Maine

[buckabucka]

Bummer on the duck, SCG. Sorry for your loss.

 

[ashandvine]

Poor ducky. Will you still be able to have fertile eggs?

I have news I had to share (esp since some of you are waiting on eggs from me) Today I got eggs from the following:
Favorelle, MARANS, Polish Cap, meat mutts and Orloff. Now, if only the Ams would start laying. I was tickled, just so tickled. The color on the Marans is not set yet but it was a nice large egg-- especially when you think its just a pullet egg. Its the size of what my Comets lay!!

For the official Maine Complain Gazette I do hereby register a complaint about the wind. I have decided cold is not as much trouble as wind AND cold.

 

[buckabucka]

Congrats on the eggs ashandvine. I'm waiting on Ameraucanas too.

And I also found the wind to be rather annoying. I hardly went out there today.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

They'll stay inside for a week or so. They have a 10x10 enclosure with their house. They just are so much happier out of it. I lost my little black duckie to probably a fox about 8 months ago.

I know people were discussing predator-proofing instead of removal of the predator, but it came back later in the day and tried to get another duck. I thought that was odd but that duck is bloody, too, and both the neighbors and BF saw the fox multiple times today prowling around. I was at work but BF went and closed everyone in their coops to prevent more losses.

So ... it's still fox hunting season (with no limit) until 28 Feb.

 

[lazy gardener]

They'll stay inside for a week or so. They have a 10x10 enclosure with their house. They just are so much happier out of it. I lost my little black duckie to probably a fox about 8 months ago.

I know people were discussing predator-proofing instead of removal of the predator, but it came back later in the day and tried to get another duck. I thought that was odd but that duck is bloody, too, and both the neighbors and BF saw the fox multiple times today prowling around. I was at work but BF went and closed everyone in their coops to prevent more losses.

So ... it's still fox hunting season (with no limit) until 28 Feb.

Sorry to hear you're being harrassed by the fox. Good luck.

 

[Clover Run]

really, they climb fences? did not know.
what about an airhorn, one blast of that, they will also think twice about returning any time soon, but I like the paint ball gun better (not airsoft, the birds will eat the pellets.)

YES!! I watched a fox jump over 4' fenced in chicken yard. Chickens were already in for the night and unfortunately for him the business end of a .22 was waiting for him the next.

 

[Clover Run]

Brought home new chicks today!! BLR Wyandottes, Crested Cream Legbars and LF Cochins including 2 mottled frizzles. Now for the long wait of growing them out but finally have everything on my list.

 

[joanie_maine]

Ryan was signing "chicken" this morning.
And I told him, "Yep, through wind and snow and sleet and hail, chickens are what we do!!

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Ryan was signing "chicken" this morning.
And I told him, "Yep, through wind and snow and sleet and hail, chickens are what we do!!

Better than the post office who has the slogan but doesn't follow it

 

[ashandvine]

So ... it's still fox hunting season (with no limit) until 28 Feb.

You'll likely be killing a pregnant vixen. She being so 'large' and it being the time of year it is she is likely with kits.


Tonight is the night (not singing I swear!) that the incubator gets it go. So long as SO remembers to bring the saw home to cut the windows I am going to set it up and put eggs in. I have to tell you I am feeling nervous about this. Its a homemade bator! Its got all the wiring and bits from real bators but... well, its not like trusting a fuzzy butt at all. I like lifting up the warm fluff of a hen and spying what's going on in her nest. I like the excitement of coming down and trusting her to know whats best but be at the ready should something go off. This whole keeping them in a box has me feeling very nervous so... I have decided to talk to the eggs on occassion. Studies have shown they listen for their mamas cluck like our young do for our voices so... going to get them ready for human hands by starting with the mouth.