.
So much for chickens and retrievers. We just got him broken of the chicken fetching thing and now I find the occasional duck, turtle, baby turkey or chipmonk waiting for that TV to come on. (He learned his lesson with the neighbours cat after one try)
Unfortunately, this gentle giant has a "live and let live policy" That goes for foxes, coons and burgulars. And skunks. Moosie just loves skunks.
Thankfully I have Jenny the beagle-basset. She's old and cranky and barks at ANYTHING that doesn't belong in her yard...as long as she's awake.
We've been lucky though, in all these years, we've only lost a few birds. 2 young ones to coons, a duck and two chickens to a fox and a young turkey poult to the neighborhood Bald Eagle. The coons moved on, the fox is sleeping in a deep hole and the Eagle still flies.(it's worth it for just getting to see that magnificent bird hunt. He took the poult while we were all sitting in the back yard,not 10 feet away)
I think any dog is a deterant to a point, even if all they do is walk around the yard and pee on the fences. Besides. Everybody should have a dog!
Re: that first sentence...I have a 130 POUND lab. Not 13O labs. I just wanted to clarify that, people think I'm wierd enough on this forum without thinking that I have 130 dogs running around.....
I have two Papillon/Chihuahua dogs, they might be small (14lb and 8lb), they are the best watch dogs. They will bark and chase anything that comes near our house. They love the poultry, right now they are laying in the tall grass with guineas and turkeys. I totally trust them around the chickens and others. I think any dog as long as it is protective makes a good guard dog and my lil Owen and Wilson (I know I named Owen then I had to name the second on Wilson) are great at helping me watch over them!
I'm still freaking out that your lab weighs 130 pounds! LOL Our chocolate female is around 50 pounds and an ox! I cannot imagine 130 pounds of her goofiness. LOL She really has little to do with the chickens but she is on a run.
Our sheltie/blue healer mix is a different story. She likes to herd the chickens. Unfortunately she does not stop at the pen! She makes them go all the way in the coop. If they don't get in fast enough, she has been known to pick them up and carry them but that is a habit we are trying to break. She also jerks the rope to open their coop to let them out if we are not fast enough. What a nutty dog!
i had the same thing happen to me this summer, whatever it was it took two of my 2 month old guinea babies and dug 2 different holesinto the completely enclosed yard in one night. we set live traps (4) with and without bait, and steel traps (4) all with no results... one baited live trap was even picked clean but not tripped! all we can figure is it must have been a fox with a litter.
earlier in the summer we had 2 sitting field guineas go missing and in one instance whatever it was took all the eggs!!! that nest had 20-30 eggs in it!
so now we have placed concrete blocks around the yard and i have to herd the rooster, hen and 3 month old guineas into the house and shut them in every night... its worked so far.
now its war with the varmits, i know they must eat too but they wont be eating my babies!
