Keeping Chickens Safe

[twendt]

It just started snowing again....UGH!

 

[cmom]

This is my recipe. There are several recipes you can get online. If you have just a few birds it's probably not worth the time to make the cakes and probably just as cost efficient to buy a flock block. TSC carries them. I have a lot of birds. I originally put around 4 cups of scratch, sunflower seeds, feed, a couple of cups of rolled oats and a cup of worms a with the other ingredients and water to make the mixture nice and moist but not soupy so it will hold together. I mixed it in a 5 gallon bucket. I did spray the bottom of the pots with pam. They came out great.

Flock Cakes
Ingredients

• Scratch (amounts used of the ingredients depends on how large you want to make your flock blocks)
• Sunflower seeds (depending on the amount being made)
• Grower feed (any feed on hand, Layer, Grower, pellets or crumples, whatever is on hand)
• Oats (rolled)
• Worms (optional)
• Eggs (usually 3 to 6 eggs depending on the amount being made)
• Molasses (1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on the amount being made)
• Flour (1 cup to around 4+ cups, depending on the amount being made)
• Coconut shortening (melted) (1/4 to 1 cup, depending on the amount being made)
• Mix ingredients thoroughly (I use a 5 gallon bucket). Hands work well for mixing.
• I mix the eggs and egg shells in a food processor.
• Pack into greased pans and put into a 225ºF oven for 2 hours.
• Remove from pans and put inverted flock blocks on cookie sheet(s) and put back into a 225ºF oven for an additional 2 hours.

My oven turns off automatically at whatever time I set it for. I leave the blocks in the oven over night when the oven turns off. It takes quite awhile for the cakes to get hard.

I substituted what I have on hand
Corn syrup for Molasses
Any flour I have on hand
Any oil or shortening

 

[twendt]

Awesome! I only have 7 hens, however, I want to control what is in their diet.

 

[CatWhisperer]

We had 4’ electric fencing and had a fox jumping over it. Now we have a 6’ fence with an electric wire running along the outside top and bottom. About 1/3 acre is fenced and there is lots of cover for the birds. In 6 1/2 years we’ve only lost the 3 birds to foxes within a 3 day period.

 

[hayley3]

Thank you so much for your replies! I figured the best solution would be to keep them in the run. I've been thinking about electric fencing and I will look into it more seeing how much it helped keep your birds safe. I like the idea of the flock cakes as well!
Has anyone had experience keep a goose with your chickens? This is an idea I have been tossing around in my head as well.

I keep a goose with my chickens but I just started doing it around Thanksgiving because she killed a bantam rooster when he attacked her. (13 yrs ago) I think she keeps the chickens safe from the hawk but she can push them from the food and water and she pinches them if they get too close. I think her size keeps the hawk away but maybe the hawks migrated cause I haven't seen them in the last month. She is much better at watching the sky than the chickens who are too busy frolicking around in the grass and under the tree.

 

[cmom]

I have a friend who has a lot of geese with his chickens. They are all in a huge fenced in area. No problems that I know of.

 

[hayley3]

The current issue I have is making sure the chickens have access to clean water. My goose empties their water bowl plus they make it muddy water. I'm working on a solution to keep their water area separate.

 

[centrarchid]

I free-range a lot. I make so we have a large area that predators do not like visiting. Hot-wire fencing and free-range dogs a big part of that.

Then I provide cover patches and feeding stations roughly in center of are predators do not like to visit because of fencing and dogs.

Foxes are the only daytime land predators that brave dogs and chickens just need to give alarm to get dogs coming over. Raccoons usually stopped by fencing but dogs will go after them if chickens give alarm. Traps are out much of time in locations I learned most come past in route to chicken area.

Most difficult predator hands down is Great-horned Owls. They come in with some regularity and for nights at a time when they do. They will preferentially target smaller chickens, but can take even the largest. By take, I mean kill. When the dogs know owl is about they harass it. Problem is dogs often do not know owl is about unless they see it or hear chickens give owl alarm. If owl can kill chicken before alarm given, then dogs may not intervene. Owl can kill a chicken almost as fast as I can with a hatchet. They bite chicken in back of head and upper neck several times in rapid succession. What I now do is make so area away from where dogs spend most of time has a low intensity light going, not enough to stimulate egg production or night time activity, but enough to enable chickens to see owl or any nighttime predator coming in. Chickens then give alarm and dogs come running. We have largely shut owls down since light installed. Owls still come in, but just cause drama, no losses.

 

[Folly's place]

No goose or rooster can defend against a coyote, or dogs, or be everywhere at once. Trained dogs do make a difference, but take time (years!) and are the most expensive protectors by far.
Electric fencing, and a safe covered run, are superior, and can be set up in a short time.
Mary

 

[centrarchid]

No goose or rooster can defend against a coyote, or dogs, or be everywhere at once. Trained dogs do make a difference, but take time (years!) and are the most expensive protectors by far.
Electric fencing, and a safe covered run, are superior, and can be set up in a short time.
Mary

Most people I see set for the short term protection measures if any at all. The overwhelming majority of those poultry keepers drop out before 5 years is up. That is very much the pattern here. The industry making a buck of the backyard poultry population must be thankful for all the newbies and folks getting back into it after a few years.

If you are going for the long-term, then think about long-term approaches or go the Fort Knox route and get it into to regimen to control disease issues and use the higher end feeds available.