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I hope you're right, because that's how I see it too. They've been around for thousands (millions?) of years and official laying feed has only been around a few decades. If grain, bugs, fruit, veggies, weeds, and meat of some kind that they find was so bad for them I don't think they would have...

Many years ago we had a new flock of RIR chickens. They were growing and thriving, and one of them was a rooster. He became so handsome and happy, since he had all the girls to himself. But then we noticed a little banty rooster hanging around. He would come over from the neighbors house next...

Did the coyote get away with it?

How's the coyote doing?

The first thing I would do is put all your feed in metal trash cans with tight fitting lids. Mice cannot get into those. A barn cat would be a good idea too.

A bear that has no fear of people can be very dangerous. An injured bear especially so. Watch out. It's probably finding easy food somewhere in the neighborhood.

We had a bear in our neighborhood for a while. He would tear into sheds and chicken houses, rip fences apart, etc. looking for food. We called the game and fish dept and 2 game wardens showed up with a bear trap. It's a big metal cylinder on a trailer, with a sliding door at one end. They tossed...

Our experience is that cats will kill baby chickens, but once they are feathered out will leave them alone. One day I saw our big black tom cat with a mouse he had just caught. He was enjoying a bit of mouse torture, and then a chicken ran up and snatched his mouse away from him and ran off with...

When I was a kid we had a patio area made of big flat flag stones. Some red harvester ants (not the same as fire ants) moved in under one of the stones, set up a happy colony, and would attack anybody who tried to sit around on the patio. I wiped them out by dribbling a basketball on their rock...

Old Moose, the retired pack goat, was the only goat in the pen. He and the chickens got along just fine.

What I like about Amdro, besides its effectiveness, is that the ants take it all down into their hole and it disappears. I've seen other ant poison that stayed around on the ground outside, and it would kill birds. Including chickens. It was called diazonon. Very bad stuff.

We have little black ants and bigger red harvester ants. The red ants are aggressive and will sting you. I ignore the little black ants but I don't want the red ants. I've used a product called Amdro on the red ants and it's pretty effective. You sprinkle some around the entrance to their colony...

What an interesting thread. Keep us posted!

Going alllll the way back to the original post... I think shooting THAT fox will solve THAT problem. Of course there will be more foxes, forever, but that fox won't kill any more chickens. We have a lot of coyotes around and over the years we've lost some chickens to them. But I blast them if I...

It sounds like what we are feeding them is so bad for them that they should all be obese and die young. But they aren't, and they don't. They are beautiful, healthy, don't pick on each other, and they lay lots of eggs. Maybe the free ranging overcomes the bad food. When I butchered the last old...

After reading a lot of threads here about feeding chickens I'm becoming more convinced that a bit of free ranging and feeding them scraps and kitchen/garden waste is very important for them. I think they have built in instincts for finding what they need, and avoiding what's bad for them. But if...

Another thing chickens love to eat is scorpions. Some of our neighbors have a lot of trouble with scorpions, but we don't.

If they are on their own, no hen to take care of them, I think they do, for a while. Put it in one corner of the box so they can get under it if they are cold, and get away from it if not. I like the kind that has a clip on thing, and a reflector. A "shop light" with a 60 watt bulb. Not an LED...

Chick starter, plenty of clean water, an incandescent light to keep them warm, a big cardboard box or something to keep them in, and to keep cats out. They are very vulnerable to cats.

Lamb's quarter. Dandelions. Spinach, lettuce, kale, etc from the garden when it's bolted and doesn't taste good any more. Watermelon rind. All they can eat is the red stuff, but they love it just like we do. The white grub worms you see in your garden sometimes. Over-ripe tomatoes and squash...