Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[Florida Bullfrog]

I don’t ever lose birds off the tree-roosts at night. I once, years ago, found a dead cockerel under a tree I thought an owl may have took off the roost. That’s it.

I have about 40 tree-roosting now. Most in oak trees in the farm yard. A few a lot further out.

I’m in the deep woods in a high-predator environment. Yet mammalian predators won’t come close to the homestead, except that coyotes will sometimes try to slip downwind of my dogs. Owls hunt around but don’t mess with the chickens.

What sort of dogs are ya’ll running on your homesteads?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

For me it seems like I’ll have a few free-range roosters that do great for a while and then some unknown predator will come through and get all the roosters that sleep in the trees and then it seems to move on. This last time I went out of town for a week and came back to find I was missing a few except one free-range rooster and the one rooster that roosts in the barn with the hens was beat up and had a black spot on his comb. The one free-range rooster that was untouched actually escaped as barely more than a chick when I was culling birds. I expected him to get picked off that night but he’s managed to survive for many months…maybe even a year? The only negative is he seems to be more aggressive towards other roosters than I like. I even managed to catch him once and was going to dispatch him but he was so strong and muscular that I decided to let him go. View attachment 3992504

His rooster-on-rooster aggression and his good survival skills go hand-in-hand. He’s aggressive because he’s strong and fit and aggression promotes his genes being spread.

I like his look.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Coons learn where they roost and owls too and will start picking them off out of the trees.

But after that happens it seems like a year will pass before it happens again. I still have the one rooster sleeping in the trees (but maybe he has a really good spot). I have bamboo and it might be harder for ground-based predators to figure out how to get up them to the right spot.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I don’t ever lose birds off the tree-roosts at night. I once, years ago, found a dead cockerel under a tree I thought an owl may have took off the roost. That’s it.

I have about 40 tree-roosting now. Most in oak trees in the farm yard. A few a lot further out.

I’m in the deep woods in a high-predator environment. Yet mammalian predators won’t come close to the homestead, except that coyotes will sometimes try to slip downwind of my dogs. Owls hunt around but don’t mess with the chickens.

What sort of dogs are ya’ll running on your homesteads?

No dogs at all here. I keep the dog-proof raccoon traps out and catch them almost constantly. Sometimes get opossums and skunks in those traps but not often. Coyotes come through (bobcats too) but the main pasture is behind 2”x4” wire (might slightly slow the predators down) and there is a donkey in there. Not sure exactly how much of a deterrent she is but probably at least a little.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

His rooster-on-rooster aggression and his good survival skills go hand-in-hand. He’s aggressive because he’s strong and fit and aggression promotes his genes being spread.

I like his look.

How a looks are a little stronger in the Asian Game direction so must have a little more O Shamo in him than the others. I was hoping the Ceylon Jungle Fowl blood might temper his aggression a bit towards other roosters but he’s also got Grey Jungle Fowl and probably 10 other breeds mixed in there. Ceylon males are supposed to tolerate each other.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

What is he?

The Asian Game aspect comes from O Shamo but there are at least 10 other breeds in the mix as well as Ceylon Jungle Fowl and Grey Jungle Fowl.

 

[NagemTX]

I don’t ever lose birds off the tree-roosts at night. I once, years ago, found a dead cockerel under a tree I thought an owl may have took off the roost. That’s it.

I have about 40 tree-roosting now. Most in oak trees in the farm yard. A few a lot further out.

I’m in the deep woods in a high-predator environment. Yet mammalian predators won’t come close to the homestead, except that coyotes will sometimes try to slip downwind of my dogs. Owls hunt around but don’t mess with the chickens.

What sort of dogs are ya’ll running on your homesteads?

I do lose less from the trees but still to many for me to leave them out at night.Great horned owls are what was taking mine and a few coons that where just plain smart.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Dogs, dogs, dogs. Its all about dogs. Predators don’t like the possibility of being ambushed by our domesticated grey wolves that we call “dogs.” Dogs keep the predators hazed and wary.

Then its up to the chickens to avoid the spooked, nervous, predators that brave the farmyard. Ain’t no local coon, fox, or bobcat brave enough to linger and try different noisy techniques at catching my chickens in trees.

I do think chicken biology plays a roll. They live in the wild, roosting in trees, in places that have analogues to North American predators that can hunt in trees at night. Wild chickens don’t get wiped out. Just as wild turkeys don’t. I notice that when mine roost in the deep woods, they roost much higher and on thinner branches than they do in the farmyard.

But the bigger factor is having some territorial dogs that sleep outside at night.

 

[NagemTX]

Dogs, dogs, dogs. Its all about dogs. Predators don’t like the possibility of being ambushed by our domesticated grey wolves that we call “dogs.” Dogs keep the predators hazed and wary.

Then its up to the chickens to avoid the spooked, nervous, predators that brave the farmyard. Ain’t no local coon, fox, or bobcat brave enough to linger and try different noisy techniques at catching my chickens in trees.

I do think chicken biology plays a roll. They live in the wild, roosting in trees, in places that have analogues to North American predators that can hunt in trees at night. Wild chickens don’t get wiped out. Just as wild turkeys don’t. I notice that when mine roost in the deep woods, they roost much higher and on thinner branches than they do in the farmyard.

But the bigger factor is having some territorial dogs that sleep outside at night.

Once we get moved I plan on having a dog for that reason.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Dogs, dogs, dogs. Its all about dogs. Predators don’t like the possibility of being ambushed by our domesticated grey wolves that we call “dogs.” Dogs keep the predators hazed and wary.

Then its up to the chickens to avoid the spooked, nervous, predators that brave the farmyard. Ain’t no local coon, fox, or bobcat brave enough to linger and try different noisy techniques at catching my chickens in trees.

I do think chicken biology plays a roll. They live in the wild, roosting in trees, in places that have analogues to North American predators that can hunt in trees at night. Wild chickens don’t get wiped out. Just as wild turkeys don’t. I notice that when mine roost in the deep woods, they roost much higher and on thinner branches than they do in the farmyard.

But the bigger factor is having some territorial dogs that sleep outside at night.

Yeah…my neighbor has a bunch of dogs that don’t bother his chickens and he never loses any chickens to predators (not close enough that his dogs would affect the predators at my place). I don’t have a job that would let me have a dog as my wife and I both travel for a living (both flight attendants). We are gone 3 days a week almost every week. I’m much more of a cat person anyway. Cats might miss you a bit when you are gone but dogs are pack animals and YOU are part of their pack so when you are gone they really get traumatized. Anyway, for the most part I only lose the extra roosters. The free-range hens and dominant rooster sleep in the barn and have to fly over the stall door to get in. Perches are decently off the ground. I actually am surprised that I’ve never had a predator get in there and wipe them out but the donkey must be a bit of a deterrent. All the birds in my breeding project are penned up and after trial and error most of the spots where a raccoon paw could reach through have been patched in a way to prevent losses. Strangely the birds in pens in the woods seem to attract the owls the most and it seems like I’ll catch owls trying in vain to get the penned up birds in the woods while they’d maybe have a chance of getting the free-range birds if they didn’t mind venturing out of the woods a bit. I have hawks fly over all the time but the chickens seem really good at hiding in the brush and the hawks just keep on going.