New to country living in Claremore Oklahoma.
- Thread starter Johnna
- Start date
- Mar 17, 2013
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I just found this - what a coincidence! We are new to the country, bought 20 acres and live near Inola! How crazy is that? We are just starting to raise chickens and very new to this too... which is why I am here.
Are you still here? Good luck!
Euvah
Are you still here? Good luck!
Euvah
We are also in claremore, between there & Inola, pretty much Tiawah. Nice to know theres a few of us around here.
Welcome to BYC! Glad you joined us!
Nice to meet you! I grew up right near Claremore.
You're in a great area to raise chickens. Lots of green, easy to keep the chickens cool during the summer, and plenty of bugs for them to eat off the ground.
My parents are almost inside of Claremore and I know they have some issues with raccoons and skunks.
The skunks will tear the breast of the birds if they can reach them inside of a fence, even through chicken wire. The raccoons are just jerks. They'll carry the chickens off to eat them usually.
As long as you lock them up at night you should be okay.
But keep an eye out for snakes in your coop. They love to get in there to eat eggs, but they're so stupid and lazy that they'll just stay in there, barely moving, engorged on eggs. Try sticking a golf ball or two in the coop for the snakes to eat and that will show 'em.
We are in Southeastern Oklahoma, unfortunately, where the heat is horrible and the humidity can be insane.
We have to watch out for coyotes here but so far we haven't had a single issue with predators and we lock our chickens up every night.
What we started doing was putting the coop inside of a large 8x12 dog kennel which we can close up. The dog kennel is inside of a large fenced in area. It's just chain link, and all around the bottom is chicken wire or some of that cheap plastic chicken wire stuff. This keeps even the smallest chickens from squeezing out of the chain link.
Most of the time we can leave the dog kennel open all night. The chickens will go inside of the kennel, then up the ladder and into their coop through a very small door that is only big enough for the largest bird to squeeze into. This makes it almost impossible for a predator to find its way inside, since it's almost like an obstacle course. We also have tarps over the top of the kennel (both for shade and to keep hawks out). There is a tarp on the back and the side of the kennel, too, which is just to provide more shade, that way no matter where the sun is, there's a spot with enough shade for all of our 17 chickens.
One thing that I've noticed up in your area from chicken people is that they tend to keep them in too small of an area. This seems to cause lots of injury (pecking each others tail feathers out, causing bleeding, and even killing or seriously injuring each other) but if you can give them a lot more room the injuries stop completely.
If you can let any of your hens hatch their own babies you'll find that it makes the process of raising them even easier. You don't have to worry about keeping them inside and all that jazz. The hens will automatically put them into the flock's pecking order and nurture them so they grow up healthy. After we let our hens raise their chicks from when they hatched we decided never to go back to buying them from the store (Atwoods for us here). It's just so much easier!
Enjoy, and nice meeting you!
By the way, if you want a free Rhode Island Red rooster (who I freaking HATE) you can have him!
You're in a great area to raise chickens. Lots of green, easy to keep the chickens cool during the summer, and plenty of bugs for them to eat off the ground.
My parents are almost inside of Claremore and I know they have some issues with raccoons and skunks.
The skunks will tear the breast of the birds if they can reach them inside of a fence, even through chicken wire. The raccoons are just jerks. They'll carry the chickens off to eat them usually.
As long as you lock them up at night you should be okay.
But keep an eye out for snakes in your coop. They love to get in there to eat eggs, but they're so stupid and lazy that they'll just stay in there, barely moving, engorged on eggs. Try sticking a golf ball or two in the coop for the snakes to eat and that will show 'em.
We are in Southeastern Oklahoma, unfortunately, where the heat is horrible and the humidity can be insane.
We have to watch out for coyotes here but so far we haven't had a single issue with predators and we lock our chickens up every night.
What we started doing was putting the coop inside of a large 8x12 dog kennel which we can close up. The dog kennel is inside of a large fenced in area. It's just chain link, and all around the bottom is chicken wire or some of that cheap plastic chicken wire stuff. This keeps even the smallest chickens from squeezing out of the chain link.
Most of the time we can leave the dog kennel open all night. The chickens will go inside of the kennel, then up the ladder and into their coop through a very small door that is only big enough for the largest bird to squeeze into. This makes it almost impossible for a predator to find its way inside, since it's almost like an obstacle course. We also have tarps over the top of the kennel (both for shade and to keep hawks out). There is a tarp on the back and the side of the kennel, too, which is just to provide more shade, that way no matter where the sun is, there's a spot with enough shade for all of our 17 chickens.
One thing that I've noticed up in your area from chicken people is that they tend to keep them in too small of an area. This seems to cause lots of injury (pecking each others tail feathers out, causing bleeding, and even killing or seriously injuring each other) but if you can give them a lot more room the injuries stop completely.
If you can let any of your hens hatch their own babies you'll find that it makes the process of raising them even easier. You don't have to worry about keeping them inside and all that jazz. The hens will automatically put them into the flock's pecking order and nurture them so they grow up healthy. After we let our hens raise their chicks from when they hatched we decided never to go back to buying them from the store (Atwoods for us here). It's just so much easier!
Enjoy, and nice meeting you!
By the way, if you want a free Rhode Island Red rooster (who I freaking HATE) you can have him!
Congratulations on your new home, and welcome to BYC.
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