Glad she's eating something... would she eat canned tripe?
@Peep_Show I like the way you think.. Wouldn't a 500-700g egg be a dead give away compared to an 80g duck egg? :rofl: I could sneak 3 or 4 babies in when hatching turkeys... and then just separate a couple "baby turkeys" aka emus. You know what I mean.
Emus grow so quickly in the first few months, DH would get suspicious very quickly, I think he needs to know before I get them.
@CanuckBock that's a big post, I will have to read that one again. I love your enclosures! Very pretty! You keep mostly breeding sized flocks, am I correct?
We live in an area where both lynx and bobcat overlap--one clue as to which is which is that Lynx got the black tail tip, Bobcat got the black with white tip.
Snowshoe hares have taken up residence here on our patch of dirt coupla years back (left my veg garden alone...pondered if they would help themselves but didn't)...
Love the transition the hares go thru - we had two here...
Jan 27 2014
Apr 4 2014
Apr 20 2014
And this year...family of five grouse (mom, four not so babes and a male that was drumming up a storm) came calling and are hanging about...rabbits and grouse are all great small natural cat fodder.
Nov 16, 2015 - I am getting the "get lost already" gooky stink eye...
One cannot ponder why predators come hanging around when their wild prey resides here. That would be ludicrous to think, only wild prey and nothing to keep them down to a healthy population, eh. Prey brings in the predators and that meant we would need to be over the top diligent if we wanted our domestics and wild contained species to live into old age for us. I would hate hate to go out and find carnage here. Ruin the hobby for me and Rick.
I never cease to adore how camo these prey species can be.
Blending...ever so well into the backgrounds - lookin like wallpaper for a spruce tree, eh!
Mountain lion or cougars are a fall item for us...following the elk that migrate and the young cubs are being left to sort things out on their own, so wander thru the valley looking for their own stake out. You can hear them screaming at night...pretty unnerving noise and when you realize it belongs to a big cat that is learning its skills, even more so scary. I usually call our neighbours and give them a heads up because they have a Rotti that is out and about and big cats adore domestic dog (and house cats) on the menu--easy meals compared to wild more wary prey.
Not saying stucco won't work for some, as some may never have a bird like a pheasant that does the burst and then hurles into their pen wire. I suspect the female (she was a Jumbo White pheasant) being she was new here, hurled herself into the stucco wire and that's how she busted an eye. Major gross and a risky infection to survive.
We went with hardware cloth because it was applicable to all the species we keep and to think you are only EVER going to keep one type of bird in one building furever and ever means you never alter things. I have had ducks in one pen that was then followed by landfowl like turks or chooks and reverse. Rather build for the most sensitive ones and then I can shuffle whatever whenever the mood hits me without thinking..."Oh yeh, the wire in that area is not nice to ducks, etc." Allows me to be bimboee and make plans to follow thru without the facilities being my limiting factor. Drifting from one place to the other, mostly have idiot funs.
Summer
First chook coop we built here - the Coop fur Sure mimics a prairie grain elevator (another dying out landmark), tenplast on the outdoor run (roof and sides in winter) allowed alot of light in...so much so it was almost like a greenhouse. But this plastic product will eventually become brittle, sunlight harming it and once brittle...the hail we get can and have received since 1998 has punched holes in tenplast roofs...we redid my greenhouse roof to coloured metal too. Every building material has its good and bads...wading thru the choices on what works in yer own backyard is just part of the challenging fun to be had.
Winter
I have raised chickens in horrid conditions...WEsT Coast, seiner netted outdoor run and it was wretched. You had no control over the moisture and found my chickens residing in putrid mud with me unable to change it feasibly. Kinda a pet peeve of mine that I would never endure those conditions to raise birds and we have ensured all runs have metal (last tenplast one was metalled this summer) roofs and river sand in the runs seems to be alot more enjoyable all round.
Off with tenplast...
Luxurious but sure makes the hobby much more enjoyable being able to keep snow, rain, ice outta the outdoor area.
No more roof worries...sun shining or baseball sized hail? Bring it on, eh!
Waz to sweat about...we knew we were gonna hafta step up or feed our beloveds to all that live here. All sorts of winged prey (herons, cranes, eagles, owls, hawks, members of the crow family), four footed furred ones from grizzlies, black bear, cougar, the lynx/bobcats, wolves, coyotes, fishers/marten, to skunks, weasels, foxes, even reptiles like garter snakes...I do agree tho the house cats and the dogs running loose were more the reason we triple fenced and diligently do head counts and tucky tuck the yard birds away before dark if they have not put themselves away. The friendly lap pets are the most likely to kill for sheer pleasure of indulging their wild ancestral tendencies.
Here since 1998 and lost only one critter to predator. Old retired yard hen, bantam Dark Brahma harvest by one of the many owls we really happily have here keeping the mice populations down for us. After years of head counts I got complacent and when this hen stayed out instead of going inside the Coop fur Sure...found a pile of feathers and her beak under a spruce tree the next morn. Eaten by an owl during the night. My fault for not staying dutiful and why I count heads before locking the run door every night they are out and about for the day time when the season and weather is nice. No ruminants or poultry taken otherwise and we live in the thick of the wilds of the wilderness. Beauty place to be but not without costs.
Ah yes, I remember rats making tunnels on the inside of what my father made for our second coop when we moved. He never bothered to finish the inside, pink insulation with plastic on the walls...spent many a horror with the corn broom handle, chasing the ratz that built connective tunnels in the walls around. Ack...having a half full water bucket also became a rat trap of sorts, which I find mystifying because there was no shortage of supplies of water on the Coast where it rained for 90 days straight in the winter. Oh well...floating dead rats, live ones weaving thru the walls <<shudder>>, me no miss that. Mice are nice...ratz, not so much...
Hey Woman!
We have some five types of owls when we showed up here in residence--brought home our first poultry and found an owl sitting attop our temporary pens...we knew right off we were gonna be in for a testing. Course with the perfect conditions we set up by providing fluid water, feed and deep oat straw bedding...tons of mice including new genetics brought in when we trailer in a load of squares of straw or hay.
MMMM...alfalfa leaves galore...what could that attract eh?
Use to find it totally hilarious how when I let the dogs out to join us stowing away the bedding and hay, how them dogs would sniff out the mice and see them baling off fast like and running to the outbuildings to join the others that plague us.
Not jest a load of square oat straw...new rodents too!
Oh well...
Here come the inspection crew.
Hmm...no vermin in this square...how about the next one...??? <<snork snork>>
Since we have now brought in both rounds in straw and hay (got tractor, got freedom to get either squares or big rounds)...there are far less hidy places for new mice genetics to be transferred on in...will that mean a more inbred and less thriving mouse gene pool...one may only hope, eh but I bet falsely hoping.
On Van Isle...never had coyotes...that was a new predator but we have had no issues with our population and a healthy one it is (OK, in numbers perhaps...some of the 'yotes here are infected with Parvo and Mange...icrumba...poor beasts! Just means if you vac yer dogs, you are not wasting the efforts!). In fact, we brought in the new millennium listening to the pack of coyotes howling it up right before the midnight fireworks started up. I prefer the wild song celebrations far over the human boom bang rackette kinds.
Possum is one I know not much about...'coons are in Calgary (city) so even tho we figured that frozen water would keep them at bay (like to wash their eats), I guess in that southern city, they are making a home of it. Like the ravens, super adaptable and thriving in our human made environments. Our fault if we get plagued by them using us to succeed.
Setty Red Golden hen gettin' puffy at my close proximity to her and her eggers!
Pheasants are beau...
Two plus year old male Red Goldens
Trick with pheasants is to have a very secure well contained area for them...live long, prosper, eat very little, crap little too, pen of all boys gets on well but if you mix genders, can be rather aggressive (sorta like chickens in that aspect), there are huge kinds of pheasants some difficult to rear and others much easier...many of the pheasant species don't need supplemental heat in our severe winters...if you like or think you'd like some, read my article on my website on "Keeping Pheasants" (published front cover of the Feather Fancier back in March 2009) for pros and cons and tips on which species to start with.
I think the best SIRPRIZE I got in the predator department was when Rick and I were building on the perimeter around the Taj...I needed him to do the posts around the perimeter so I could continue to put down gravel topped with limerock.
Taj Mahal for Mandarin Ducks was completed in 2010
happy sassy duck ducks
We drug our feets on the perimeter completion tho
Perimeter done like dinner now
Not a long job but long enough we stopped for a break to have coffees and goodies. He is sitting thar, I come round the corner and there I see a weasel in half and half coat (not pure white and not in summer coat) and I stop dead. If one does have a weasel, well I can profess you don't or won't know it unless they go rouge and start harvesting yer birds for you. Thankfully we have a plentiful replenishable resource for them...MICE...lotsa free loading vermin. Only time I have heard weasels going to poultry is when the snow is so deep they cannot get mice. At least that is the rule so far...rules keep altering.
I made a vested effort to click some pics of some of the sorts of wire we have here and will post that here for Deb to peruse.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Taj Mahal ohh I likey! I think I would made something more along those lines.....looking back but the egghouse is super easy to clean with mostly just wheel barreling in and out n scraping into it...
Glad she's eating something... would she eat canned tripe?
@Peep_Show I like the way you think.. Wouldn't a 500-700g egg be a dead give away compared to an 80g duck egg? :rofl: I could sneak 3 or 4 babies in when hatching turkeys... and then just separate a couple "baby turkeys" aka emus. You know what I mean.
Emus grow so quickly in the first few months, DH would get suspicious very quickly, I think he needs to know before I get them.
@CanuckBock that's a big post, I will have to read that one again. I love your enclosures! Very pretty! You keep mostly breeding sized flocks, am I correct?
Deb, still, might be a good place to pick up slightly damaged panels... nothing a bit of welding or a strategically placed waterer or feeder wouldn't fix.
I actually have more than I need. Just love shoppin.... but I guarantee you there would be no such panels available at that place.
1stt cage was 3 x 4 x 6 Which is (2 panels) 3 x 4, (2 panels) 4 x 6, (1 panels) 3 x 6, (1 panels) 3 x 6 with door
2nd cage was 6 x 6 x 6 Which is (5 panels) 6 x 6, (1 panels) 6 x 6 with door
Air lock was 6 x 4 x 6 Which is (1 panels) 4 x 6, (4 panels) 6 x 6
Battery cage was 6 x 6 x 12 (12 panels) 4 x 6, (5 panels) 6 x 6, (4 panels) 4 x 6 with door
cat cage additional panels (2 panels) 6 x 6
The panels are easy to cut with a right angle grinder or saws all. The shopping part gives me ideas for configuration. I cant use the panels with human access doors ... um er for this human access so I will have Nine of those panels that will have doors and to re-purpose. the batery cage has some rust so I have to determine the best use of those cage panels. Most likely paint with rust inibitor then paint black
There is a pair of two yr old emu near me for $350, wife said no... Could have got a breeding set of five cemanis near me recently for $500, wife said no.... :-(
Just when you think you have all the predators covered, another one shows up, right?
We do have bears here, but thankfully they haven't come onto the property yet. Right now they should be sleeping anyway.
@CanuckBock those are pretty pheasants!
I am looking at ostrich or emus,
call me crazy. There is an Emu farm not too far from where we are moving too. Prices seem reasonable too. They want $100 for 1-3 day old babies. How do I convince hubby?
Just be aware Ostridges and Emus take housing much like horses. And they can be dangerous. Some education on your part with regard to handling feeding and housing would be beneficial. But that being said those eggs are worth a fortune EMPTY. Especially Emu. They are black or green and lend them selves to beautiful carving. Shells are layed down in colored layers the more you grind off the color changes from black to white.....
OK...here's a WIRED post for Deb...so pic to begin...well uh, a wire post...LMBO
fourteen gauge, knotted wire...forget but think it is like fourteen wires across...
Scookum wire and this is what is around me veg garden. Love it...thick wire, knotted joints, small spaces at bottom, BUT this is like a buffalo game fence...page wire and good as a starting point. Our property is fenced in this, that is one fence...then we added another page wire, 9 gauge but closer wires vertical (Fixins could turn head sideways and dive thru the first wire--agh), then third perimeter wire is combo panel, stepped back and this hog wire or stationary wire IS the piece de resistance that keeps them ACDs fully contained, if'n they don't climb it that is. AGH!
Knotted wire joints...naughty naught...but these are not welds and these joints stay tied!
Issue with above wire...she is FOB at hardware store half hour away at $1,500 a roll for about 300 feet. Pricey, perhaps but I fenced once and she will last past me.
Welded wire combo panels, 16 feet sections around the portable pipe corrals...or these two hoonds would be eating sheep, goat, and llama beans to throwing up status. Who needs a 'yote to test entry to sheep corrals when we got these to chore pups.
Where we started with poultry wire was knowing chicken wire sucked crap...barely keeps chooks in so 'yotes and anything & everything else woulda coulda breezed thru it.
Stucco wire, busted eye on pheasant hen...not so great!
Now no hiding it but I do still have a patch of chook wire AND stucco wire...stucco on outside of it...but we do have the doors all made, painted and ready plus the concept that me no bonky the head going in and outta the doors (started with horse wire that meant it was not tall enough...likey the hardware cloth because you have like a three feet wide opening and can go up and up...me like doors at minimum six feet tall, please!).
What we call "horse wire" here is something Rick made a ton of portable panels with which ended up utilize in many, many bird runs...my issue with it, where the wire is rung round, it has sharp pointies and I am forever nicking my fingers on it. OUCH and blah.
Horse wire covered panels with hardware cloth up first three feet.
Again, horse wire with hardware cloth...timbers on pier blocks for corners...heavy duty lasting pens.
Hardware cloth...cut it to size and it has sharp edges too...a drywall screw with washer on head...simple to affix hardware cloth to painted 2x4 structures.
Me love hardware cloth over all other wires for birds...
Lookit the unobscured view into the pheasant cabin!
Like there is NO wire on these pens...no wonder the hawk dived and hit it, eh!
All around the bird yard, hardware cloth run on our post and rail fence...slows down anything in the daytime going thru the yard.
Chain link dog kennel that keeps four extra turks in. Not the most ideal situation but completely portable. The tarp could be breeched by an owl's talons but thus far, OK. We have an old portable canopy pipe roof that is to be installed, should we get time this year. Stop me from having to toss snow off the roof. I do know this setup could be breached and if I lose the four turks to predator, totally could have been avoided and MY fault. Note hardware cloth affixed to chain link so no bird stick head thru and get it lopped off by predator!
Sheep Ewe barn...
Cougar proof welded wire slotted into open (air movement) windows
Tenplast is a good product to put up over wire...on the roof thar of the Taj (last bird building built that I will ever now need!), Rick hardware wired her on the underside and then put tenplast on roof...double insurance them fast flighted Mandarins will not breach containment even if hail came and busted holes in the roof which has not quite yet.
Off the puter to go have lunch with the hub who gets to come home early today...eh!
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Thank you Tara... The horse wire will be only for Goat containment fence. I have more than enough cage wire for the poultry house and then some
I may use cattle panels for fencing around the house. Remember I work from essentially a wheel chair. The Aviary panels are heavier wire than horse wire and they stand up by themselves. A Plus when I have to do the work.
I may forego the horse wire all together If I find the cattle panels easier to work with.
deb
There is a pair of two yr old emu near me for $350, wife said no... Could have got a breeding set of five cemanis near me recently for $500, wife said no.... :-(
There is a pair of two yr old emu near me for $350, wife said no... Could have got a breeding set of five cemanis near me recently for $500, wife said no.... :-(
BC we have a deal, if I buy more birds, DH is allowed more tools. I think you and your wife could make a similar deal "you buy chickens or emus, wife gets jewellery". or something else she's always wanted.
Honestly I wouldn't have passed up those emus at that price. The farm I am looking at sells them butcher ready for $500 each.
Buy them for me and ship them up?
@perchie.girl @CanuckBock I like the bison fencing too, we did our 4 acres with it. Those big heavy rolls where a pain in the you know what through the bush... of course we fenced in before sheep. 4 sheep and 3 years later it would have been a breeze... only if one could keep livestock without fences. Haha (well, they do and I have seen it in other countries where the animal gets tied out but that's not doable when you would be feeding bears and coyotes and wolves)
