Icelandic Chickens

[Camelot Farms]

Jokull is a hero!!

This morning I had just stepped out of the shower when I heard Jokull make a new noise. I looked out the window and saw our ducks all on the pond wall holding deathly still.
Then I see Jokull and 2 of my free range LF hens come whipping out of the barn followed by a humongous fox. Unusually large in fact. I banged on the window and finally after 3 solid whacks managed to get the fox's attention. He pulls up short from the chase and turns to the side. Jokull and the hens are out of range and I assume on the patio on the other side of the house.

I continue to bang on the window til the fox completely turns and heads off into the pasture. Of course no one else is awake. I have just stepped out of the shower and am dripping wet. I manage to get 17yrold DS to wake up (yep, he was thrilled) and he headed to the barn to make sure there were no injuries and that the fox had indeed vacated the premises.

Thankfully no damages. The fox must have had his sites set on Jokull and that long white tail and neglected to see any of the other birds.

But, *sigh*, now he will be back. Guess where me and the shotgun will be at sunset tonight and sunrise tomorrow and every day until I have a foxtail hanging on the barn wall?

Predators...ugh!

Edited to add that I am actually not sure now that it was a fox but may have been a coyote. When you are dripping wet and in your birthday suit watching a critter chase your birds, our view is a bit skewed.
LOL. It rained last night so am heading down to check the paw prints in the mud and try to confirm.

 

[6Happiness]

Quote:
Chickens left to themselves don't mate randomly. They select their mate(s), and it usually involves an alpha rooster an his many hens. Plus too many roosters left in a flock are going to fight so you have to get rid of most of the roos (= getting rid of genes).

You need to separate the chickens and control the breeding so you can keep more roosters, each one with just a few hens (or even just 1 or two hens, fitted with aprons etc to help protect their backs). Then you can rotate all the roosters one pen over the following breeding cycle to combine their genes with different hens. Keep an equal number of Males and Females from every breeding group/pair so that no one's genetics are over/under represented in the next generation.

And you don't need to have >25 or whatever; Simply, the smaller your flock, the more often you must bring in new blood. The great thing with chickens is that you can ship eggs which is easy and economical (as opposed to in other species, where we have to pay hundreds to ship the animals by airplane!)

If you keep careful records (pedigrees, like cat and dog breeders would do), you can keep track of things like and genetic disorders that pop up, and inbreeding coefficients so that you know when you need to bring in new blood. (To keep such records though, I think you'd need to put chickens in breeding pairs so you can be certain who the parents are. You could put another breed of chicken in there so the hen isn't over bred- say, one that lays blue or brown eggs that can't be mistaken for the icelandic eggs... but you cannot hatch those eggs/allow them to be bred back into the icelandic population- those would be eggs you kept or sold for eating.)

 

[The Sheriff]

Good news on the power outage babies and eggs. The babies that gold cold in the brooder are all doing very well now. No more pasty butt, all eating drinking, pooping, perching, fighting, running and sleeping like normal 2 week olds. I had to look closely to find the chick who I rescued from the cold and stiff stage.

The babies that hatched three and four days ago from the eggs that got cold are acting perfectly normal now. No more excessive sleeping. They are typical Icelandic babies, trashing the brooder and partying all the time.

I have five Chipmunk patterned:

This guy is much more red than the others:

Then I have one black and one white:

I am going down to move the donkeys into the big pasture so I'll take my camera and see if I can get pics of the older ones in the barn brooder. I may lose the once I take them out and they might become part of the free rangers! Hope not. It is too cold for that!

 

[The Sheriff]

Sorry for hijacking the picture Kim, but does anyone have any guesses as to who fathered Jokul? What a hero! Just like papa!

 

[cherylcohen]

Just had to share this with my friends, sorry to hijack the thread Mary

Well this is a pretty surreal situation. Apparently it's toxic. The TEAM arrived in HAZMAT outfits last night and started the cleanup. It's unbelievable really. It looked like a scene straight out of CSI. They brought in the big silver metal suitcases with vials and stuff. They rolled up all my oriental carpets to be thrown away.

They said they have to cut up all the walls 2 feet, take out all the kitchen cabinets, throw away all base boards...amazing. So they are back in the house this morning packing up everything we own on the first floor. I sure I don't need anything in those boxes.

They put us up at the Lafayette Park hotel but had to take the dogs to our fabulous vet. I got a call from them this am, didn't even occur to me that they may have eaten eat the bile and poop or licked it off their feet. So today they have diarrhea and the vet is treating them with probiotics, antibiotics etc. They are testing for giardea, cocci and a ton of other parasite/toxic things. Thank goodness I boarded them with the vet and not just a boarding place.

As you guys also know my dad has been in and out of the hospital and was scheduled for his 3rd surgery in 3 weeks today, in the afternoon, well I get a call at 7:30am saying that they just took him in to surgery. So we race over hoping to see him before but it was too late, so her I am typing this hysterical story while I await surgery to end.

I'm so blessed to have amazing friends. My best friend, Dyann, you guys know her as chooklet on here, came last night and picked up 3 incubators FULL of eggs and 30 week old chicks to take to her house. The poop flood hit the garage too as it came out of the washing machine line. Fortunately the chicks/eggs room in the garage is sealed so nothing got them!

So I think with the last 12 months happenings I have enough material to become a stand up comic. I won't need new material for at least 5 years!!

 

[The Sheriff]

OMG Cheryl I am shocked. I hope your Dad does well, that is the most important thing. Did you have a storm related back-up? Waht the heck. I am so glad you got good help with the clean-up. babies and eggs and your pets. keep us posted. I will certainly be thinking about you today!

 

[cherylcohen]

Oh I guess I forgot, the how-this-all-happened part, The contra costa sanitary dept yesterday morning cleaned the sewers, well apparently there was a "bubble" what ever that means and since we are the first house in lines it caused the toilets and other water pipes, like our washer to back fire into our home. They take complete responsibility, thank goodness
Thanks Mary for the kind words...

Amazing, I've been in pretty good spirits, making light of all this, but when I heard about my dogs, I lost it, big waterworks... so to speak

 

[greatergraceoffbg]

Cheryl, we had a similar thing happen. We had seven guys over from the church at 11:00 PM helping, thank God one guy was a floor man and knew what to do to save our floors. We put reverse flow valves into all sewer and drainage related lines afterwards at a cost of about 750.00 per valve install, they really work! I'm sorry that you are having to go through this and we will pray for you today friend. We have also kept your Dad in our prayers.

Andy in Fredericksburg

 

[cherylcohen]

Quote:
ah thanks, as I told the lady from the county, she is lucky that I didn't have 50 people popping out of the closet for my fiance's birthday party last night. It was a really "crappy" bday for him

 

[greatergraceoffbg]

Camelot, it sounds like that fox would make a beautiful mount on the fireplace mantle! he will be back so be ready!

Andy in Fredericksburg