FLORIDA!!!!!ALWAYS SUNNY SIDE UP!!!

[joannefiddler]

Anyone else experiencing higher than normal hawk attacks? I've lost 4 of 6 chicks that were hatched a month ago. Very disheartening. I witnessed one attack. Heard the mama hen scream and ran to see hawk flying off with chick. Mama tried to fly after the hawk and wound up in a huge bramble of wild blackberries. I see that Cooper's hawks migrate and perhaps that's why the losses are so high. This is the first time I've had biddies in the fall. I've only had one hawk attack prior to this and it was on an adolescent rooster about 6 months ago..hawk couldn't carry it, but killed it and ate half of it.

 

[Gingersnap722]

Anyone else experiencing higher than normal hawk attacks? I've lost 4 of 6 chicks that were hatched a month ago. Very disheartening. I witnessed one attack. Heard the mama hen scream and ran to see hawk flying off with chick. Mama tried to fly after the hawk and wound up in a huge bramble of wild blackberries. I see that Cooper's hawks migrate and perhaps that's why the losses are so high. This is the first time I've had biddies in the fall. I've only had one hawk attack prior to this and it was on an adolescent rooster about 6 months ago..hawk couldn't carry it, but killed it and ate half of it.

Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear that! I'm so paranoid about hawks (we have tons of them), that I make sure my little ones are in covered runs until they hit about 16 weeks, longer if they're on the smaller size. When I had a broody hen, I left her in a covered run with her babies until they were bigger. Is there any way you can do something like that?

 

[cmom]

Quote:
I had trouble with hawks during the day and owls at night. I put up a game camera to see what was killing my birds at night. I have electric all around the pens and coops and there was nothing digging under so I figured that whatever was killing my birds had to be going over the fences. I put up my game camera and saw an owl in progress. I completely covered my pens with netting I have 150' x 75' of netting on my outer pens which is attached to my coop. I have a couple of other coops with pens closer to my house which I covered also. So far since I covered them I have had no kills. I have some coops that are open on one side, my DH's design. The owl actually went into one and killed all but 2 of my adult girls and male in that coop. The birds were bloody and I moved them to another coop and pen. They were really freaked out.

The white line around the bottom of the fence is the electric. I have heard critters come in contact with it and when they do they don't come back for seconds.


This was taken after I moved the birds out and before I put the netting up over the pens.


These are the survivors from the owl attack after they were moved. They are Rose Comb Rhode Island Whites. They were all pretty bloody. The female in the middle had her comb torn up pretty bad. Here they have healed but the girls comb is stubby. Click on the image to make it larger.

 

[joannefiddler]

Thanks Cmom and Gingersnap. My coop is a converted horse stable, so inside they are secure. It would be virtually impossible to keep all 16 birds shut up in the coop all day...think they would riot. I have an attached yard that is pretty large (roughly 40'x50') with two huge evergreen tree/shrub things (I really should find out what they are!). The yard is fenced with 6 foot chicken wire on posts with 3 foot apron around the bottom to prevent dig unders. It is not covered however. The flock also free ranges the rest of the 2 acre property...until all this with losing the chicks started. All the losses have happened when they've been free ranging. I will be keeping them in the enclosed yard and hope that there is some safety in numbers and that perhaps the presence of Morty the rooster might help too. I can see on the migratory maps that the panhandle is a popular place for the Cooper's Hawks to winter (who can blame them!), so I guess until the babies are bigger I will restrict free ranging to the times I can be there to shepherd (chickherd?) them.

 

[Bean789]

I have a question on fodder seed. I am finding it at a distributor in Dade City but all in all, it is expensive and I really don't know yet if it is cost effective to grow and feed. Do any of you know of local farmers or distributors who sell 50 lb. bags at reasonable prices? I purchased cow peas, barley, oats, and white millet but it will take most of what I purchased to provide fodder for 2 weeks. I have read where others use wild bird seed but don't know about the black sunflower seeds softening enough for the girls to digest them. I purchased 5 lb bags, 10 lb bags, etc. Otherwise, it was $50 to $125 for 50 lb bags and that was the cheaper seeds.

 

[joannefiddler]

I was able to purchase wheat seed at my local feed store for 14.95 for a 50# bag. It was really quite easy to grow. I scrounged some free plastic trays from Wal-mart's garden center, lined the little square portions of the trays with newspaper, soaked the seed overnight, spread it on the trays and squirted water on them daily. In a week it was 1-2" high and then I gave it to the flock. They loved it.

 

[joannefiddler]

I had trouble with hawks during the day and owls at night. I put up a game camera to see what was killing my birds at night. I have electric all around the pens and coops and there was nothing digging under so I figured that whatever was killing my birds had to be going over the fences. I put up my game camera and saw an owl in progress. I completely covered my pens with netting I have 150' x 75' of netting on my outer pens which is attached to my coop. I have a couple of other coops with pens closer to my house which I covered also. So far since I covered them I have had no kills. I have some coops that are open on one side, my DH's design. The owl actually went into one and killed all but 2 of my adult girls and male in that coop. The birds were bloody and I moved them to another coop and pen. They were really freaked out.

The white line around the bottom of the fence is the electric. I have heard critters come in contact with it and when they do they don't come back for seconds.


This was taken after I moved the birds out and before I put the netting up over the pens.


These are the survivors from the owl attack after they were moved. They are Rose Comb Rhode Island Whites. They were all pretty bloody. The female in the middle had her comb torn up pretty bad. Here they have healed but the girls comb is stubby. Click on the image to make it larger.

Cmom...where did you get the netting that you used?

 

[cmom]

Quote: I looked all over and netting is expensive. I saw and bought it on eBay. I placed a bid for the maximum I wanted to spend and to my surprise I won the bid.

 

[Gingersnap722]

Thanks Cmom and Gingersnap. My coop is a converted horse stable, so inside they are secure. It would be virtually impossible to keep all 16 birds shut up in the coop all day...think they would riot. I have an attached yard that is pretty large (roughly 40'x50') with two huge evergreen tree/shrub things (I really should find out what they are!). The yard is fenced with 6 foot chicken wire on posts with 3 foot apron around the bottom to prevent dig unders. It is not covered however. The flock also free ranges the rest of the 2 acre property...until all this with losing the chicks started. All the losses have happened when they've been free ranging. I will be keeping them in the enclosed yard and hope that there is some safety in numbers and that perhaps the presence of Morty the rooster might help too. I can see on the migratory maps that the panhandle is a popular place for the Cooper's Hawks to winter (who can blame them!), so I guess until the babies are bigger I will restrict free ranging to the times I can be there to shepherd (chickherd?) them.

That's definitely what I would do, at least until they are bigger. Mine would go nuts if they were cooped up all day too, that's why we added the covered runs for the little ones.

 

[Runawaylobster]

The hatchery isn't in my house. I have a small apartment behind our garage supposedly for guest where I have the hatchery set up. If we do have guests there is a large door behind the couch so I can just slide everything into the garage area. We rarely have guests, but who said it didn't have to be a comfortable place? lol. My DH doesn't allow it in the house. We built the apartment about 15 years ago so nothing happened over night. The first time I hatched, I borrowed a friends Styrofoam incubator. My first hatch wasn't the greatest. Only about 60% of the eggs hatched. It wasn't long after that I bought my own Styrofoam incubator and over the years I would get another then another then another and so on before I bought a cabinet incubator then I bought a 2nd cabinet incubator. My husband told me I was getting out of control and I was so I sold one of the cabinets.

I use my cabinet for incubate and hatch on a 3 weekly schedule. It's rare that i do fill a full 1 weeks shelf but I do find that a full shelf makes it really tight in the hatching tray especially since i
put mine in little mesh boxes to separate my projects. Haven't broken down and got out the styrofoam LG to hatch yet but i'm thinking maybe this spring I will. I went nuts last year and had way too many chicks so this year I am restricting myself to just move forward my Marans projects, and keep a few blue egg layers around just for fun, thats it!!!