New Jersey

[pinebarrens]

Hi, I live in south Jersey, Woodland township. We plan on starting with some chicks this spring. I'm thinking about 8 hens and we'd love a big black Jersey Giant roo.

As we work on building a coop, I'm wondering how much protection our chickens will need from the winters here, which are certainly milder than some places ... do we need to insulate this thing? Or is it more just a matter of keeping the wind and wet off them?

Also, is it completely insane to think about free ranging them in the middle of the pine barrens with a zillion acres of woods around us?

 

[RonP]

Chickens are very low on the food chain, and very desirable to many predators in your area.

It is not insane to free range them, but only if you have a way to protect them.

If not, prepare to replace them often and you will be fine.

If you have cold hardy breeds, insulating the coop will not be necessary.

A well ventilated draft free coop is all that is recommended.

 

[pinebarrens]

Chickens are very low on the food chain, and very desirable to many predators in your area.

It is not insane to free range them, but only if you have a way to protect them.

If not, prepare to replace them often and you will be fine.

If you have cold hardy breeds, insulating the coop will not be necessary.

A well ventilated draft free coop is all that is recommended.

Thanks for responding.

We have a 4' fence around most of our property. We were thinking to put the coop near the house, and I work from home so somebody is nearly always here. We have a lazy, mild-mannered house dog (whom we would spend time acclimating to the chickens.) The boys are pretty good shots with a BB gun. There is a good bit of cover the birds could use to hide from hawks. We have a barn cat and she never seems to run into any trouble out there, and our trash cans don't get raided, etc. I really don't know if any of that that constitutes protection or not, but I guess to some extent we'll have to learn the hard way. I'm worried the kids and I will get very attached and it will end in tears.

 

[RonP]

4 foot fence might keep the chickens in, but not the predators out.

At the very least, you will need to lock the birds up at night.

I got so tired of battling mother nature, I built a run for my birds as secure as my coop, a hungry animal will hunt and kill for food in daylight with a human in sight... I am also surrounded by wooded areas, and never saw so many animals come out of the woods until I kept chickens.

Sorry if it isn't what you want to hear, but there is no absolute answer. You may be lucky for a while, but it's a heartbreaker when a loss occurs.

 

[JerseyHen]

Or I put Stanley to work and hatch my own mixes.

He will make some pretty babies. You can make sex linked or autosexing, depends on what hen you put him with, easter eggers with him. If you can have eggs, I will happily provide them in spring when I sort my legbar pens out. Let me know.

 

[cafrhe]

PInebarrens,

I have a similar situation to you. I mostly work at home, have cats and dogs and have pastured chickens. I have large fenced pastures that they stay in (I have 3 different flocks now in separate coops.

I have had chickens here for 2 years (have lived here for 2.5 yrs). I have some grass around my house, but we are surrounded by woods. The critters we have seen are fox, raccoons and hawks. I know there is a coyote in the area as I saw it on one of my walks with my dog. I use my dogs as predator control. Dog goes out first thing in the morning and ranges around the yard into the woods. Every time I go out, dog goes out too. We definitely had more fox activity when we first got here--I heard the vixen's call several times/week at night. Every time I heard it close-ish, I took the dogs out and sent them into the woods. They got to the point that if they heard a fox, they asked to be let out.

My dogs are very well trained and can be called back when I decide they have gone far enough. If I had a fence around the whole property, I'd let them do what they wanted lol.

I have had 3 hawk strikes with 1 loss and 2 injuries. All issues were during the migration--once in the early spring, and once in the fall. I have a rooster and I believe he helps. He does watch the skies and calls his girls to cover if he sees something. The loss I had was in a pen with no rooster and an injury was to a young roo who was small. I know what the upset rooster call sounds like (sort of like a manic egg song) and the dogs learned to recognize it too. We all go bolting out the door if we hear it.

I think my dogs keep the land based predators away. Though last week my husband peeked out the window and said "I think Stripe (cat) is chasing a fox up the driveway". Sure enough there was a fox with in 30' of my young chicken pen with the cat trotting after it up the driveway...Maybe the cats keep the predators away too lol! Not sure if the chickens or the cat was on the foxes menu, but me and the dog finished chasing it away.

I have predator proof chicken houses and the ladies are locked in at dusk every night and out after full light in the morning.

Good luck.

 

[maryellen21]

Thanks Christine, I don't have a broody hen to hatch eggs unfortunately. So far Stanley prefers tge aneracaunas, rir and tge one tetra. He doesn't bother with my bantam ee or my 3 polish. So once I find a broody I will put eggs to be hatched. I have an incubator but I am not thrilled with it.

 

[JerseyHen]

I have the components to build a cabinet incubator, maybe i will get going on it...

 

[pinebarrens]

I'm planning for a secure coop and a small attached run, and definitely we would count on shutting them in overnight. I do think we would attract some "wildlife" that we hadn't seen much of before, but I might at least give it a try, with the dog and a rooster to help out. I get the impression this kind of question is subject to such a huge number of variables that you have to come to your own conclusions, but it helps a lot to hear other peoples' experiences. Thanks again.

I found a website for a place called Jersey Chickens. It's in Jackson, which is reasonably near me, and it sounds like they breed their chicks locally, so I'm kind of thinking that might be a good place to go for my little starter flock this spring. Has anybody here dealt with them before?

 

[RonP]

I purchased a few chicks from them about 8 years ago.

At that time I had nothing but a great experience.