Neighbor hates my chickens- will she do them harm?

[microchick]

I've been sitting here this morning skimming this thread over a cup of coffee and can well sympathize with the OP.

I think everyone has at one time or another the neighbor from H***. You cannot deal with them with any sort of logic. Mine was before I met my husband and was an obnoxious little toad of a man who set out for revenge when I did not respond to his 'romantic' overtures. YUCK! Even the police, who had a long standing record of dealing with calls about this individual recognized what was happening and what I had to deal with from him.

When I bought the property and moved in I plainly told him, "No, I will not go out with you but I'll make this deal with you. You be a good neighbor to me and I'll be a good neighbor to you. If you are not a good neighbor to me, I will be your worst nightmare."

5 years later after a particularly nasty incident where I caught him teasing my dogs and made my umpteenth call to the authorities about it, the police told him, one more call from me concerning his harassment and they would arrest him. I reminded him at that time about what I had told him when I had first moved in and he admitted that I had kept my word about being his worse nightmare.

It sounds like you have the same attitude as I did at that time and are refusing to be a victim to your nightmare neighbor. Good for you.

I am also a Lyme survivor and victim and I can tell you this. You do not need this stress on you. Stress and Lyme do not mix. It will cause your symptoms to escalate and make you feel sicker than you can ever imagine. My health care provider has told me to avoid stress. Easier said than done I know .

Chronic Lyme? Yep, I'm a believer. I've done the Doxy thing and I know what you are talking about when you say you have sun sensitivity. I couldn't even go near a window and my skin got so sensitive that it would blister and peel off. It's nasty stuff. Are you doing any homeopathic treatments like detoxing with lemon and water or doing Epsom salt baths to draw the toxins out of your body? I really feel for you and what you are going through with the Lyme. It's been 6 years since my first round with it. You do not need the stress your neighbor is putting you through. You have enough to fight just trying to get your Lyme into remission.

I hope things settle down for you and you can live if not in peace, at least with a cease fire with this individual. It kinda looks as if your life depends on it at this point.

 

[SixChickFlock]

I set up my first hive a few weeks ago... So I'm new at this, too. I located my hive, and coop, with the welfare of my food producing beings and my neighborhood always in mind. That I have a yard which is considerably larger than most around here will never be a reason to go overboard. I have maintained a nice balance with my surroundings.

I trust you are doing the same!

 

[SixChickFlock]

Ditto and ditto and ditto!

where'd you order your hive from?

Have you seen the new Zealand self draining beehive? Or maybe it's Australian..... so cool

The Flow Hive.
Australian.
Looks pretty cool but it's new and thusly... untested.
And quite expensive.

If it's getting good reviews after a season or two of use, I'd pick up a set of Flow Hive frames.

 

[TheSitcomGirls]

I always used to spend Mother’s Day cooking for my mom. My mother loved “lobstah”. So that’s what we had. Lobster with Asparagus and Béarnaise sauce made with eggs from my chickens. Red Lobster-like recipe rolls with garlic, sharp cheddar cheese and butter, Greek salad and homemade apple pie for dessert. Food was always very important when I was growing up. My mother struggled with her weight her whole life because food was comfort. If you feel sad, eat a bag of chips. Did a great job on something? Corn on the cob!
The last Mother’s Day meal I cooked for my mom was late because on Mother’s Day she had been in the hospital, but she couldn’t miss her “lobstah” so of course a week later I still made her special meal. This last Mother’s Day meal that I spent with her we actually talked about our relationship with food.
She wanted me to know about the cute black kitten she had gotten when she was in the first grade. Then one day, just less than two weeks after she had gotten it, the kitten was run over by a car. She remembered sobbing and running home to her mom. Her mom had told her, “Don’t cry let’s go get some ice cream.” And so began a lifetime of comforting herself with food and teaching me to do the same. She was telling me this because finally in the last year of her life she had begun to get control of her eating. She wanted me to do the same. I sit here now and I remember just how she looked sitting at my dining room table for the last time. And I struggle not to bury my sorrow in a bowl of pasta with cheese.
Father’s Day followed my mother’s death so closely. When Father’s Day arrived I didn’t have time to go shopping for my dad, I had been planning my mom’s funeral. I tried to make his favorite dishes like she did, but my German Potato Salad would have worked better as the mortar in a brick wall it was so sticky. The raspberry-apricot pie we got right. DH makes a mean crust. But as we packed up the food to bring to my dad’s house I was still so sad. No present. I had nothing. I went outside for the dogs to potty one last time and I heard a kitten meowing. A very LOUD kitten. I followed the sound to my front yard and hidden just over our stone wall in the two foot high grass that was our now-foreclosed neighbor’s front lawn, was the source of the meow.
“Kitty, kitty.” I called and he ran to me. I scooped up the tiny, black kitten as fast as I could and flew into the house. His belly was VERY bloated, full of worms. I didn’t know if he belonged to anyone, but if he did they were not taking care of him. And then I knew. This kitten was from my mom. He was meant to be a present for my dad for Father’s Day. I was keeping him.
I brought him to my dad’s house along with the food. We tried to have a good time, but who could? The only thing we could laugh at was the kitten. My dad named him Blackjack, because that kitten had just gotten VERY lucky today. And we added the MeMew to his name, Blackjack MeMew. Because he never stopped crying for food! I think it was the worms.
We did not leave little Blackjack with my dad that day. Instead we took both of them home with us. He was so sad and just couldn’t be in that house without her, not yet. So he stayed with us for a few weeks. During that time the only thing we could laugh about was that silly kitten. And when it came time and my dad was ready to go back home, he left the kitten with us. My dad had decided that he would spend half his time staying with us and talking care of his kitten and the other half at his home. I don’t think he wanted that kitten to trash his house! Blackjack MeMew is still a stinker. But every time I look at him, no matter what he has just broken, I always smile and remember my mom. Our little Blackjack MeMew, sent to us from heaven, so we wouldn’t drown our sadness in chocolate cake!

 

[LadyBehir]

Subscribing.

 

[TheSitcomGirls]

Oh man, the rats are back. And all of you who told me, when there is one, there is 50, you were right. I think I was in a state of denial.

While I am confident by the smell that we entombed multiple rats in the eaves of the building, one managed to get back into the coop a few nights ago. At least I think it was one? Luckily, no one was harmed but I found the new hole had been chewed up near the top of the boarded up wooden door. Then I scoured the yard for holes. I found a hole right underneath the mulberry bush where my chickens hang out to hide from predators! Then I followed the slightly squishy raised ground to the hole that is located where the giant woodpile used to be. I blocked that hole up and threw a smoke bomb down the other. But I really felt that we had not found their rat lair.

Underneath the old wood pile is a giant cornucopia of broken up foundation. What better place to build a rat lair then nestled underneath? I wanted the cement and all of the rat hiding places GONE. And I wanted to do it myself. I have a medium-size tractor with a five foot bucket that holds about a half a yard of material when completely full. And it’s only slightly tippy. I have almost learned my limits on what I should and should not attempt to pick up or push over! There’s nothing like getting thrown out of your seat and hitting the hard ground after the tractor lands back on all four wheels! That one was scary. But not quite as scary as when I tried to push over a six inch round live spruce tree. I didn’t realize that the tree wouldn’t just give up and I would end up doing a wheelie. I’ll never forget the noise the tractor makes when the front wheels come back down hard and then bounce up off of the ground!

DH said, “Please don’t try to do it yourself.” Based on my past history, I reluctantly agreed. So yesterday a guy came to remove the fence that used to surround the wood pile and tear up all the old cement. I waited and waited for news of the lair! But no lair. However, they did find a tunnel! It led from right underneath the wooden door, under the old foundation and then towards the direction of my stone driveway and rock garden. Where were those rats hiding?

I got some old pictures of our property from the woman who lived here with her daughters and husband back in the 60’s all the way through the 80’s. She’s quite old now and lives in a retirement community. About three years ago she came over my house with Crazy Lady. She wanted to meet us to tell us how beautiful the house and property were now. To tell us that we had made it look like she always wanted it to. I gave her several jars of my pickles and she gave me a big hug. And as I think back now I remember Crazy Lady standing behind the old woman when I hugged her, Crazy Lady's eyes narrowed into a jealous glare. After all this was her old friend, not mine. And anything that belongs to her no one else can touch.

My turnaround is now bordered by the foundation of this old barn that fell down in the 1960’s. In the first picture you can see the cinderblocks peeking out underneath the rubble. That was the milk house that eventually became my chicken coop! Behind and to the right out in the pasture somewhere would be Crazy Lady’s house one day.



After the whole barn came down they left the milk house and put a new roof on it. And they put up a HUGE garage made out of sheet metal in the pasture. That’s the white shape in this picture. That had to be torn down to put up Crazy Lady’s house.



So it appears there have been piles of wood surrounding my coop for fifty years maybe? Oh boy, the rats must have been here forever!

The barn had two stories and a ramp to get up to the second one made from old school material, giant rocks and debris. I know because I tried and failed to dig it up with my tractor! Back in the 80’s they added a garden to the side of the ramp. This man, the old lady’s husband, was very sick in this picture. So sick in fact that they had just had to sell off the two lots on either side of my house because he could no longer work. They needed the money to live. I know this picture was after the lots were sold because you can see on the right Crazy Lady’s telephone pole.



The previous owner loved what DH and I had done with her husband's garden. I was so happy she did.


This garden is special and so when I followed the direction the rat tunnel seemed to be going in, I was so sad to see what I found. Dozens of rat holes...The rats are living in the rock garden! When did that happen? I imagine they have a lair under the old ramp. Only now at least the ancient tunnel to the milk house has been cut off!





I love it when a great mystery has been solved! But, I can’t dismantle the rock garden. I just can’t. It’s filled with plants from my dad’s garden and memories decades old.

So I have ordered rat proof feeders, the kind where the chickens have to stand on the lever and make it open. NOT the Grandpa kind that appears to resemble a guillotine. I wasn’t comfortable with those. And I have hired an exterminator. We had a small heated discussion about rat poison-one where he told me that my dogs wouldn’t get “that sick” from eating dead rats. That's not going to work for me. So he reluctantly agreed to just trap them without poison bait. And I figure between the trapping, the two hours DH and I spent nailing more hardware cloth up on the inside of the coop last night and the new rat-proof feeders maybe, just maybe, we can get a 50 year old rat family to pick up and go. I think it’s time!

 

[Laurie59]

I am blessed ,my barnyard classics where hatched and brooded by my neighbor. My Yard rooster gleefully runs both yards and a small flock of feral hens he shares with neighbors rooster. By the way I have a chicken / dog friendly Pit you can borrow to scare this hateful woman LOL!>

 

[Laurie59]

I keep peppermint around chicken run and under nest and coop straw.
Plus I seem to be hen mother to a chicken hit squad!.
If it enters the run and causes a commotion the ladies mob and destroy.

 

[TheBeardie]

I can see you aren't very fond of the chicken eating rats, who is!, and I know how hard it is to catch little furry animals. I got a hamster for my birthday once and she was pregnant, witch I didn't know, and had five babies. The little ones had gotten out and some how I got them all back within the next few days now I have a fancy mouse now and she's much cuter than the rats you have

Anyways, wish me luck I'm going in to lock down soon on my latest chicken hatch.

Good luck with your rat problem

 

[yolksonus]

Your rock wall and garden is beautiful!!!!