- Sep 1, 2008
- 32
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Six years of chickens and never had this problem before.
1. a racoon killed "Mama" so I kept the other 4 in the fenced run until I could trap it. I can't trap it!! The little bugger won't go in the trap, and he's still around because I've seen him. My aged Rottweiler is no longer able to scare him away and she's depressed and barking at him half the night. My free range chickens have been in the run for 2 months now.
2. my chickies HATE being kept to the run, even though it's supposedly big enough - 15 X 30. Record heat waves in Seattle area, they're panting even though they have shade. I'm feeding them lettuce and small amounts of cat food but it's not the same as plants and bugs. (I'm also giving them chick feed, layer feed and birdseed, but they tell me it's a poor excuse for food)
3. My Dorchester crawls out from under the coop with 6 chicks. The chicks get out of the kennel wire run & the big guys peck them, so I set up a special area with small bore chicken wire. Mama raises them there until they're big enough not to escape through the fence and I take down the boundary. But then she abandons them when they get to the scruffy stage and pecks them like the other two hens do. They have to run from all the big guys, including Mom.
4. Meanwhile she's never taken them into the coop so they're afraid to go in where they'll have to live when winter comes.
5. Of the 6 babies I'm pretty sure I have 2 roosters, already fighting with each other (they're half adult size now, teenagers). Since I already have their Dad, I can't keep them and I don't want to send them to their deaths just because they're the wrong sex.
6. And Mom is under the coop again!! She's sitting!!
So we have a free range flock that's penned up, too many roosters and probably more to come, babies afraid to enter the coop, and a racoon I can't get rid of so the flock can range again.
We're not happy! Help!!
1. a racoon killed "Mama" so I kept the other 4 in the fenced run until I could trap it. I can't trap it!! The little bugger won't go in the trap, and he's still around because I've seen him. My aged Rottweiler is no longer able to scare him away and she's depressed and barking at him half the night. My free range chickens have been in the run for 2 months now.
2. my chickies HATE being kept to the run, even though it's supposedly big enough - 15 X 30. Record heat waves in Seattle area, they're panting even though they have shade. I'm feeding them lettuce and small amounts of cat food but it's not the same as plants and bugs. (I'm also giving them chick feed, layer feed and birdseed, but they tell me it's a poor excuse for food)
3. My Dorchester crawls out from under the coop with 6 chicks. The chicks get out of the kennel wire run & the big guys peck them, so I set up a special area with small bore chicken wire. Mama raises them there until they're big enough not to escape through the fence and I take down the boundary. But then she abandons them when they get to the scruffy stage and pecks them like the other two hens do. They have to run from all the big guys, including Mom.
4. Meanwhile she's never taken them into the coop so they're afraid to go in where they'll have to live when winter comes.
5. Of the 6 babies I'm pretty sure I have 2 roosters, already fighting with each other (they're half adult size now, teenagers). Since I already have their Dad, I can't keep them and I don't want to send them to their deaths just because they're the wrong sex.
6. And Mom is under the coop again!! She's sitting!!
So we have a free range flock that's penned up, too many roosters and probably more to come, babies afraid to enter the coop, and a racoon I can't get rid of so the flock can range again.
We're not happy! Help!!
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