2018 Newbie Chat!

[Anna Ranieri]

Raccoons. We have them around all the time too. We live in the city but have a parkway behind our house so a loooong narrowish stretch of woods and a river. Great place for city raccoons to hang out. Not to mention foxes, coyotes, and various raptors. My only hope is they've never seen a chicken before and will opt for the easier pickin's of garbage carts, lol.
I've done everything I can to predator proof the coop and run as we all have, even so far as to padlock the door and the egg door every night. The other day my daughter, who lives a half mile away, saw a fox walking down the street right in front of her house. I can only hope what I've done is enough. The thought of losing one of my sweet chickens is, well, unthinkable.

We've had a lot of warnings going out in our country about people feeding foxes, and one of our major tv channels put a video showing that b'cos people feed them they are no longer frightened of us, and think nothing of attacking humans now, we have children and babies being targeted by foxes, there has been many casualties and a few deaths caused by fox attacks (especially by fox cubs) which over ten years ago was unheard of. Recently a family of four were attacked in their home by a fox cub who had no fear of them at all. People here campaigned for years to have fox hunting banned (which I agree with) but now people have gone too far the other way by taming the foxes and we are facing the consequences of that. I put concrete slabs around the bottom of the run b'cos a close neighbour had a fox dig under and got all his chickens. The same guy had a fox walk across his garden right in front of him as he sat sunning himself in his garden, it wasn't one bit bothered by the guy. Thankfully he hadn't got his chickens free ranging and were locked in their run at that time.

 

[Anna Ranieri]

Roo is a lot better now although not 100% she's very nearly there thank goodness. Jellybean had a bad day yesterday, she was red in the face the same as Roo had been, so I know for sure now it is the virus which made Roo's face go red. I had already suspected Jellybean had a virus long before it showed up on Roo b'cos Jellybean had been sneezing a bit for over a week now but other than the odd sneeze here and there she was fine but yesterday she started off fine in the morning then about mid morning she jumped up on my lap and fell asleep, I didn't think anything of it at first as its not unusual for her to take a nap on my lap, but I started to notice she was in a deep sleep and not a nap mode. At one point a bird flew overhead which spooked the ducks and they ran around quacking and flapping their wings, it woke Jellybean but she could barely keep her eyes open, her head flopped forward and she fell straight back to sleep and was shivering too, so I brought her indoors and spoke to the vet on the phone (was a different vet but from same practice) she told me to keep her indoors to warm up and if she hadn't perked up by the afternoon I was to take her to the vets. I told this vet about Nutri-drops, she too had never heard of them but agreed I should try them on Jellybean as they certainly wouldn't do her any harm. Same as always after giving Jellybean a dose of Nutri-drops she perked up, had something to eat and drink then started complaining loudly about being indoors and was pacing up and down so I let her out, she was still red faced for a while but by bed time she was fine and still is. My worry at the moment is that my two duck hens are coughing a lot and one has almost lost her voice and squeaks when she quacks, she's been like this for the whole week and other than that she's fine, eating, drinking, swimming, chasing Roo and showing no sign of illness other than her cough same as the other duck, however I'm out of Nutri-drops now and although we have some on order, we've been told it won't get to us before December and will be any time between 1st and the 15th. We've actually ordered Nutri-drench, b'cos the British version is loads more expensive and for only a tiny bottle, getting Nutri-drench from the States gets us almost four times as much for the same price as the Nutri-drops and as we seem to be getting through it so quickly we decided it would be better to buy from the States and will have enough to add it to their water throughout the winter to help give them a boost even if they aren't ill. I just hope my flocks will be ok and hope the ducks virus doesn't turn into anything nasty but if that happens we'll have to pay out for vets. We thought about buying in some Nutri-drops to tide us over until the Nutri-drench comes but their delivery date is for the end of November which isn't much better. I just got to hope all continue to handle this virus and no one else gets so poorly again

 

[No More Empty Nest]

We've had a lot of warnings going out in our country about people feeding foxes, and one of our major tv channels put a video showing that b'cos people feed them they are no longer frightened of us, and think nothing of attacking humans now, we have children and babies being targeted by foxes, there has been many casualties and a few deaths caused by fox attacks (especially by fox cubs) which over ten years ago was unheard of. Recently a family of four were attacked in their home by a fox cub who had no fear of them at all. People here campaigned for years to have fox hunting banned (which I agree with) but now people have gone too far the other way by taming the foxes and we are facing the consequences of that. I put concrete slabs around the bottom of the run b'cos a close neighbour had a fox dig under and got all his chickens. The same guy had a fox walk across his garden right in front of him as he sat sunning himself in his garden, it wasn't one bit bothered by the guy. Thankfully he hadn't got his chickens free ranging and were locked in their run at that time.

That is really scary about the foxes! I have large patio blocks around my coop and run in addition to the buried hardware cloth. My son-in-law drove spikes down into the ground a few inches apart around their coop and run after seeing a fox in the yard, plus hardware cloth.

 

[Cbarr00]

@ChooksNQuilts I'm so sorry about Skye

 

[CannedMonster]

@ChooksNQuilts I'm so sorry about Skye

Thank you.
I don’t know if I’ll get more EE after this.
I love their unusual colors but they just won’t stay in the yard even after clipping wings.
Taka is still with us and although she occasionally goes on the short fence she never does it daily like Skye and Silver.
Silver tried to go over yesterday but we modified the fence and it’s 7’ high now.

Haven’t seen any signs of that dog.
We’re pretty sure the owners saw our dead chicken because the dog brought it home and now they’re keeping their dog in the house...for now.
I’ll be glad when our privacy fence is finished.

 

[llombardo]

Well guys let the fun begin..we are getting snow. It hasn't stopped since this morning.

to my surprise it seems to be melting as it hits the net and very litte is getting in the run. Of course this is because of how it's coming down. Even the flimsy net on the side held well with snow on it.

So I'm going to the store to get my stone and mulch to finish the run. A little snow isn't stopping this girl...lol

 

[Anna Ranieri]

Thank you.
I don’t know if I’ll get more EE after this.
I love their unusual colors but they just won’t stay in the yard even after clipping wings.
Taka is still with us and although she occasionally goes on the short fence she never does it daily like Skye and Silver.
Silver tried to go over yesterday but we modified the fence and it’s 7’ high now.

Haven’t seen any signs of that dog.
We’re pretty sure the owners saw our dead chicken because the dog brought it home and now they’re keeping their dog in the house...for now.
I’ll be glad when our privacy fence is finished.

I'd of thought they'd at least have the decency to come across to you, for them to own up to it and apologise - not that it would make anything easier for you hun, but at least you'd have the chance for some peace of mind knowing what really happened and a chance to tell them what you think of them and their dog.

 

[Anna Ranieri]

Well guys let the fun begin..we are getting snow. It hasn't stopped since this morning.

to my surprise it seems to be melting as it hits the net and very litte is getting in the run. Of course this is because of how it's coming down. Even the flimsy net on the side held well with snow on it.

So I'm going to the store to get my stone and mulch to finish the run. A little snow isn't stopping this girl...lol

You go girl!

 

[llombardo]

Got the run done. I don't get how these little creatures do so well in the cold. I don't care that they have feathers, how do their little feet not freeze? They were not phased by the snow either. Nothing stops them. Of course I was about frozen but I refuse to do unsupervised time out of the run, so I stood out there with them for a while.

 

[CannedMonster]

Got the run done. I don't get how these little creatures do so well in the cold. I don't care that they have feathers, how do their little feet not freeze? They were not phased by the snow either. Nothing stops them. Of course I was about frozen but I refuse to do unsupervised time out of the run, so I stood out there with them for a while.

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Look at that handsome boy!
He’s such a great guy.
I used to wonder about their feet too.
But the skin is thick, scaled and very different than the skin under their feathers.
I always make sure they have a place to go that’s free from snow and let them decide if they want to go out or not.
Last winter I only had 5 birds and they went out pretty much every day.
They would go find the sunny spots in the yard and hang out there in the early mornings.
They did very well.
They only seemed bugged by falling through the top of the snow when they walked on it.
My bantam rooster was able to walk on top without breaking through