New-help-flock showed up in my yard!!!

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Rustyboy@NH

Rustyboy@NH

Hatching
10 Years
Sep 27, 2009
3
0
7
Looked out window and thought at first that they were
wild turkeys-closer look and they were 5 chickens!Two
are B+W with red combs and seem to be the leaders.The other three are buff colored and only one has a comb.The ones without combs are smaller.The only place that I have seen chickens are about two miles down the hill and they would have had to cross a fairly busy road to get on this side.Talk about free ranging!
Question-Do chickens have the ability to find their way back home like a dog can?I,m really worried about them.This area has a lot of predators-bear/coy/
fox/hawks/owls/fisher cat etc.
I put out some wheat bran and steelcut oats for them.
The only other thing I had was popcorn kernels but not sure if that is safe.
I set up my old extra large dog crate and put some oats and bran inside and left the door opened hoping
they would go into it and came in to find a site about chickens and voila I'm here.
Went back out and they had left the yard.Hope they
took the right direction thru the woods where they will hit other yards and hopefully wander home.
If they do come back what is the best temp. place
to contain them and how??? I have a unheated garage
and an unheated shed.Also have dog kenneling-used to have Alaskan Malamutes.
 
the unheated shed or the dog kennel will work, if you use the dog kennel give them some kind of shelter/perch area...best setup would be the shed with the dog kennel... good luck
 
A big Texas size
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Welcome!

Kennel, crate, shed, anything that keeps preds out is fine.

As for finding their way home though, they can go quite a ways and will go home to roost at night so hopefully they made it back.
 
wow what a way to find your way here! You come to the right place though. Not sure if they will find their way home....chickens usually dont' go to far from home, my guess is someone dropped them off
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Good luck and I don't think I would feed them the popcorn
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Just doesn't seem right. If you have wild bird feed that would work for a day or so until you can get some layer food (IF they come back and stay) Hope they find their home.
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from Wisconsin Glad to hear your willing to care for them if they do come back. KUDOS to you!
 
You can feed them pop corn if you pop it. I hope they make it back home. If not they adopted you. The shed and dog kennel would work. You should be able to find any info you need here on the Forum. By the way Welcome.
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Mystery solved-Thank-god!!!!The neighbor behind me on the other side of the woods owns them.They were back today but with three more added of different kinds so I figured there is either a feral chicken takeover going on or someone nearby owns them so walked over to check and lo and behold he had a yard full.I knew they looked like decent birds.So the coop was right behind my house the whole time and thats where they went.He's from Vermont and
just moved in a year ago to northern NH.He has
a Lab and a Rotti.Has raised Chickens before both for meat and eggs.Said if they had a rooster the rooster would have kept them contained in the yard but was no way he would do that to his
neighbors!
Speaking of predators he lost a couple last week when a BIG black bear broke the window to the coop and grabbed a few so he now has the windows boarded up.I knew there was a bear around cause saw the big poops under my apple trees.Anyhow we had a good laugh about
the whole incident especially when I told him about consulting this forum about the "lost"
chickies and how I had to go home and let everyone know they were ok.
Thanks for the help everyone and love this forum-learning a lot about chicks.
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