Kristen’s Chickens and Farming Ventures

[BlueBaby]

I do hope my “if you’re going to kill it, you better plan on eating it” lectures don’t come back to haunt me too badly!

If you cook it let me know what you think of it.

 

[rjohns39]

Good morning Kris

Here in the states, it's illegal to harm a bird of pray. I use week old chicks to help raise day old turkeys. The problem with that is those chicks never want to rejoin the chickens and insist on being with the turkeys. One of my young cockerels who was hanging with the turkeys got taken out by a barred owl. The owl made the mistake of coming back for more dinner, the young turkeys turned him / her into dinner. When I found the crime scene, there was the cockerel with no head and no further damage and then a bunch of feathers and a few bones from the owl. My turkey friends tell me that's a really rare event, but bigger birds can and do make an impression.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Hi Kris, glad things are progressing on the house. Sorry for all the predator issues you are dealing with. Wishing you a peaceful Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year.

 

[Kris5902]

Good morning Kris

Here in the states, it's illegal to harm a bird of pray. I use week old chicks to help raise day old turkeys. The problem with that is those chicks never want to rejoin the chickens and insist on being with the turkeys. One of my young cockerels who was hanging with the turkeys got taken out by a barred owl. The owl made the mistake of coming back for more dinner, the young turkeys turned him / her into dinner. When I found the crime scene, there was the cockerel with no head and no further damage and then a bunch of feathers and a few bones from the owl. My turkey friends tell me that's a really rare event, but bigger birds can and do make an impression.

Good morning Bob!

We have slightly different Laws here when is comes specifically to farming. My chickens are livestock and I am making an income from them. This Owl, having taken one and being in the act of harassing/attempting to take out more, can be shot. I don’t want to, because like I said, I have a bit of a soft spot for Owls. I don’t think it is exactly legal to eat it though... and any type of taxidermy is 100% illegal.

We do have a problem with Barred owls here which has made several environmental reports on wild bird populations. They are larger and more aggressive than screetch owls. Also more aggressive and territorial, but significantly smaller than our great grey owls. I was thinking we were doing ok... after our second threat display last night the owl didn’t return; I did four separate checks after locking the chickens in for the night. Well, today is our Town day for Feed pick up and Christmas Shopping, so awake at 4 am to be up and servicing the chickens by 4:30-5:30 so we can make the early ferry.

Upon waking I heard a “who-whoo...” coming from the other side of the draw. Barred calls are usually “who-who whooo-who” (or “who cooks for you”) and our great grey (which was bothering my meat birds a bit during summer, but was actually hunting the mice attracted by their leftovers) has more of a “heee-heeeee” call.

No Owl in sight when I started this morning. I fed the Sort-of-Littles, and Sammy and the girls, Opened up Mr Maran’s door (he came out despite the pitch black). I moved on to Bob’s tractor and two girls came out for a little drink. Opened up Chickie Hawk’s tractor (they stayed put) and went to put Mr Maran back in the roosting box. He was grateful because yes, it was still a little too dark out for him, on to putting Bob’s errant ladies up and who puts in an appearance?

So I was running around the field this morning in the pitch dark jumping and making violent hand motions towards it while yelling “bang”. It went from sitting in the middle of the field looking at my layer tractors to perching atop the roosting boxes of two of them once I started chasing it. It eventually retreated to the trees to the north of our road.

Basically this is why I let the girls out a little later than most people on this site. I was actually more concerned about Raccoons, but either way, the early mornings are just as opportune for predators as dusk and night time in our area. Yes 8:30 am is awfully late sounding for chicken releasing, but what I actually wait on is a decent amount of daylight. I’m open to any suggestions on dealing with this threat. If it persists I may have to resort to a very permanent (for this Owl) solution I would prefer to avoid.

 

[BY Bob]

I’ve been threatening it with just that!

I’m thinking if it is frustrated often enough, chased off nightly, and shot at it may get the message... hopefully before we have to actually shoot it. It won’t be getting lucky again. And now, to make matters even worse (and proof our smart phones spy on us) my you tube feed is now featuring Owls... nesting Barred owls with eggs and chicks

Google is too smart. It can be unnerving the way things show up.

 

[BY Bob]

This is going to seem silly.

This is my solution for dealing with hawks. It is illegal to kill them here in the states. This little toy gun shoots a small "soft" balls with vicious velocity. It has enough power to reach my shed from my backdoor on a line. It is accurate enough for me to knock a hawk off of my fence but is soft enough not to hurt them seriously.

This is how far away my shed is from the door.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VX9F4Q2/?tag=backy-20

 

[Ribh]

I have an even sillier suggestion, working off @rjohns39 theory; how is your goose buying going? They're big enough & aggressive enough but would they take on an owl? I too would prefer you didn't need a *more permanent solution* as I like owls.

 

[rjohns39]

Evening Kris I know a guy who is ridiculed for this, but he puts one goose out with each of his chicken tractors (they're all in different paddocks). He claims the goose will guard the chickens from aerial predators. His reason for just one, is that in his observation more than one and they become social and forget about the chickens. I have no idea if there's any truth in what he says, but it does kind of make sense to me.

In the end, the owl has to feel like the prey is simply too high risk. The one that lost its life to the Turkeys, clearly did not see them as a threat. Poor judgment on its part. Most birds of prey are smaller than most chickens, yet it's amazing how quickly they can take a head. We have a few small hawks here that are critically endangered and had I not seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. The hawk landed just outside the tractor and picked up a beak full of left over feed. Then hopped up on top of the tractor and dropped it right near the tractor wall (this was before I switched to 1/2" hardware cloth). One of the CX chickens sticks it's head out to get that feed and in a flash, the hawk left with the chicken's head. That hawk was half the size of the chicken.

 

[BlueBaby]

Evening Kris I know a guy who is ridiculed for this, but he puts one goose out with each of his chicken tractors (they're all in different paddocks). He claims the goose will guard the chickens from aerial predators. His reason for just one, is that in his observation more than one and they become social and forget about the chickens. I have no idea if there's any truth in what he says, but it does kind of make sense to me.

In the end, the owl has to feel like the prey is simply too high risk. The one that lost its life to the Turkeys, clearly did not see them as a threat. Poor judgment on its part. Most birds of prey are smaller than most chickens, yet it's amazing how quickly they can take a head. We have a few small hawks here that are critically endangered and had I not seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. The hawk landed just outside the tractor and picked up a beak full of left over feed. Then hopped up on top of the tractor and dropped it right near the tractor wall (this was before I switched to 1/2" hardware cloth). One of the CX chickens sticks it's head out to get that feed and in a flash, the hawk left with the chicken's head. That hawk was half the size of the chicken.

That was a smart hawk that knew how to get it's food.

 

[Kris5902]

Evening Kris I know a guy who is ridiculed for this, but he puts one goose out with each of his chicken tractors (they're all in different paddocks). He claims the goose will guard the chickens from aerial predators. His reason for just one, is that in his observation more than one and they become social and forget about the chickens. I have no idea if there's any truth in what he says, but it does kind of make sense to me.

In the end, the owl has to feel like the prey is simply too high risk. The one that lost its life to the Turkeys, clearly did not see them as a threat. Poor judgment on its part. Most birds of prey are smaller than most chickens, yet it's amazing how quickly they can take a head. We have a few small hawks here that are critically endangered and had I not seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. The hawk landed just outside the tractor and picked up a beak full of left over feed. Then hopped up on top of the tractor and dropped it right near the tractor wall (this was before I switched to 1/2" hardware cloth). One of the CX chickens sticks it's head out to get that feed and in a flash, the hawk left with the chicken's head. That hawk was half the size of the chicken.

I would believe it... our ravens and crows are smart like that too, luckily they are happy to just eat the chicken feed and leave the chickens be! This Owl is significantly larger than my chickens. I wish I had seen the link @BY Bob posted earlier I think they sell those or something like it at Walmart here. And we were in there today for the first and last of our Christmas shopping