Investing More In American Dominiques

[centrarchid]

Not all dominiques since dominques not photogenic at night.

Game hen roosting with 5-week old chicks over cage used to confine juveniles at night.

Broody hen of Missouri Dominique project roosting in a very precarious location near wall of pen. Ideally she would be a good 16" from where raccoon can reach. Today I will place in a box hen will take her brood of nine to where they can roost against wall well away from sides of pen.

Nest I setup in larger cage where late season broods will be reared. First round will be game hen to work out kinks with water freezing.

Missouri Dominique cock that went broody over a 6 week old American Dominique pullet.

 

[centrarchid]

Juvenile female Coopers Hawk flying into barn daily for last few days. I have vulnerable sized chicks and juveniles but all are either confined or kept in with cocks or a broody hen. Hawk flies in to land on pen to look at a couple 6-week old game stags. Adult hen perch at hawks level and an American Dominique cock with three hens stands over stags when hawk comes in. Pen is largely covered by deer netting but not hawk tight. if hawk committed to go after a stag I think the cock will cause is attack the hawk and the hawk may not be able to find opening in deer netting quickly enough to avoid harm.

The sounds produced by chickens is incredible when hawk flies in. The chickens all seem to stand as tall as they can, even the hens do this. Game hens are close to double the hawks apparent weight.

Female dog simply trots over when hawk comes in. She seems to consider the intensity / nature of the chicken alarm calls.

 

[Intheswamp]

DEFCON 1 ????

 

[centrarchid]

Group of three American Dominique cocks. All are culls.

Missouri Dominique stag show slow feather development coming from American Game side. He will not be bullstag for another 45 days while American Dominiques with almost same hatch date already there.

Missouri Dominque cock that is sire to stag above. Type OK. Feathering when in will be impressive by his son will likely be better.

 

[centrarchid]

Prescribed burn tomorrow. Will get about 1/2 of barnyard area leaving about a 20 swatch of high vegetation around barn for winter cover. After burn a lot of aster seed will be put down in addition to other prairie forbs. I want butterflies in years to come.

 

[centrarchid]

We are finishing up initial stage of prescribed burn. Area treat just under 1/10 acre.

My friend had an assortment of locally collected native plant seed. Kids did most of planting. This area will be left alone in terms of chicken pens.

 

[aart]

You planted immediately following burn?

All those buckets around for keeping fire contained?

 

[centrarchid]

Friend does this type of work routinely and his place of employment deals specifically with native plants where they sell plants and seeds. I am pretty sure they also perform prairie restorations as well. Typically areas he does are 10 acres or more in size. I took a course on prescribed burning several years back and have helped do it several times since. Still scary for me.

Seeds planted immediately following burn. Soil not hot and rains started about the time the sun went down and continued all night long. Heat likely activated part of seed bank. I assume residues not a problem for seeds and germination as germination will not occur for a couple months at least. Prescribed burns are done here once vegetation turns brown. Wildfires used to be what kept this area in prairie.


Buckets had emergency water for suppressing fire. Hose was running the entire time and we has nearly 150 gallons of water in water trough immediately to right of images. Fire department informed before we started and one volunteer came out to check as last embers went out.

Next dry spell with limited wind we will make so about 1 acre burned. This will be repeated. In coming years my woodlot will be treated in the same following some selective culling. Under-story of woodlot needs to be opened up, then chickens will have real cover and better forage.

 

[aart]

Great, thanks.
A bit jealous of your access to the pros.....it is scary, for good reason.

 

[centrarchid]

Intent is to get about half of property looking like pre-European settlement. About 2/3 of that will be the wooded area.