Consolidated Kansas

[FarmerBlake]

Well this has been an exciting night. Had a hawk land on our chicken house. And with the intent to take a meal to go. Have netting on the top followed by tarp (that was to keep them dry but now for hawk protection I hope). One half of the run has a plywood board on it to keep the tarp from falling into the run. Kinda that hawk takes a nose dive into the plywood hiding under that tarp. He doesn't know it's there! Checked the house all around and I think we are secure. No entry points. Dani, you live so close, please keep an eye on your babies as he's determined he's gonna get a meal from somewhere. We'd been letting the girls sit on the porch with us in our laps but I think someone has been watching. And now we are watching.....

 

[spree56]

Danz, when you order Peckomatics, do you get the ones with the bucket included? Just wonder about the quality of the bucket & lid. Thanks!

 

[Trish44]

Well this has been an exciting night. Had a hawk land on our chicken house. And with the intent to take a meal to go. Have netting on the top followed by tarp (that was to keep them dry but now for hawk protection I hope). One half of the run has a plywood board on it to keep the tarp from falling into the run. Kinda that hawk takes a nose dive into the plywood hiding under that tarp. He doesn't know it's there! Checked the house all around and I think we are secure. No entry points. Dani, you live so close, please keep an eye on your babies as he's determined he's gonna get a meal from somewhere. We'd been letting the girls sit on the porch with us in our laps but I think someone has been watching. And now we are watching.....

I'm glad you had the top secured or the outcome might have not been so good. We have hawks all around here where I live but we have a lot of tree cover & things for the birds to run under so knock on wood I have not had a problem with them so far. It's good to be alert at any rate.

 

[chicken danz]

I just had a minute to stop by and share a funny story. A short time ago I heard our alert dog barking. I looked out to see one of our goats coming down the driveway. Crap. The sheep and goats are currently on rotation in the chicken yard which adjoins the hedge and apparently they leaned on the fence to browse the hedge and bent it to where they could just step over it. From there they went through the hedge and over to the neighbors. By the time I got my boots on and went out there, the second goat was at the top of the driveway. I called out "Hey Girls come on home" and they both started trotting as soon as they heard my voice and ran up to me, apparently relieved to have found their way home from their adventure (with the help of the neighbors to whom I waved a thank you). I don't think of goats as being as obedient as dogs and they've never come when called before but anyone watching would assume they are just that well trained

It was time to move them to new graze this evening anyway so I quickly laid out the new fence and moved everyone - the entire operation, including laying out fence, moving water buckets and hooking up the electric couldn't have taken more than 10 minutes. Everyone is now happily grazing the long, lush grass of the new area. Best of all, they won't have access to the fence over to the hedge in this location so at least the neighbors are safe from unwanted visitors for awhile. GOATS!!! I'm telling you - sheep are the way to go. If only sheep produced milk as easily as do goats.....

Do you have one of those electric netting fences? I had 300 feet of those that I used for my goose pen but we had a terrible time with conductivity here. I think we needed a better charger and more ground rods. So the geese decided to eat huge holes in it. I finally put it all together and used it for a temporary netting over a pen. I still have the posts which I will for sure use later.

Danz, when you order Peckomatics, do you get the ones with the bucket included? Just wonder about the quality of the bucket & lid. Thanks!

Heavens no. The postage would be insane. I just buy buckets from Home Depot and Menards. Buckets are fairly cheap. You will need a 4 inch hole saw to cut the holes in the bottom. Handy to have a set of hole saws around anyway. Harbor Freight has some inexpensive sets but be sure to get a set that includes a 4 inch. There are a couple different size options.

Well this has been an exciting night. Had a hawk land on our chicken house. And with the intent to take a meal to go. Have netting on the top followed by tarp (that was to keep them dry but now for hawk protection I hope). One half of the run has a plywood board on it to keep the tarp from falling into the run. Kinda that hawk takes a nose dive into the plywood hiding under that tarp. He doesn't know it's there! Checked the house all around and I think we are secure. No entry points. Dani, you live so close, please keep an eye on your babies as he's determined he's gonna get a meal from somewhere. We'd been letting the girls sit on the porch with us in our laps but I think someone has been watching. And now we are watching.....

Time to get the gun out!!! I guess if you live in town that won't work well.
yesterday was another busy day. I got the older chicks all moved from the brooder house. And separated what I could by sex. I may loose some of those cause we are getting rain this morning. Wow! That's different.
Then I shoveled it out and washed it down and sprayed it to make sure no bugs were in there. I added some more young birds.
Then I finished tearing apart the old "ghetto" camper I had used for a chicken house. That was a ton of work. I still have the most of the outer shell just sitting by it's own strength and a few screws. A wind will send it across the yard cause I moved the framework out. DH pulled the trailer out from underneath it and we loaded up all the old wood and such on the trailer to take to the burn pile. He was done with projects for the day so it's still sitting there. I'll be so glad to get the rest of that mess out of the yard. I'm hoping a trip to a recycle center will pay something for the aluminum.
I need to put a new floor on the trailer before it's very usable but it's a good basic trailer. I wanted to sell it but now DH thinks we should just keep it around here to haul stuff on. It's hard to make money back on things when he wants to keep them all. I could remind him I paid for it but I won't.
We're actually getting rain this morning. I just checked the temperature and I guess I should run out and turn on a sweeter heater for the chicks I moved yesterday. I've been running a fan in the brooder to keep it cool enough, not worried about heat for sure.
Also all those birds I moved yesterday may get soaked cause they don't know where to go. I noticed 90% of the ones I have moved the past week have been standing in a group in the corners of the pens rather than going inside and sleeping at night. I'm really not wanting to run out this morning and catch and move a bunch of dumb birds to shelter. I wonder why they have such a hard time figuring that out when they are new to a pen.
I've got a couple people coming today. One is a friend of my daughters. They live in Wichita and are coming to see birds and visit for the most part. They have some kids that love animals. Actually she got in touch with him cause he is an avid fisherman and asked him if he had an old net he would like to give me. I told her to tell him I'd trade him a couple chickens for the net. I was thinking of moving a rooster cause they don't have one. His wife doesn't want one and he does. But I'll throw at least one pullet in there. I just hope he wants the rooster cause I'd really loose money on a couple of pullets.
The other person is coming to get the rest of my layers. I'm really anxious for that to happen so I can move some of these young girls to the hen house.

 

[HEChicken]

Well this has been an exciting night. Had a hawk land on our chicken house. And with the intent to take a meal to go. Have netting on the top followed by tarp (that was to keep them dry but now for hawk protection I hope). One half of the run has a plywood board on it to keep the tarp from falling into the run. Kinda that hawk takes a nose dive into the plywood hiding under that tarp. He doesn't know it's there! Checked the house all around and I think we are secure. No entry points. Dani, you live so close, please keep an eye on your babies as he's determined he's gonna get a meal from somewhere. We'd been letting the girls sit on the porch with us in our laps but I think someone has been watching. And now we are watching.....

Glad no birds were taken. We've been really fortunate here as we have a lot of hawks and they have to know the poultry is here, but they've never given us any problems. We had a red-tail hawk that apparently nested in the hedge trees last year, only 50 yards from the chicken yard. I would see it fly back and forth to the same tree for weeks but it never even veered over our direction.

That's funny HEChicken! Actually my goats are better behaved most of the time than my sheep as far as staying where they're supposed to be. If I let the sheep out in the yard to graze they just go through the barbed wire & escape to the neighbor's places.

That's so funny that our experiences have been so different. My sheep never challenge the fencing at all and even if the goats knock it down, the sheep won't follow them. I often joke that I could paint a line on the ground and tell everyone not to cross it. The sheep would stand on the right side because "Mom told us not to cross that line" while the goats wouldn't be able to get over it fast enough, just to prove that no one can tell them what to do

Do you have one of those electric netting fences? I had 300 feet of those that I used for my goose pen but we had a terrible time with conductivity here.

No, what we use is Gallagher SmartFence (pic below) which I think is better than the netting - for sheep, goats, cows, horses - any day. However it won't keep poultry in so you do need the netting for poultry. My poultry will go right under the fence and their feathers apparently insulate them against the shock as they never show any indication they've felt it at all. I want to reiterate that the goats absolutely respect the electric fence (as do the sheep) and have never once breached it. The ONLY times we have issues in the rotation are when we are at points of our property where we are using a portion of non-electric fence as part of the paddock. When the goats got out the other day, all animals were in the chicken yard. When set up the chicken yard, we fenced it with welded wire as that was all we needed to keep chickens in. Never did we imagine we'd be using it to keep goats and sheep contained as well - if we had, we'd for sure have used different fencing. On 3 sides, the welded wire isn't a problem but on the side that is under the hedge, the goats stand up on the wire to reach the leaves of the hedge and their weight is too much for the welded wire. Since moving them on Friday, they are now in a section adjoining the chicken yard so one fence is welded wire and the other 3 are electric. However the welded wire here doesn't have anything on the other side except the grass of the chicken yard which they already grazed down so they are totally leaving it alone and staying where they should be.

Here is the pic of the fence we use. What I like about it is everything is contained on the unit. The poles and 4 lines of wire. The first line is 6" off the ground, the next about 6" above that and then there is a wider gap between the next two. The top strand is only about 3' high but that is enough to keep them in. A horse could easily jump it but that doesn't occur to them. It was originally developed as temporary fencing for horses and we were concerned it would not contain sheep due to their wool insulating them, but we trained them to it and they totally respect it and never try to run through it. What makes it easier to use than the netting is that you just reel it out by setting the first post and pulling to feed the wire out of the reels and then when its time to take it back up, you turn the crank handle (can't see it in this pic but it is on the far side of the reels) and it reels it all back in again. The poles store neatly on the unit and the whole thing doesn't weigh that much so it is easy to carry it to the next section and lay out a new paddock. It contains 330' of wire and we use a solar energizer to power it and have never had any issues with conductivity or having it short out - even when the vegetation is tall enough that the bottom 2 strands are in contact with it.

 

[chicken danz]

I looked those Gallagher fence things up and they are pretty cool. I wish there was something a whole lot longer that would work like that. But I wanted to thank you for posting that. I did find a unique sheathed wire that if I understand it right doesn't require insulators. I wrote the company to see if that was in fact the case. It's in line with other fence wire prices but then shipping kills you. There's a couple of Gallagher distributors within driving distance so I may check with them to see if they could order some in to save shipping costs.
I've already spent a ton on a really powerful charger so I really need to think about getting my fencing around the property.
Busy day ahead and I am trying to get motivated. I need to get things done before it gets overly hot. At least the wind is blowing so maybe it will reduce the humidity some.

Well darn. Just got my answer. I would still need insulators. No reason to spend the extra money for the sheathing then.

 

[HEChicken]

I wish there was something a whole lot longer that would work like that.

That's what I forgot to mention - you can join them together. As long as you have an energizer that can power the increased distance, its no problem at all. We own 3 fences and typically have 2 going at any one time. The third means we can set up the new paddock, move them onto it, then take down the fence(s) that formed the previous paddock. The only thing I would say about making this fence longer is it would also make it a lot heavier which would make setting it out and taking it up very tiring. The reels we have don't feel that heavy when we start out - and when laying out the fence, it is getting lighter as we relieve it of poles and wire. But taking it in is another matter. I find my arms get really tired towards the end as I am holding the increasingly heavy reel with one hand and winding it in with the other. I don't think I'd want it any longer at that point, even if it would be handy when setting out the fences

It looks like being another hot week. I've just come in from the veggie garden - the first time I've been out there in several days. I brought in a huge bucket of tomatoes, peppers, onions and carrots. Plus, an armload of greens - kale, collards, chinese cabbage - that I picked for the goats. Before feeding them to the goats, I turned over each leaf and filled a jar with a variety of caterpillars to feed the chickens. So my trip to the garden wound up feeding poultry, ruminants and will feed people. The goats also got the carrot tops which it turns out is one of their favorite things. I had hidden the carrot tops in the middle of the armful of greens but they apparently smelled them and dug through looking for them, pulled them out of the pile and munched them down before starting on anything else.

 

[chicken danz]

HEChicken I need about 2640 feet of fencing. I'm afraid that would get a bit costly!

I guess I'm just going to have to buckle down and get the work done.
Just got back from town. It's already super hot out but at least the wind is blowing. I need to go water birds soon. I have some baking started and need to finish that before I stay outside.
Not much happening in my garden right now except tomatoes. I think I may just pull up the beans and replant them. If it doesn't freeze before October 1st we could have another crop. They sure aren't going to produce in this heat.

 

[HEChicken]

Oh yeah, you definitely wouldn't want these to cover that distance. What do you need to keep in - is it just for the dogs?

 

[chicken danz]

I need to keep the dogs in, the neighbors cattle out, and also want the ability to set up a couple temporary pens so I can rotate geese and raise some other meat animals. The only thing keeping me from having at least one cow calf pair is lack of fencing between my field and my pasture. I have a pond and I don't currently get anything out of the hay being cut there because I don't use it. I'd like an option anyway if I ever decide to increase my work load.
We're supposed to have heat indices up to 110 today. I've got a lot to do inside today so I guess as bad as I hate being inside I have plenty to keep me busy. I'll get my watering done early then feed late afternoon I guess.
I'm dying to move some birds around but I know it's just too hot for them to do that right now. I can make myself wait another week I guess.