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Corsomama said:
Hello chicken keeping friends! My name is Amy and I am new here and doing the intro post.

We moved off grid from the Seattle area to the foothills of Mt Rainier a little over a year ago and the first thing on my very long list was to have chickens.
I have a mixed flock with Easter Eggers (love their cheeks and muffs and beards) an olive egger, a couple of Cuckoo Marans, and a lovely lavender Marans hen that went broody while we were on vacation. I let her keep her eggs. She ended up hatching 3 chicks which prompted me to buy an incubator and now I am fully addicted to hatching eggs. My favorite chicks so far are the Easter egger cuckoo marans crosses. Black chicks with feathered feet and puffy cheeks, swoon. My patient and lovely husband found this questionable at first but has come over to the dark side and put up a second run for more space. We are on a hillside that backs to the national forest, beautiful, peaceful, private, but it makes it a lot harder to carve out space, everything has to be terraced and we have SO MANY PREDATORS so no free ranging sadly. We also have turkeys and have lost 2 to something in the night.
Other than chickens: were are running on solar power and living simply with our 2 XL Cane Corsos in a tiny home. I sew a lot, mostly vintage style aprons, and am gardening and getting back into canning. I was a florist so flowers are a must and I’m learning what grows well out here, and what needs protection from deer.

My First question is does anyone know what the handsome fellow in the center might be mixed with? He was sold to me as a barn yard mix or Easter egger but I really love his gray and red coloring. I saw a pic somewhere that looked very similar to him but I don’t remember what breed it was labeled as. Now that he is full grown and about a year old his tail is very long, almost to the ground
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Hello from Tacoma!
That is a beautiful roo!!
I’m new here, too 🙂
 
Boppo said:
Glad to meet you, Amy, and welcome to BYC. That is one handsome rooster! Janie Doe is very experienced, so you can probably rest assured about the breed.

I am so sorry you lost those turkeys! People always talk about how tough they are, but I guess something bigger can carry them off. It's always hard to lose an animal.

Mt. Ranier is SOOO beautiful. I have only seen it from a distance, where it looks magical. I hope you continue to love your tiny home off the grid! Best wishes from New England.

You don't mention losing any hens from your coop and run, but just in case you want to up predator protections, here is an article about improving that. And here is an article about using electric fencing to fend off larger predators!
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Thank you! It is so beautiful here. I think it was a raccoon i have read that they rile them up and then reach through the fence and snag them. We buttoned up the chicken coop from the beginning, fully covered with chicken wire but not as big as i would like. They mow down the vegetation so quick.
 
I don't know if you CAN keep vegetation in any size pen where chickens are living. They are very hard on plants, as you say.

Something came by and was nipping off the toes of quail I had outside in a raised pen but with a coated wire floor (like hardware cloth, so SMALL holes. I really don't know who was nibbling the toes, but I set cardboard and pine shaving across the floor and that stopped it.

I guess lots of other critters like to eat chickens, turkeys, ducks, quail, etc. Maybe emus would be OK, but I wouldn't count on it!
 

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