Any other hawaiians out there?

[Stephh0701]

I live close to mililani. Whitmore village right outside of wahiawa (but technically still wahiawa). I grew up in the house we live now and I couldn't imagine leaving for real but I definitely day dream about it at time. Moving Maui or Kauai would be great as I'd still be close to home in a similar environment just less crowded. Oahu has definitely become over crowded and it makes me sad. I'll definitely go to our feed store in wahiawa and ask around. I have 6 isa chicks now that were 5 days old on the 2nd of this month and at least 4 silkies coming toward the end of the month. We have a cozy but very wild backyard for them to forage and are trying to buy the leeway between our house that's owned by dole.

 

[TropicalBabies]

I live close to mililani. Whitmore village right outside of wahiawa (but technically still wahiawa). I grew up in the house we live now and I couldn't imagine leaving for real but I definitely day dream about it at time. Moving Maui or Kauai would be great as I'd still be close to home in a similar environment just less crowded. Oahu has definitely become over crowded and it makes me sad. I'll definitely go to our feed store in wahiawa and ask around. I have 6 isa chicks now that were 5 days old on the 2nd of this month and at least 4 silkies coming toward the end of the month. We have a cozy but very wild backyard for them to forage and are trying to buy the leeway between our house that's owned by dole.

9 is a good number. How fun! I started with 2, then added 4 more, then added 4 more, then added 4 more. With losses and give aways i don't have a s many as I would like. I have a craaaazy neighbor, and I do mean craaaazy. So I try to control myself.
I think Wahiawa is pretty with a nice climate. My D-I-L works over at the old dole office facilities. Classic area. I think it is wonderful to live in your family home and as long as they leave Wahiawa alone I'd be content. Maybe just vacation on another island- ha ha!. I'm going to "friend you".

 

[Stephh0701]

Our neighbors arent crazy but on one side they're pretty unforgiving I just try to be as diplomatic as possible. I'm hoping I can breed some silkies or get some eggs for the silkies to hatch (I hear they're great broody mamas) so hopefully I end up with at least one female silkie. I'm not sure how "friending" works but I'm glad to accept a friend that has more knowledge than I do about chickens at this point!

 

[AudieH]

Aloha Everyone!

I am both new to Hawaii and also chickens. We moved to Kipahulu (near Hana) on Maui about a year and a half ago. We started with 10 baby chicks in October of last year and have 2 each of 5 different breeds. Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, Ameraucana, Leghorn, and Buff Orpington. Sadly one of our leghorn chicks was stunted with her growth and never developed past the cute fuzzy stage before dying at around 3 weeks. All of our others are doing very well. We have acreage and are able to free range, but the mongoose problem is worrisome for me. We have caught them several times in our coop and now our hens are not wanting to lay in there. We have a small pre-made coop with built in nesting boxes. We are now thinking of either getting a separate nesting box system off the ground with no ramp or ordering an electric poultry net. Most likely, both. As it is now, one hen insists on coming inside the house to lay and other lay either in chairs outside or under buildings. This does not make for easy collection and feels like an Easter egg hunt everyday LOL.

I have always wanted Silkies and had planned to get them but the breeder had all his birds killed by a mongoose shortly before we got our coop up. I still want Silkies, but now I am afraid we would not be able to free range them and have to keep them locked up at all times. Anyone else free range silkies? Also, one of our Reds ended up being a rooster. How would a large rooster effect silkies? Would they need to be separated from the larger breeds? Sadly, I do not see silkies in my near future till we get an electric fence up.

Last question, we are considering expanding our flock once we get our new setup in place (maybe next season). How successful are you with keeping more than one rooster in the same flock? I know one will be dominate, but we also have a few wild flocks near by and I do not want any of my hens or roosters going off to join a different flock because of the pecking order.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Aloha Everyone!

I am both new to Hawaii and also chickens. We moved to Kipahulu (near Hana) on Maui about a year and a half ago. We started with 10 baby chicks in October of last year and have 2 each of 5 different breeds. Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, Ameraucana, Leghorn, and Buff Orpington. Sadly one of our leghorn chicks was stunted with her growth and never developed past the cute fuzzy stage before dying at around 3 weeks. All of our others are doing very well. We have acreage and are able to free range, but the mongoose problem is worrisome for me. We have caught them several times in our coop and now our hens are not wanting to lay in there. We have a small pre-made coop with built in nesting boxes. We are now thinking of either getting a separate nesting box system off the ground with no ramp or ordering an electric poultry net. Most likely, both. As it is now, one hen insists on coming inside the house to lay and other lay either in chairs outside or under buildings. This does not make for easy collection and feels like an Easter egg hunt everyday LOL.

I have always wanted Silkies and had planned to get them but the breeder had all his birds killed by a mongoose shortly before we got our coop up. I still want Silkies, but now I am afraid we would not be able to free range them and have to keep them locked up at all times. Anyone else free range silkies? Also, one of our Reds ended up being a rooster. How would a large rooster effect silkies? Would they need to be separated from the larger breeds? Sadly, I do not see silkies in my near future till we get an electric fence up.

Last question, we are considering expanding our flock once we get our new setup in place (maybe next season). How successful are you with keeping more than one rooster in the same flock? I know one will be dominate, but we also have a few wild flocks near by and I do not want any of my hens or roosters going off to join a different flock because of the pecking order.

Aloha @AudieH, Welcome to BYC, we are glad you joined in. I recommend introducing yourself to the whole BYC flock if you have not already. I'm on Kauai with no Mongoose problems but have lived most of my life on Maui and know them well. Since you have acres, have you though of investing in a serious coop and run? Cut trees for posts, chicken wire buried a foot or so. Over here all you really need is a roof for dry, branches for roosting at night and a few 5 gallon buckets with cut grass to nest in. That is a safe start till you can design your Shangri-La and then you can reuse materials. You need to get your girls safe, mongoose don't care if they are not silkies and i am surprised you have not suffered losses yet, eggs etc. Those prefabs are usually small and flimsy and rot quickly especially in wet areas. They also never house as many as they say they do. If you like your chickens and your eggs it would be worthwhile. That also may be why they are laying all over the place, 1 box per 3 hens minimum. Then you can get your silkies when your local feed store or breeder has. As far as the roosters go, two or three is a fine number if you have enough hens. For eight hens I would not go more than two roos myself- a dominant and his wing-man. You don't want them wearing out the girls. More chickens, more roos is good but they will always, like the hens, have a pecking or hierarchy order. More than likely they will scare off any competition and keep your girls happier and safer. Wild roos will try to woo away your girls and I'm surprised they have not yet. Roos will also help protect against mongoose but there is nothing better for your girls that a solid coop and run. You can always give your girls some exercise time out in the yard but they are not as safe out and about. If you free range get ready for losses from the mongoose AND hunting dogs. No problem with a RR guarding silkies. They make unfortunate looking offspring though.

 

[AudieH]

Thank you for the welcome TropicalBabies! First I have to say your "unfortunate looking" offspring is epic and I love him!!!! But I am one of those people that like unusual of not down right odd looking things. We do have further expansion plans laid out but are in a sort of temporary holding pattern until we are finished laying out the farm and getting roads in. My plans are for a large chicken tractor with electric poultry net to move all over the place allowing the chickens to aid in readying our planting areas for us. This will be a larger enclosure and the small pre-made will then only be used for either broody hens or new babies waiting to go into the flock. We knew when we bought it, this light wood would not last long before rot set in with all the rain we get. I hope it does last long enough to get the green houses up and it can go in there out of the weather.

Dogs have been a concern as well because we have seen a few that locals turn loose to hunt. We also lost our 16 year old alert dog this year from cancer, we have to listen or watch much closer. Luckily so far we have either been around or they come at night when the babies are locked up in the coop. Our biggest problem was the mongoose going inside the actual coop part of the structure and up the ramp into the enclosed area. It did not exactly love our rooster LOL. I also just removed that ramp, for now. I am starting to think I may need another rooster, but wasn't even expecting the one we ended up with (he was suppose to be a she) I am glad it worked out this way tho. He is a good boy and does help the girls a lot.

I am glad the other flock has not stolen or woo'ed any of my girls and for that matter tried to tangle with my fairly young male. We adopted one of the wild females and she would lay an egg in our cat litter box almost every day before heading back to her flock, but we went on vacation for 2 weeks and she has only been back once. This was before we got our chickens. I was kinda hoping she would adopt into our flock, but she hasn't. Our rooster does call out to the other and I am glad he sounds further away now that Bunsen learned to crow. I will defiantly be hunting down my girls and putting them in a permanent fence if they steal any. Might even snag a few of his while I am at it. There is a beta male with them and he was the one I thought might steal or merge with our girls before we discovered we had a rooster after all.

I will update when we get the other structure and fence complete.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Too funny! I really like RR roos. Beautiful boys. I did not know the mongoose met up with him. That is good and I hope it tells its mongoose friends.
Yes, take photos! I love photos. I'm impressed you have internet service in Kipahulu but i guess Maui is growing up??? Are you farming for sustainability or more? How on the grid are you out there on that windswept slope?

 

[AudieH]

We can only get satellite internet, but it is pretty decent. Maybe even more so than our cell service. For now we are 100% off grid. We drive large water tanks into Kahalui about once a week or so for personal use and use a large generator for power. Our solar system should be getting shipped any day now so we can convert and only use the generator as backup. We have not 100% decided on either a catchment or a well for future water, maybe both as we will need multiple systems for personal use, nurseries, animals, and planting field irrigation because we will not be using any from preexisting creeks or streams. It does rain often here, but some areas will be lacking while others are overflowing with rain and we will need to be prepared in the event of a dry year. We are farming for our own personal sustainability but the actual tea production is for a corporation, so we will be producing products for sale globally.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Wow that is interesting. How many acres do you have? What made you want to move to Maui to grow tea? Where do you come from originally? Do you come from a farming background? That is a lot to take on especially in... that wild part of Hawaii.
Following you

 

[AudieH]

Wow that is interesting. How many acres do you have? What made you want to move to Maui to grow tea? Where do you come from originally? Do you come from a farming background? That is a lot to take on especially in... that wild part of Hawaii.
Following you

We have almost 200 acres and yup, it is all wild. Nothing has really been done with this piece of property in 40+ years so the jungle has reclaimed most of it. It was a cattle ranch many many years ago then more recently they grew taro and a few other things, but most of that is long gone now with only a few mango's, papaya, and guava left and of course lots and lots of hau! We are originally from Texas and I have zero farming background growing up in the suburbs, mostly in apartments, but have been an avid animal lover and breeder for many years. My husband however does have a ranching background and has been in the heavy farm equipment business for years. This is where he met an investor that had plans for a green tea plantation. We first had a smaller property on the Big Island, but after purchasing, we found the top soil was not deep enough to plant tea or dig a well. That was over 7 years ago so this has been in the making for a long time. The investors found and purchased the current land around two years ago and plans and permitting started, which brought us here to run things about a year later. After the main investor found out I was an herbalist, things shifted slightly to include that so we could offer more products and it became a family affair. I will have a separate apothecary style meets formal English tea room of my own one day offering natural health alternatives, but we are still a few years away from that so I have been spending my time researching and setting up a sustainable lifestyle for our family while I wait for nurseries to go up and plants to go into the ground. We love it here. It is beautiful and peaceful. I feel a connection and responsibility to the land I was not expecting to find and my chickens have become a large part of that as well.