Hi all. Hope you're all well!
We have a rat in our garage. I can handle snakes, spiders, scorpions and mice but rats...nope. It's locked in now and hubs is going to set traps. Something has been eating the bait already so there's gotta be a dead one in there somewhere too.
Stupid neighbors don't clean up their fruit and the one behind us...well let's just say they'd put Sanford and Son to shame. Their dog died a few years ago ago and we had tick problems for a couple of years.
@BlueBaby did any more chicks hatch for you?
, my friend is sitting at day 22 on his incubation and no hatches, told him to give them a couple of more days and then toss it, that I'd try hatching some here for him. See how that goes.
can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have found BYC, I've gotten so much information from this site and all of you. Where I'd planned on putting a tarp under the roosts in the new coop, it has now been changed to a chicken litter box.. lol, I've stopped being the overly protective Chicken mommy.. well, at least to a certain extent 
. I've started getting the present coop set up for the chicks to make their move outside next week, pulled out one set of the roll away nest boxes, might take the other out and just put some metal one's in for the moment. have a corner cleared out for the large (german shepard sized) dog crate to go in.. because they will only be a bit over 4 weeks old, they'll have a tarp around the pen to help with drafts and a heat lamp for a while, I'll take one side of the tarp down if it's nice so they can do the see but don't touch with the rest of the group. How old do you think they need to be before I can turn them loose with the rest of the flock? I've got some pretty big girls, the sex links, I know we're going to have fighting as they have to redo the pecking order. I had to stop one of the girls from pecking at another because she wanted the dust bath.. she was pulling feathers. they have at least a 10 x 20 run right now.. that size will double once I get the new one secured.
In your run have items that chickens can run to and hide from the chickens chasing them. Crates, boxes, old tables, or miscellaneous furniture will work. After no longer needed, clean up and remove.
