Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[youngchooklover]

How are you all.

 

[appps]

Here are some of my five week old babies in their outdoors cage with its jungle gym of branches.

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People told me silkies don't roost, but no one's told mine...they are only babies though.

Great set up! Never heard silkies don't roost, mine does.

 

[youngchooklover]

Great set up!

Never heard silkies don't roost, mine does.

Mine don't?

 

[Steampunked]

Great set up!

Thanks! I heard that other fowl have healthier legs if given a variety of different sized perches, so I thought I'd try it. What I didn't expect was that all of them would decide they liked being up as high as possible, even as little ones. So now I hang their greens up high and let them work to get them down - the biggest silkie has some trouble getting there as his wings are small in proportion to his body, but he usually manages to get whatever the others have knocked down.

I think it's a boy, anyway, I really have no idea!

 

[appps]

Thanks! I heard that other fowl have healthier legs if given a variety of different sized perches, so I thought I'd try it. What I didn't expect was that all of them would decide they liked being up as high as possible, even as little ones. So now I hang their greens up high and let them work to get them down - the biggest silkie has some trouble getting there as his wings are small in proportion to his body, but he usually manages to get whatever the others have knocked down.

I think it's a boy, anyway, I really have no idea!

They look like Partridge silkies (they even have their own thread if you do a search) They are great because they are a colour sexable silkie. The boys start to go a dark orange/red on their backs and chests (been a while since I read up on them but think it was on the back too) so if you are finding yours is starting to change colour and darkening/reddening up then chances are yep its a boy. You should be able to see it starting soon.

 

[krista74]

G'day fellow Aussies!

Sorry to barge in on this thread but I have a bit of a dilemma and thought of all people, my fellow countrymen and women might be able to help me.

I am in country Victoria, it's stinking hot at the moment, and we have a reasonably large backyard shed converted into a chicken coop. It's got an all wire frontage and the rest of the coop is corrugated tin sheeting. It's a bit rickety with a few odd gaps, but it's the best we can do and it is dry in the Winter time (now we have the tarp over it!)

Anyway....today I went in there to see the chooks as I so often do, and up in the roof was a brown snake.

Naturally, I crapped myself.....

After re-grouping, I ran and got hubby and we chased and banged our way around the coop together for an hour. During this debacle we (of course) lost sight of the snake!

As you can imagine, I am somewhat unsettled by this, especially considering I am the main care-giver of the flock! We have no idea if the snake is now inside or outside of the coop, but if I were a betting woman I'd say it was inside, quietly biding it's time, waiting to launch itself at me next time I innocently mosey on into the coop.

My questions are as follows:-

1. How can I train my chickens to become fully self-sufficient, clean their own feeders and waterers and generally exist without any help from me in the coop?! and IF that's not possible....

2. Do brown snakes eat full-grown chickens?

3. Do they eat young chicks? (I have four (8 week old) chicks and one (10 week old) chick as well, all residing in a sectioned off corner of the main coop.

4. Is there any way to encourage said snake to rack off?

The snake itself was maybe 2.5 to 3 feet long, and quite skinny. I get the impression it was a 'young' snake, but somewhat of a desperado with a mean streak and a taste for chicken.....

HELP!

- Krista

 

[Outpost JWB]

Good morning (here) Krista74,

When we bought our new place, the property was overgrown and had been untouched by humans for about 3 years. We had snakes under our house, in the lean to out back, in the garage, all over the yard & even found 2 snakes in our house while working on it and several sheddings of snake skin. I have a pic somewhere of one that I killed with my shovel that was 7+feet long. We did not kill most of them. Lucky for me, they do not intimidate me, although I do not like them enough to have a pet snake.

The snake will be in your coop for eggs. They do steal eggs, but more than likely will never harm you or your chickens. We had one stealing eggs. DH and I chased him around the coop also & finally caught it. The snake you are speaking of is probably not poisonous-but I am not from your area

. Hope this helps and hope you catch it soon.

 

[AussieChics]

Id burn it down and move. But thats me lol

 

[vehve]

This will be of absolutely no help to you, as this is something I learned from my grandmother, and it was uttered about snakes on the other side of the planet., but according to her, snakes that go into hiding often come out the next day around the same time that they hide. Of course, you have a lot warmer weather there, so your snakes are probably a lot more agile, and this was probably an old wives tale to begin with.

 

[appps]

Krista cover your ears. @Outpost JWB the eastern brown snake kills more people each year than any other snake in Australia. So just a little poisonous

Okay you can uncover now. They reakon more people get bitten trying to kill snakes than any other time so I think I'd be ringing round to see if there is someone who removes snakes locally. Know we have a guy so most areas probably do as well.