Hello,
Sorry for your troubles. Chicken wire is next to useless for predator protection. You need to be using hardware cloth and you need to either make a skirt around it or dig a trench and bury the wire about 12 inches. I also put stones at the bottom of my trench.
I live up in Canada. We get +40 Degree Celsius in the summer and -30 degrees in the winter. This coop stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer with no electricity. Key is it is a dirt floor that is below the outside soil level. This provides cooling in the summer + heating in the...
I have a mini deep freezer that I store all my chicken feed in. It keeps the feed fresh and prevents all pests. I think the nutrients do decay if you store feed for a long time. If you have unmilled grain it would store better and then you would just have to mill it before you feed them.
I think we are mostly quiet to be honest with you. I think the folks from the US are more keen on guns though. Seems to be the solution to every problem. Guns are even the solution to too many guns. World has gone mad.
If everyone shot every piece of wildlife they saw there would not be very much left. If you cannot keep your chickens safe from predators without gunz a blazin you should not own chickens.
Again killing wildlife solves no problems. Kill a skunk, another one will move in. This line of thinking is outdated and ineffective. Humans are smarter than wildlife, adapt and build a proper coop. Learn to live with nature and you will have an easier time raising chickens.
All predators know where your coop is. It is not secret, they can smell it from miles away. My coop is visited daily by coons as I can see their foot prints. They cannot get in though. No need for me to kill/remove them. Just build a proper coop and you no longer have to worry about these...
I am always surprised when people are recommending that the only solution is to trap/remove/kill. This is never a solution as more predators move in to take their place. If you are losing chickens, this is a problem with your coop set up. Add hardware cloth and ensure your coop is predator...
We just used a 5 gallon bucket but we were just catching mice. Never had to deal with rats but I would assume something bigger/deeper as they can swim a bit. Mice just sink.
You might want to try and find any hidden nests. They do get creative. I found a nest in a wall cavity with a bunch of eggs. Have you ruled out having egg cannibals? Some of the chickens could be eating all the eggs. Some chickens even hide their eggs in a hidden nest buried in their bedding.
Just use ye old bucket trick. Get a big bucket with a handle. Put a paper towel cardboard centre around the handle. Smother with peanut butter. Fill bucket with liquid. Rat goes up to the handle part to eat the peanut butter, cardboard swivels, rat falls into water. We used to use that one...
Thanks! It was the first building project of my life! Learned lots of things. Most of it was scavenged material from the previous owner. Old windows, old siding, old shingles, old cinder blocks.
You can totally build a coop that keeps predator's out. I have a dirt floor coop. Did a concrete footing + cinder block walls. Wood structure on top of that. I have put a hardware cloth run around 3 sides and buried the wire about a foot. Lots of predators visit the coop but none have...
Mine stay in a covered run while I am at work. I free range them at the end of the day and on weekends. I have had 1 coopers hawk try to take a pullet once. I just kept the birds in for a couple of weeks until the hawks move on. I think once they make a kill they keep coming back until you...
I have 15 reds. All very docile. When I first got them as pullets from the hatchery they were a bit aggressive but I think the hatchery was not so nice to them. After a month or so they now follow me around everywhere. They do like pecking shoes, but I think they are just curious.
Don't use colloidal silver on anything that is a living creature. That is the definition of snake oil. No benefit and gets quite toxic at higher levels of exposure.
Only way to solve a rat problem is to figure out how they are getting into your coop and plugging the hole. Otherwise they will keep coming back. Make sure you close the chicken doors at night.