Ok, out to be productive! it turned out to be a cool but sunny and nice day here! ive got wood to stack, and my camper to winterize!
I forgot to metion yesterday - I moved all of my bags of oats out of my shed where I am having rodent issues (NOT in my chicken coop thankfully, based on your talks of rats chewing on chickens)
and I found one of my missing mouse traps! it was wedged between a feed sack and my wood stove and had half of a mouse in it. looked like it was partially eaten.....
will rats do that? am i dealing with a weasle?
Frankly i would rather a rat than a weasle as far as what ive heard about weasles doing to chickens....
either way I am setting my traps tonight! i wanted to get all of my feed/grain/flock blocks out of there first
Mice will cannibalize. If one is stuck in a trap, others will eat on it. Same goes for rats, they will eat mice and rats both if they are already dead. However, a weasel follows rodent trails for food, which is how they usually happen upon chicken flocks.
i was out working in the sun and wouldnt you know it here comes several of my hens playing keep away with a mouse! they chased each other for over 15 minutes until they flushed a second mouse and ran that one down too!
So there you have it... Myth proven, chickens will run down mice given the opportunity!
There is a wives tale about Buckeye chickens that they are "mousers". The truth is, pretty much any chicken will potentially chase after mice and eat them. I actually feed baby mouse litters to the chickens if I find them. I know, that sounds gross, but it is great protein for the chickens and I don't need another family of mice around. I have seen some chickens just look at a mouse running by, while others will go right after them and start ripping. Chickens are basically attracted to just about anything that skitters or crawls fast in their path. However, I have yet to find a chicken that actually hunts mice - I truly believe that would be stretching it.
Speaking of mice though, I think I need to clean out my feed area and see if there is a hidden nest in there, it stinks like mouse. I will not be happy if I find that it is coming from the walls!
Owl I REALLY recommend Pekins. This is my favorite breed because they lay lots of eggs and are big birds. I only have hatchery quality Pekins but they are still big and all white with no different color feathers.
I have a question for you guys. I noticed that my Pekins I hatched this year are much more meaty and bigger in size than my first ducks from the hatchery. Why would they be so much bigger??
Did you feed them differently? Did you get these ones earlier in the year? If not, then maybe it is just the stock they come from. Did you get them from a different hatchery? Not all hatchery strains grow or appear the same, just because they are the same breed. As I have said about CRX, which the Pekins are basically the equivalent for the ducks, you will find some hatchery strains grow faster, or bigger, and some have less consistency of size.
