California - Northern

[OR4-hmom]

I agree with Laura also. The wildlife was one of the reasons we bought our place. I knew they were here and tried to build the coops to keep them out of a small portion.

Our neighbor tried catching a feral cat, dumped by some idiot. Poor thing had respiritory issues, saw it another time with a mayo jar stuck on its head from going through trash. Within a week of ending it's suffering another moved in. It works the same way with the deer behind us. If 1 gets hit another moves in.

 

[capayvalleychick]

How do you import chickens from the uk? Or anywhere? Do you just need the right connections or certain laws apply? Why can't just anyone do it?

I looked into importing chickens from England. Besides all the regulations, the price for quarantine is what drives the price up so high. Here are the official regulations:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/animals/live_poultry.shtml

Laura, I'm so sorry for your bobcat losses. I hope that she moves on, after raising her young.
We have bobcats in this area. When I first had chickens here, I lost one to a bobcat and I also saw one around the yard a couple times. Now that I only range them during the day, I don't have any more losses. The dogs must scare them off or they find easier prey. I'm still finding carcasses of rabbits etc. near the coops. So some wild critter is choosing jack rabbit instead of chicken.
Those of you who want to scare them off but not shoot might consider one of those Scarecrow sprinklers.

 

[ronott1]

The eggs are from Megan and I'm not positive it is a PP but I didn't see a "B" on it. I just wanted to get them under the ladies when I got them home that night. The PO called to say they were in at 8 am but I couldn't get away until 3:30 to pick them up, then I put them on the concrete flor to try and keep them cooler until I could get home.

I don't know about the PP as a breed but I really enjoy the basque girls (2 of the 3 boys have become biters). If it is a PP egg and it makes it to hatch I guess I'll find out.

I really need some time at home to get rid of all the little roos around here. Mornings are beginning to sound like a crowing contest! DD wants to take the worst offender to Salem next week for state fair.

Megan likes to send Pita Pinta eggs as extras--Which is a Win Win scenario for sure!

 

[debs_flock]

*sigh* -- the bobcat returned, off of its previous mornings-only schedule, this afternoon around 5:30, literally about fifteen minutes after i'd let them out and about two minutes after i'd walked away from the area by the pens -- i've gotten everyone rounded up & in their pens again, but the last young isbar pullet is missing (although i haven't found ANY feathers, so hoping she might still be hiding), and Maggie the basque hen is wedged way underneath the house -- i can see her (and i'm pretty sure she's injured, there's a huge pile of her feathers when the bobcat pounced), but i can't get to her.

so, i get the message: all free-ranging is suspended indefinitely, at least until the bobcat stops patrolling for a good while.

Laura, sorry for your continued losses.

Even though the cat wasn't hunting you, it makes you think about how often we are all being watched without realizing it. The night I had to go out in the dark to look for a youngster that had escaped the pen, I had the heebie jeebies, LOL I didn't have a flashlight with me, just one of those little headlamps. When I looked out towards the fence (about 20 feet), there were two large sets of eyes glowing back at me. Based on the size, height, spacing, I'd say raccoons, but they literally they just stood and stared at me. They made no effort to move off, even when I stamped my foot at them. They were waiting for me to leave so they could go back to patrolling my chicken pens. If I hadn't had the light to shine in their direction, I would have never known they were there.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:
Yes, the wild animals watch you..

When I was living in Mountain Ranch we had a neighborhood mountain lion. The phone company guy was fixing a phone line in their splitter box and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he turned around and there was the mountain lion directly behind him laying on a big tree about 40 feet away, just laying there watching him. He said he fixed the box crouched over the top of it from the back side - so he could watch the mountain lion. After he fixed the phone he came down to my neighbor's house to tell her it was fixed - and I was there so I heard the story. Poor guy still sounded shaken up - and I probably would have been too.

I never saw it in the open, I did catch glimpses of its eyes across the gully sometimes at night, but I was there right after it knocked one of the neighbor's tenants head over heels because he had gone towards it in a blind canyon when it was drinking water out of one of the mines - he didn't know it was there until it jumped over him and just glanced his shoulder with one paw. It didn't break anything, but the guy was shaken up for awhile too - he said next time he went up to the mine he would look ahead of him instead of thinking about something else and not looking. I used to go over to her mines to get a bucket of dirt and gold and pan it out in her pond, just for fun. Never found much - just enough to keep it fun. After that I looked ahead of me too before I walked up there.

 

[Chickengirl1304]

I looked into importing chickens from England. Besides all the regulations, the price for quarantine is what drives the price up so high. Here are the official regulations:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/animals/live_poultry.shtml

Laura, I'm so sorry for your bobcat losses. I hope that she moves on, after raising her young.
We have bobcats in this area. When I first had chickens here, I lost one to a bobcat and I also saw one around the yard a couple times. Now that I only range them during the day, I don't have any more losses. The dogs must scare them off or they find easier prey. I'm still finding carcasses of rabbits etc. near the coops. So some wild critter is choosing jack rabbit instead of chicken.
Those of you who want to scare them off but not shoot might consider one of those Scarecrow sprinklers.

Ya I looked at that! Crazy. Perhaps hatching eggs would be easier?

 

[chiqita]

Hatching eggs would not survive a quarantine. Plus I think its illegal to bring them in without the same paperwork and I think xrays.

There are reasons for it. Birds Cary some nasty stuff and we don't want things to spread in new environments.

On 2 related notes cocci is also different in new areas. Apparently Herman was having trouble with the stuff around here and that is why he was so skinny. Girls are going to get corid water today. Chicken girl might try it with your new guys from gff to. Once while they are in q and once when they go on your soil was recommend to me.

Also did you know because of foot and mouth and mad cow it is illegal to give kitchen scraps to any animals in england? And they are strict about it to they will fine byc people over it and kill the animals.

 

[debs_flock]

Quote: There are some pretty stringent requirements on health testing of the flock you get the eggs from. It was hatching eggs I was looking into.

People have brought eggs back in their hand luggage, not a practice I would condone. I'm not willing to risk jail time over eggs and potential chicks no matter how badly I covet them

But it has been done, many, many times. I've seen it discussed openly, also something I wouldn't condone. If you want to risk smuggling eggs, for goodness sake keep your mouth shut about it

It's probably not as prevalent on a chicken board, but I know when I was active in the poison dart frog community, the forums there were scanned by government agencies to pick up information on illegal importations. Of course people there were tempted by the ease of putting a $1,000+ frog into an empty film can and dropping it into their hand luggage.

 

[ronott1]

Ya I looked at that! Crazy. Perhaps hatching eggs would be easier?

A lot of importers work with someone in Canada. It is easier to move Poultry from Canada to the US.

The best thing to do is to work with Breeds already here. There are a lot of really nice Breeds that need help.

 

[capayvalleychick]

Ya I looked at that! Crazy. Perhaps hatching eggs would be easier?

Not really, well, if you are lucky. There is also info on importing eggs at the link that I provided. Here is another link to a site owned by someone who imported eggs. She gives all kinds of info and advice on the subject to consider:

http://www.widgetcreekranch.com/import.html