We set traps at night when the chickens are on the roost, and deactivate them before the chickens get off the roost. Our cat won’t eat chocolate and we keep her on the enclosed porch when we have traps set to keep her safe. We use marshmallows, peanut butter, tuna, etc in traps. Our dogs...
We have never seen a mountain lion or bobcat on any of the cameras. We have cameras everywhere. We have only seen a big white dog that belongs to a guy up the road and a couple possums and coons, which my husband has trapped and killed a ton of next to the creek. He shot a possum the past two...
That is possible, but the varmint is large and probably wants a large meal. lol It consumed over 50% of the roosters it killed that were on tie cords. Those are the only carcasses we have found, likely because it couldnt get the birds free from the tie cords to take them with it. The losses...
They must have a paternal side. I know our Game roosters do. The Gamecocks will tidbit and help feed the chicks. However, when in the bachelor group the papa Sussex rooster contributed to the deaths of several juveniles and 2 hens. Literally within the span of 2 days the bachelor group...
Funny thing happened. One of the Sussex roosters we put on tie cord as bait has taken a tiny orphaned baby chicken to raise. The chick even slept under him last night my husband said. The chick’s mother and siblings were apparently the most recent victims to whatever is taking birds at night...
Yeah it sure can get bad, especially now that the varmint is taking roosters off barrels at the low end of our property. My husband has the extra nuisance Sussex roosters on the barrels now as bait and is setting steel leg traps tonight. Whatever the varmint is, it isnt going into the live...
On the Silver Gingers, I’m thinking about using only the little pullet from the project (green legged), mated to one of the Silver Leghorn males. To avoid creating more silver/gold males to cull through. This would create more silver duckwing females that are yellow legged, some of which would...
I lost one of the Buff cockerels free ranging. Amongst a few others that are venturing too far from home. We are thinking the neighbor’s Pyrenees has acquired a taste for chicken. 😩
It depends on the line and whether they are a production vs heritage/exhibition line. Our production Leghorns start laying by 16-20 weeks, while I am told that the exhibition lines I purchased stock from may not lay until closer to 24-28 weeks.
Without bringing in fresh blood from a line where the hens go broody, I would suspect the broody gene is there in the line, just not strong, and that hen just so happened to get a better dose of the gene responsible for broodiness than the others. Genetics is like the lottery, and you never...