Oh dear. You have a whole family! Inspired by you I have cameras on order. I hope they get here before I have to travel as I want to watch the chickens while I am away. Apparently it has a voice mode so I can talk to them even if I am not there. Feels a bit creepy TBH.
I had spent hours researching and asking friends and not found what looked right for me, and then I asked you and you mentioned Arlo which had not come up in any of my research (go figure!). Arlo looked perfect (expensive, but perfect). So I splashed out and got 3 of them and the base station. I don't really have a home security system so I am thinking if I use one for the front of the house and two for the chickens I might impress the insurance people enough to get a discount! But really I am just treating myself. The whole Chicken Palace project is one big 'just for me' treat to help me psychologically ease into the next big birthday, impending retirement etc. I feel it is time to focus on me a little and me really means the garden and the chickens!
I have Orpingtons mostly and I have had a couple hens be bare backed from overmating when it was 1 rooster to 11 hens. That will be my next hurdle with these cockerels. If they want to live with the girls, that can't happen.I'm never quite sure what people mean by overmating. As long as there is minimal feather damage to the hen and the rooster doesn't die of exhaustion they can do it as often as they like.
Part of the problem with high production hens is they lay lots of eggs that all need fertilizing in both the hens and roosters eyes. Given jungle fowl may only lay 30 eggs in a season and want to sit on most of them so called overmating isn't a problem.
If we humans stopped trying to squeeze too many eggs out of the poor hens this is one problem that would diminish. When the hens here are not in lay, they don't get bothered by the roosters. Nobody on the mountain where I live complains about over mating. Part of this is the chickens are free range and the hen can escape if necessary and they tend not to keep the high production breeds.
So, no, properly kept chickens of the 'right' breeds with a rooster of that breed so the sizes are right seems to stop the problem.
Most feral chickens and jungle fowl can manage 1:1 and say 1:3or 4 ratios very well.
Oh no... a family of skunks? You need to do something with the perimeter fence to keep them out.
Thank you!Beautiful ladies
Eeeeeeee, so cute!! Catch and keep it!
My dad actually befriended two skunks when he was a kid. One day, in their little town, my grandma got a call from the sheriff saying to come pick him and his skunks up. He was playing with them in the town square and people were afraid to walk past them.Eeeeeeee, so cute!! Catch and keep it!
That sounds like a good plan! Now that 4 of my kids are grown and my youngest is 16... I keep getting more and more animals ( I guess they are replacements)... hubby thinks I’m nuts
