Feral chickens...

[WallTenters]

I think unless you had a tracking dog, your odds of finding a hen's nest are extremely slim to none. I can't even find my Dominique hens when we lived in the wall tent, they were laying eggs under the blackberry vines and would have twenty eggs in a nest before I'd find it. Often, about three inches from a walk path I'd go on many times a day! There they were, camo'd up and happy go lucky to be on those eggs. Thankfully I finally thought of teaching one of our labradors "get the eggs" and she sniffed out the nests for me! Thank god for smart dogs!

Who knows how many eggs we left their still, there may even be a hen back there now, a wild decendant of our Doms!

 

[dttey]

okay funny story. i just caught a wild chicken today. it looks like a Rhode Island Red. there was a young adult female and rooster with her too but they hung around after she was caught. i caught her by putting oats in a dog cage. i had fishing wire tied to the front door and was going to close it once they had started to eat and get comfy. i had left it out all day and would look out every 20 minutes or so to see if they had come by and when i looked out, i see my goat, missy, standing next to the cage with the female in it. my goat had snagged onto the line and closed her in there. so technically the goat caught the chicken...but i have a coop already that im just going to fix up a little more. but i live on Hawaii so there are no natural predators to the chickens so shes okay in her big dog crate for one night. i have no clue if this helps at all. we have never owned chickens before but were starting off with some wild ones!!

 

[ChicKat]

Amazing that they can thrive since the '80's, with no human intervention.

Key West has a large feral chicken population and someone on the BYC forum has some of the Key West chickens...but because the human population is so dense there, and they probably aren't hunted, I suspect that Key West chickens are less fearful of humans. The topic came up in a thread discussion of breeding chickens for disease resistance. (such as Marek's)

Sometimes a wild creature doesn't do too well in captivity--- So some method to replicate their current conditions may be more conducive to having them thrive.

I would also think that a very large trap could be one way to capture some... (maybe the only way) but it would have to be closely monitored with a game cam...because otherwise it would be an open invitation to predators.

Please keep us informed on how the progress goes..... I'm subscribing.

Thanks.

 

[cgmccary]

This bantam OEG hen was feral and living in an office park. Employees would throw food to her during lunch. There weren't any backyard chickens around so I am not sure how she got there. A friend asked me to come and catch her as he was afraid she was going to get hit by a car. I found her nest in the central air conditioning unit of the main building. It took several of us to corner and catch her (she can fly well) & I had to make more than one trip as I could not find her roost site. That was in 2007, and I still have her. She hatched & raised several broods for me but best I can tell, she is no longer laying. She is slower & tamer now days too.

On Kauai, Hawaii, there are feral chickens. I snapped this picture of some:

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
They cant catch them because they don't know how too.

If they would put out a good, healthy rooster in a 4 foot by 4 foot cage they could catch all the rooster they wanted as soon as the rooster in the cage crows..


Chris

 

[jak2002003]

It will be quite easy to do as you say. You just need to catch a few adults. Then when they are laying eggs, put the eggs under a domesticated broody hen to hatch - or use in incubator.

I live in northern Thailand and we have many wild Jungle Fowl in the forests around my home. Its common for people to capture them and raise the chick under their normal hens. The problem is they might look beautiful, but they don't lay many eggs..... they have a set breeding season each year. They will only lay about 10 eggs each year, and the birds don't have much meat on them if you want to eat them!

Also the behaviour to avoid predators is learned by the chicks from the wild hen. So when they are raised by a domestic hen, they will loose much of this behaviour.

 

[koolkyle08]

We have feral chickens in Zephyrhills FL ( the city officials call them "nuisance" chickens...) I see them while driving through the city streets .... they look to be brown leghorns.. ( from time spent googling pics and comparing them to one I snapped. people say they have "always been here". I did a little research and found that when the city began (early 1900's) there was a man who was an avian scientist of sorts who raised them.... can't help but wonder if 100 years later that is what is still running around the streets of the small town I grew up in. Maybe I'm the odd one .... but I find it ... I don't know... silly that they call them a nuisance.... I can't help but wonder if for every 10 blocks or so a coop was built and scratch put out they may start to nest and TAHDAHHHH free eggs.... I'm a beginner chicken fan so maybe it would not be so simple. Still I am amazed at how people would rather buy the eggs at the grocery store than use the resources that are running through the streets "wild" LOL

 

[ChicKat]

I love your theory..... it is kind of like it would be convenient if every resident just -- gathered their eggs each day.

Any livestock that is 'out of control' can be a nuisance. People don't like rooster crows early in the morning, chickens leave droppings in unwanted locations, it could be that these chickens have some diseases, and roosters can be mean to little people and pets, chickens can tear up and destroy gardens too. I know that someone had 'domesticated' some feral chickens from Key West - and said they were the healthiest and most disease free chickens they had ever had.

Sounds like if no one cares for the feral chickens, they care for themselves....and IMO they could be descedents of the ones that were raised there 100-years ago. It is an interesting idea. I also think that species 'revert' when they aren't in a breeding program...I guess the ancestor of the chicken is the wild jungle fowl...maybe these chickens are similar to jungle fowl.

Post back if anyone pursues the domestication of the wild chickens in your area...and how it goes.... Sounds like you have a nice flock in the brooder though, and you probably would want to keep the wild chickens away from your domestic ones.

 

[koolkyle08]

Yes I think you're right I'm just always hoping for the"win win" situation in things. and an animal lover at that so I figure usually animals have been on an area longer than people and always hope to Co exist peacefully, but I also have a five year old little boy that if any creature human or animal intended to harm they would probably be very sorry....so I get it. But I do found it interesting that maybe they came from that mans strain of birds 100 years ago

 

[koolkyle08]

Ugh. All the typos. Doing this from my phone makes me seem illiterate.