New member from Honolulu, Hawaii

Aloha everyone,

My name is Gabe, I help to run the student farm program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/sustainag/soft/). 

A student donated 6 Production Red hens along with his homemade coop to us over a year ago, and that was our first foray into the poultry world. Originally they were in the coop pretty much 24/7 as we had to keep them at our old farm site on the other side of the island where we could only go once per week at best. We jumped through all the hoops to get them on campus, and about 7 months ago they moved to their new free range/pastured home on right on campus where we can check on them every day.

They are getting older now, maybe 4-5 years, and their egg production is greatly slowing down. I've always been interested in them but only recently have really been reading up and learning tons on poultry care since we started to build them a new coop and add more birds. We now have 5 Barred Plymouth Rocks and 5 Ideal 236 White Leghorns pullets getting ready to add to our flock, also thinking about picking up some Ameraucana and more Production Reds in a few weeks. 

We also have 2 male and 2 female Muscovy ducks residing with our hens. The males were all alone up until last week, they were constantly harassing and even mounting the chickens, we were planning on getting some more ducklings soon and we still will, but also picked up two mature females to give the drakes some alleviation. It's looking like everyone is much happier now. 

Based on what I've been reading, here in Hawaii we do not face many of the challenges typical on the mainland: no cold weather and no notable predators, and it's really providing for a lot more flexibility in our system I am finding. 

I look forward to learning a lot more and contributing.

Thanks all for the warm welcome.

 

To address a question...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wishing4Wings 

Hadn't thought about the lack of predators on the islands. Only mongoose and domestic cats to worry about!  Any hawks? 

There is a native hawk, but it is quite rare/endangered and as I understand, now only found on the Big Island (a few hundred miles away). Mongoose and cats are present, the cats could be a problem if they get into our run, but so far we have had no problems with them, I suppose it is secure enough to keep them out. Mongoose are a problem for young birds and for egg snatching, but they don't mess with full grown birds. I have heard they can be a problem if the birds are locked up in a coop since they don't have much of an escape option, but free range they are fine.