Recent content by aislingchef

Hi Sorry I always seem to use this website only when I have a question! I have a dilemma with LouLou, a 6 week old chick with a beak that looks like horizontal scissors. He's eating porridge oats instead of the chick crumb that we offer him and he's a lot less feathered than his siblings. Being...

Hi Sorry I always seem to use this website only when I have a question! I have a dilemma with LouLou, a 6 week old chick with a beak that looks like horizontal scissors. He's eating porridge oats instead of the chick crumb that we offer him and he's a lot less feathered than his siblings. Being...

Update: we have continued to let the ducks out after 8am and put them home at around 7pm. Today there are 2 more missing. Sadly we have decided to keep them in their inner compound.

Thanks guys! There doesn't seem to be any stress and there's no attempt by anyone to force through the gap at all; they just sit with each others noses touching and don't move for ages so it's a bit heart wrenching! We decided to mate them four times a year so everyone stays healthy

Hiya guys I got a New Zealand buck and two does to raise for breeding for meat and I was keeping them in sheltered hutches outside, letting them out (individually) for exercise weather permitting. Last month we made a big barn for our ever increasing flock of chickens and, as the weather in the...

Thanks guys we have let the ducks out for the last few days but locked them in early and have had no further losses. We really don't want to cage them in. Yes people do use ferrets to chase rabbits out of warrens into nets set at the mouths of the holes. Apparently a hundred years or so ago in...

Thanks although I think we're in different worlds as we haven't got rabies or other people keeping anything other than sheep. Foxes are hunted here for fun as they are seen as a predator that can't be controlled easily. We let the ducks out today around 10am and chased them back in at 5pm. My...

Thanks Mary we have confined them. Why do you say not to relocate the captured predator? The mink would have to be disposed of as they are an invasive species that do a lot of damage to the wildlife here and it's illegal to harm pine martens but I thought it would be ok to let the fox out..

Well she said she set up a big run around her coop area where the ferret could live and his scent scared away the mink!

Hi all We have a nice fenced in area for our Muscovy family. There are 2 ducks, 1 drake and there were 9 2 month old ducklings but yesterday one vanished. Adjoining their fenced in area is a big run, also fenced, about 4 yards wide and 15 yards long that leads down to a good stream for them to...

So I've been listening to and studying my flock's language and I'm stumped on the roaring. We have two lovely boys who are the best of friends and sometimes one will stand up straight and make a roaring sound. Then the other will do it. They continue this way, getting more and more quiet as if...

Hi. Kunekune pigs are little ones from New Zealand. Since the first post we have decided against them in favour of British Saddlebacks which will apparently root up all the weeds on our overgrown land to make way for vegetables!

Thanks everyone for the warm introduction! I have never joined a group before so an unsure how to start new threads and stuff, so I'd like to have a crack at it here and start by asking if anyone knows what my roosters are saying when they "roar". I mean, we have two gorgeous boys who are great...

Hi! My husband Pete and I have been keeping chickens since February. We currently have two goodbuddy roosters; Johnny Cash the splash Brahma and Jack the Faverolles, along with a small flock of Brahmas, Faverolles, Jersey Giants and one single Buff Orpington as well as a few Silkies, a...