NY chicken lover!!!!

[rancher hicks]

just looked at the satellite view, very thick overgrown area. perfect for fox, coyote, deer. trapping might be the only way to deal with this. you dont have a gun, right? even if you had a gun you might be a little close to other houses. thats a good sized creek, so they probably have to cross in certain areas because of deep water, steep banks, etc. i can see deer trails on the satellite images, so theres definitely trails, although well hidden, old fencerows are also a favorite travel route. if you use Bing maps, zoom in on your area and then use the Birdseye view to get the best look. this is how i scout new hunting areas so i know where to look for sign. good luck if you need some more tracking, hunting advice let me know

I intend to weed whack as much of it as I can. I've only seen deer about three times in 7 years. Only the second for the fox. Did see wild turkeys in the yard once. Lots of wild roses and hard to cut down. You can come here and hunt anytime, though I don't see much. I'll have a look at that satellite image. I've been cutting down the thin trees so I can get a better view into the woods.

I would be very afraid ..... he obviously gets his kicks and is right at the ready with a gun - each one may be legit but they are for sure treading the line ..... I can tell you from training and experience - he will go from the animals to people. Not only would I keep an eye open - but I would have a neighborhood meeting and even invite a mental health specialist to talk there ..... you want to be proactive on this and make sure everyone knows all you can about this guy ....

If you can get him help - that would be best .... include him AFTER THE MEETING in things but NEVER give him personal info or ideas about your schedules ....

This is dangerous - don't let it be another tragedy that people look back and think why didn't anyone do anything ......

My thoughts are with you.

I agree. Who knows what he'll do when he falls off his rocker. They do still sit on their porches in rockers out that way don't they?

I usually don't have any problem picking up my broodies and grabbing eggs laid by others from the nest. Yesterday I got BIT and BIT good trying to grab the one large brown egg from the co-broody pair of duck and hen. I am like "WHAT is YOUR problem?" And then I hear something peep and I am thinking "OH NOOOOOOOOO, not the ducks hatching early toooo". Nope!!! A chick had hatched early in the box above and fallen out. The momma hen had just tucked it under her wing and kept it. LOL So she was defending her "baby"....which wasn't hers....

I was able to grab the chick without further injury to my hand and relocate it to the nest containing the Hen that had hatched it. So I have 9 Guinea keets, 2 chicks and 18 duck eggs to go. WHERE am I going to put all these birds?

I wear a glove on the right hand that I use to check under brooding hens. I've got one hen who for all the trouble should hatch something the son of a gun. Bites and hangs on. I also have to wear long sleeves. Got a nasty bite on my arm.

How sad for those calf's.

Breaks my heart hearing about stuff like this. Thank goodness for people like you. I hope the calf pulls thru.

I do worry about becoming a chickens hoarder.

Now keep in mind I trade for labor around here too. Sometimes I just need someone to fill the wheel barrow so I can dump it. I've been cleaning out a couple of loads from the runs each evening. It's good stuff too. Over a years worth of straw/hay and wood shavings. It's easy to dig and I like doing it, but my back doesn't.

The mosquitoes are atrochess.

I may have to come all the way to your place for the Duck/CR exchange. If you've got more than ducks and chickens I want to see them.

DW has an appt today for her hip. It's been hurting pretty bad when she sits. I don't think it's cancer since the did a bone scan. Chemo starts next week. Looks like we'll have to pay for her insurance since she'll have no pay check. Something folks might want to think about when going out on disability.

Everyone else -

The ducks are noisier than chickens and they do like the puddles and rain. I've been letting them all out of the one run. Strangely enough I have little trouble getting them to go in. They recognize the staff I use I think.

I don't expect any chicks in the B. Marans coop at all. No eggs left except a couple I think. I reckon they didn't do well since it was musical nests and eggs. I've been sticking my Del frizzles eggs under some hens since I know they're fertile, though I don't know who the daddy is. EE or Araucana.

I've an EE that hatched five, EE's two lav and three black. They're pure ee's I reckon. Only roos is the EE and the Lav Araucana.

 

[rancher hicks]

Quote:
The aerial map I find is an old one, from before we bought the property. It's quite grown over now with lots of trees and brush. At one time it looks like someone started to clear it but just left pile of lumber here and there. Must have been many years ago.

It looks like the creek splits and that may be so, since part of it floods in the spring. It sorta looks like there is an island in between and that may be where the Fox are hiding out. They'd have no trouble crossing to our section over the logs laying across the creek.

I'd need a good chain saw to clear even the skinniest of trees out. I'd prefer to leave the biggest and just clear things up a bit.

 

[Tab's chicken obsession]

Safer weed killer

I'm going to have to try this.

DW has an appt today for her hip. It's been hurting pretty bad when she sits. I don't think it's cancer since the did a bone scan. Chemo starts next week. Looks like we'll have to pay for her insurance since she'll have no pay check. Something folks might want to think about when going out on disability.

I've been thinking about how your DW and you were doing. I'm sorry she is hurting, but glad to hear that her bone scan was clear. To have it hit the bones is very bad. I've missed a lot because I haven't been able to be online very much during the week.

 

[rancher hicks]

I've been thinking about how your DW and you were doing. I'm sorry she is hurting, but glad to hear that her bone scan was clear. To have it hit the bones is very bad. I've missed a lot because I haven't been able to be online very much during the week.

She starts Chemo next week. They say she's cancer free at this point and the Chemo and Radiation is to get anything that might be there. Lord have mercy.

 

[County Boy]

Lynzi - good luck figuring out how best to get your new little duckling situated when (I hope!) it hatches.

County Boy - you've got some really beautiful birds there. Any hunches as to why one was hatched without toes, or was it an injury? Some genetic quirk or something to do with incubation? Probably doesn't bother him all that much, I'd guess!

Rancher - I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your hen to the prowling fox. Wild animals don't know "right from wrong" -- just that it's an easy meal. It's good that your neighbor chased it away, because that might send a strong message to the fox that it's a risk maybe not worth taking. Also good that it wasn't rewarded with the actual kill to eat. You have a nice neighbor there....



Lots of eggs coming here; it's very nice to be able to not only have plenty for our own family, but enough to share with my mom and neighbors. All from 6 hens. I'm grateful for their "work!" They sure do appreciate their free range time, though it's usually for short stretches. I get paranoid when then head down into the overgrown scrub and woods and go to round them up. Probably at my risk of getting ticks!


TOB

I don't have any idea what happened to it's toes. I noticed them a day or so after he was hatched and in the brooder but he gets along fine. I will probly sell him as if it is genetics I don't want that gene to be passed along in my birds anymore.

 

[hugz4all4]

Yup, that's him next to the tracks. He has Phoenix, modern game, brown leghorn, bantam cochins. Lots of different ducks, geese, turkeys.
I just got home from Deatons, I bought 6 Royal Palm Turkeys and 8 lavender guineas. Buy 1 get 1 free

I no thats why is was so hard for me to resist the silkies! But I have a full coop so to be fair to the ladies I have now, adding anymore would be wrong.. maybe next year..
Good luck with your new babies!! Im glad you bought some, I was beginning to feel bad for some of them, theyve been up there forever!

 

[hugz4all4]

Oh and good to know he has so many other breeds so when I am in search for more. Thanks!

 

[SAHchickenmom]

No problem. I may have forgotten a couple breeds too

They have so many lavender guineas! I wanted them all! The poor turkeys are way too big for the brooders

 

[Tough Old Bird]

Southern Alberta, Canada

We have a awesome bird sale every year and they even have ostriches there!

Any chance you know the Gordon Lightfoot song, Alberta Bound?

I noticed your name right away, being a big Lightfoot fan since I was a young kid, lol...!

I've not seen the fox only once last year when she took a bird but didn't get that one either. I followed into the woods and she dropped it. The bird survived.
The woods are not well traveled so there are no paths. It all grown over with some weed. There are wild rose bushes here and there.

I need one of those metal attachments for my Weed whacker to cut down the heavy stuff.

I don't hear anything at night, so they may not be as close as I think.

Mother foxes some times vocalize a very startling screech to communicate with their kits and mate. Sounds kind of like a woman screaming and it's LOUD. You would hear that, I think, if she was relatively close.

Here is a link to listen, if you don't already know what they sound like. It would be much louder than this, if you are close. I've been very close to one and it scared the tar outta me the 1st time I heard one and didn't realize what it was.

Click this link and then scroll down to the animal section with coyotes, foxes etc. Then click on the sound byte entitled FOX YELL.
http://waterandwoods.net/2008/09/wild-animal-sound-bytes/

Something to keep in mind if you're weed whacking. Most birds are nesting this time of year, and many of them have nest sites in low shrubs and tangles -- even weeds and tall grasses. It's your property, of course, and I know the fox attack has you upset with good reason. Just keep in mind you might be destroying nests and even nestlings if you W-whack vegetation at this time of year.

I hope you don't have any further fox sightings, especially problems, Rancher.


TOB

 

[Tough Old Bird]

I call that shake shake shake shake your bootie...

Well it official this one grey hen is renamed Looney ! she attacked me when I went to get eggs out of the other nesting boxes ..
She got me good ! A pinch of a 1/2 inch circle ..she even broke the skin ..
I grabbed her & threw her out of the hen house ..

It looked like a egg massacre here today
..2 nesting boxes had smashed eggs .egg yolk everywhere & on the 2 eggs I collected ....What A Mess !
Ive decided to stop giving them milk for a while . On the meat thread they do that to fatten them up before slaughter .
I think they are getting TOO fat ...when I pick them up they have lots of padding under their vent .
I only get 3 eggs a day from 7 hens ...I will have to put them on a tread milll next !

Hope you got your bite cleaned up and it'll heal soon. Time to sign the girls up for Weight Watchers, eh? Probably not a bad idea, if your egg production is down. And I've heard there's a link between heavy hens and egg bound birds.


TOB