Back to chickens.

I pick up an assortment of new chicks this week.

We had ducks over the winter after the last batch of chickens were taken care of by a raccoon. Raccoons must be allergic to chickens, they don't seem to live long after eating them.

I need to move the chicken coop and rearrange things, we had a heavy wet snow that dropped trees on the pen and messed things up.

We have a flock of turkeys that show up every morning, I feed them leftover pig food (another story) our cat (yet another story) goes out and hangs with the turkeys.

The pig just showed up one day and decided it wanted to live here, it was an old scarred up sow, she was very friendly.

It took over an unused dog house and became one of the family. It would follow you around and help feed the chickens or just participate in anything you were doing. We didn't own it, although I did feed it, I didn't try to keep it here, it would wander away sometimes and then show back up a few days later.

One day it never came back, we were a bit sad, but it probably made a good meal for the cougar or bear that hang out around here. I haven't seen any wolf sign for a long time, so it probably wasn't a wolf.

The cat just showed up one day too, it's very friendly and keeps the area clear of rodents, including the chipmunks that terrorized the garden. We actually now harvest vegetables from the planters on the deck.

We can't let the cat in the house because it climbs on everything, plus we rescued a small bird a couple years ago and cat goes after it through the cage as soon as it gets through the door. The cat is a very efficient killing machine.

The cat liked to hang out with the pig, and the cat, pig and dogs would all help feed the chickens and clean the coop, it was an everyday ritual. They all got along as one happy family.

LOL @ the Green Acres action!

Just entered my order for a couple of Blue and Olive Eggers. I'll should be getting the entire rainbow of egg colors going forward. I was thinking about putting in some Quail this year, but I'm going to wait until next spring.

We did not used to have much animal activity at our home until we decided to get a coup and some birds. Suddenly there was a lot more animal activity, predators and prey alike. Once the birds were gone, so was the rest of the wildlife.

-FishDam

Just picked up 36 6 week old quail chicks.
Incubate 50 pheasant eggs on 4/1. Probably do more.
75 day old pheasant chicks will come in the mail 5/14.

8 week old pup got his first quail this am.


Fuuck' Dem Chickens.

Same here....

Is that Racoon sleeping?

WDFW - what ya' doing with all those birds? Just pup training or ???

Pup training.

The momma duck finally hatched all the little ones last night. Cute little things.

One of the roosters has taken to chasing our small dog. The rooster is very friendly otherwise, it may be relocated to the neighbor's new coop and enclosure.

The neighbor's coop burned down about two months ago, killed all their chickens. The heat lamp for the chicks got knocked over by a hen.

This will be a very elaborate enclosure, he calls it his Trump Wall, it will keep out all those unclean
heathen predators.

It's about 10' tall, solid metal for the first two feet, then 1x6 vertical wood with little to no spacing. He hasn't started on the actual coop yet

He's getting a pig (meat), goat, ducks (from us) chickens and maybe a cow.

We had chickens at my home growing up. The raccoons were smart; they would have one come up and grab the fence and reach through, making noises, and scaring the chickens to the back side. Meanwhile, the other raccoons we silently hiding on the back and would reach through, kill the chickens, rip them apart to get them through the fence.

I think having no ground level fence is a great idea to deal with raccoons.

I think giving away roosters to someone who lives more than 200 yards from you is also a great idea!

My neighbor has one, and 4 chickens...thankfully the damn thing is not a very loud crower, because he crows 24/7.

Fish on...

Todd

I haven't been able to give the rooster to the neighbor yet. Their coop hasn't been rebuilt from when it burned to the ground a few months ago.

But now my two roosters don't play well together, the Barred Rock kicks its but every time they see each other. I have to keep them separated at all times, this is a bit of a hassle every morning and night.

Both are very friendly, you can pick them up, but the weaker one loves to go after the ducks, cats, dogs and everything else it can try to bully, but when it counts he can't pull it off. Not unlike certain members here.

Now that the two roosters have matured the crowing is constant, this may require another adjustment to the flock.

Also, this batch of hens haven't become good egg producers yet. I only get a couple eggs a day at best, and they tend to be very small.

Last year with fewer hens we gathered 4 to 5 a day and they were large.

I'm giving credit to the extreme temperatures, the chickens don't do well when it's over 100, and it has been above that for days on end at times. Then only drops into the high 90s during a cool period. It will probably be over 105 again by the end of the week.

Temperatures plummeted into the 80s a couple of times this week, it was even cloudy yesterday, that's a huge improvement and I enjoyed the temps and no smoke yesterday. So did the chickens.

One thing I forgot.

We had this one 'hen' that started acting and looking a little different, it finally decided to reveal its gender identity yesterday. He, also decided he hates my wife and goes after her every time she goes out near them.

This one had always lacked personality and we never paid much attention to it until this last week or so when it's comb started to look different and it was a little bolder.

My wife quickly snatched it up and put it in a large portable dog kennel. It's now ready for some type of a relocation project today.

We had three roosters in this year's batch. At this time I think all three will be gone. The very friendly and polite one that's in charge of his girls crows constantly, the other two have anger management problems.

I got rid of two roosters yesterday, the mean one and the crower are gone. The one left is happy and much quieter.

He will go the neighbor when they have the enclosure ready.

Relocate roosters to a cook pot. It is literally their only viable use.

Fish on...

Todd

After a rough intro into coop life pecking order, our 'Olive Eggers' are growing up nicely and we should be getting our first green eggs in the next couple of weeks. I feel bad for those birds. They get the snot kicked outta em' by our older hens on the daily. I actually slapped a bully Rhode Island across the head the other day. Knock that crap off!

Our easter-egger hasn't laid any eggs that I'm aware of, so I have no idea what the color may be yet.