Recent content by blinkk

  1. blinkk

    Getting discouraged - I don't think I want chickens anymore

    That bolded sentence is where I want to be. I've been trying, but I feel like I'm constantly fighting and uphill battle. Every week there's another tragedy. What I need to do is take a week off and work on the chicken coop with no interruption. But we're moving by the end of the year, so the...
  2. blinkk

    Getting discouraged - I don't think I want chickens anymore

    Hey guys, I'm still new-ish to raising chickens. I've had my flock for about 2 years and I love these little hens. They're so friendly and lovely. In the last two months, we've taken hits from a fox, lost all our baby chicks to possums, and had a nightmare with raccoons. We saw one raccoon...
  3. blinkk

    Fox in the hen house - how do foxes slip in, anyway?

    AH! That's scary. I have snakes all over the place but my chickens don't seem to mind them. Similar story to yours - they just walked around the coop and made normal chicken noises while the snake sunbathed next to them. My honey is good at picking up non-poisonous snakes (he's owned quite a...
  4. blinkk

    Fox in the hen house - how do foxes slip in, anyway?

    oh my god this is amazing. In a bad way... Raccoons are the worst when it comes to chickens. They're so intelligent and so strong. I have respect for them because they thrive well in almost any area, but when I'm a chicken owner, my respect for them stops there! Nature built them to be...
  5. blinkk

    Fox in the hen house - how do foxes slip in, anyway?

    We sat and thought about it (and got help from the Internet) and found out gray foxes are incredible climbers. I've lived in NY for 20 years and recently moved to the west coast so I've never really seen or dealt with a gray fox. They have special claws that grip vertical surfaces well and...
  6. blinkk

    Review by '' on item 'Australorp'

    I got two of these birds last May and they are darlings. They've quickly grown to 3rd and 4th position in our flock (behind the two rhode island reds). The only regret I have is that I wish I hand-tamed them more as chicks. They are wonderful, but they can be skittish and standoff-ish when it...
    • blinkk
    • Review rating
  7. blinkk

    Fox in the hen house - how do foxes slip in, anyway?

    60 years?! Congrats. That's quite the accomplishment. Although at the same time, I'm sorry for your loss. That sounds devastating. Screen might have been a bad choice of words. It's the hard stuff, like hogwire, but the squares are closer together. If I whacked it with a baseball bat...
  8. blinkk

    Fox in the hen house - how do foxes slip in, anyway?

    Last night (4am, actually) we woke up to horrible chicken screams. We ran to the chicken coop in our undies, brandishing nothing but a flashlight, an iron rod and a large fishing net to find a gray fox in our coop, jumping around as if he'd lived there all his life. He was up in the rafters...
  9. blinkk

    This chicken thinks she's very sexy...

    She's two years old. She's the RIR in all these pictures. You can see where the other chickens have their feathers pulled out because of her. Our flock looked so beautiful before she started pecking their feathers out.
  10. blinkk

    Dumbest Things People Have Said About Your Chickens/Eggs/Meat

    I don't know, but I should try it! lol
  11. blinkk

    Dumbest Things People Have Said About Your Chickens/Eggs/Meat

    I gave a friend a dozen eggs, all washed in an egg carton. He looked inside and thanked me, saying how much he loved farm fresh eggs and how excited he was to eat them. Then he took out all the white eggs. I asked what he was doing and he said, "Oh, the white ones aren't natural." "What do...
  12. blinkk

    This chicken thinks she's very sexy...

    Our queen has been doing something very inappropriate. Our hens started loosing feathers in odd places. On the back of their heads, the joint of their wings and on their backs. I treated them for mites, pests, and other bugs but nothing worked. The weird thing was, our queen seemed immune...
  13. blinkk

    Very good unknown preadator

    Can you link me to the pics of your coop? We have a structure in mind, but we're flexible too. If we see a good idea at the last minute, we've got no problem adding new ideas in. :D Show us your coop before we make a run to the lumber yard!
  14. blinkk

    Very good unknown preadator

    Thanks for the info. I'll check into this as well. I don't quite have 100$ to drop at the moment, but it's a good thing to put money aside for.
  15. blinkk

    Very good unknown preadator

    Yes it's a pen. It's a combination of hogwire and wood and we lock the door at night with multiple carabiners. I'm afraid the hogwire isn't good enough and something is getting through. We just have no idea where the predator is getting in, and it's frustrating. I've checked everywhere and...
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