Eastern Tennessee Thread

[tnchickenut]

tnchickenut or Grawg

Are either of you going to the Newport show/sale?


Edited to ask: Do you use the same bedding/feed in all different stages?

I will be going... I also make tiny starter kits to sell. So in other words, most likely can spare some.

 

[KristyHall]

Tibetans especially...but all the Mastifs are fine if trained well with the flock they are protecting. You just have to start them very early with the flock so you can spot any prey drive that needs to be taken care of. Of course this is with any LGD. My step father has a male and female GP and although both his are as good as you would expect the most popular LGD to be, his neighbors had to be gotten rid of due to a high prey drive. It can happen to any breed. I have a German Shepherd and have owned 4 plus a Belgian in my life I love the breed. My current one is a bigger baby than any I have owned, but his prey drive is too high to leave him out there with the chickens unattended. Since we rescued him at 5 months of age..it was already too late to train it out of him since prey drive is a very deeply imbedded trait. If he sees danger he will ignore the chickens and eliminate the threat though, LOL So picking up a rescue no matter what breed is not a wise idea for a LGD. They really need to be out with the flock socializing and bonding by 8 weeks of age IMO. If we needed an LGD, I would probably look at an Anatolian or a Komondor (if I could find one)...but that is really just a matter of what I like.

Thank you for the advice

 

[Contrastphoto]

I bought about 24 mealworms from walmart to start a mealworm "farm" last fall. I have them in the my closet.... They don't seem to reproduce very fast. I might have 2000 now, and I haven't harvested them. Am I not feeding them enough or do I need to give them more light? ? I have oatmeal in there and veggies... any ideas on how to make the multiply faster?

 

[tnchickenut]

I bought about 24 mealworms from walmart to start a mealworm "farm" last fall. I have them in the my closet.... They don't seem to reproduce very fast. I might have 2000 now, and I haven't harvested them. Am I not feeding them enough or do I need to give them more light? ? I have oatmeal in there and veggies... any ideas on how to make the multiply faster?

If you only have one container, they are eatting the eggs and babies. Scroll back a page and look for my version of how you can do it.

 

[xChickiex]

Hey everyone now that I finally have a phone that will cooperate with this site I have a major predator problem. Went out to feed today and one of my d`anver hens and tipped over a large cage. She has large single claw mark across her side that pretty much seems to have torn all the feathers off in that spot. My fiancé thinks it was during the middle of the day and a large car because the cage itself was five foot up. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to safely stop it from coming back.

 

[tnchickenut]

Hey everyone now that I finally have a phone that will cooperate with this site I have a major predator problem. Went out to feed today and one of my d`anver hens and tipped over a large cage. She has large single claw mark across her side that pretty much seems to have torn all the feathers off in that spot. My fiancé thinks it was during the middle of the day and a large car because the cage itself was five foot up. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to safely stop it from coming back.

If it reached through a cage, my money is on oppossum or raccoon. Plus they pick up this time of year. Plus dispite what people believe, they don't care what time of the day it is when they are really hungry. (though they are alot more active at night)

So, I would set live traps. People swear by honey buns but the best thing that ever has worked for me (even caught red fox with this) is chicken. Call me crazy but when you are fishing you use the bait they naturally go after, same with these critters. Get some chicken meat, take some feathers and put it on there and wait. Try not to catch your own cats, though.

There is also a product (and there are different versions) I think one is called "Night Guard" that flashes a red light at night making preditors think they are being watched. I have had mixed experiences with mine, so you might want to ask around and get more reviews before laying down the money. But I have had kills right under them, and I have had other coops never get touched while the ones that didn't have those lights got torn apart. So take from that what you will.

Live traps are your best bet, though. You can also have the males in your life pee around the coop/woods near the coop/wherever you think the preditor is coming from. Sounds nuts but do a search on BYC and see - alot of people do it. Same with walking a big dog around there at dusk... you basicly want to smell the place up with THEIR preditors.

 

[tennesseeckn]

They say you have to move those lights around every couple of days for them to be effective. There's no way I'd remember to do that. I can barely remember the daily jobs!

My favorite anti-raccoon tools are hardware cloth and hot wire.

A raccoon made it into my main coop by crawling up the newly installed wood siding and sliding in under the eaves. It dove into the feed bins and didn't seem too interested in the birds, thankfully. We just ran hardware cloth across and haven't had to deal with them again (knock on wood).

 

[itsthelaw37801]

Our game camera is attached to a tree and has the red flashing light. It doesn't deter anything. As a matter of fact, when the animal sees it, they usually go up to the camera and get their photo taken. lol

 

[tnchickenut]

Yeah exactly. I had just bought those things and within two weeks I had lost my favorite duck of all time in a horrific way just 6 inches under the light!!! I took pics to send to the company and lost steam before I got around to doing it.

 

[stanglover2001]

http://knoxville.craigslist.org/grd/3375823021.html

This dude MUST be joking?!?! I'd back out of that sale too!! $2300 to make a coop big enough for like 2 chickens, and claims it'll hold 10! It is only 2 foot wide!!!!