NY chicken lover!!!!

[armorfirelady]

Do raccoons eat sunflowers? I had a lot, like 8 rows, of sunflowers, and this morning all the heads were torn off of them. I had planned to cut them this weekend and hang them to give to the chickens. Someone beat me to it. I suspect raccoons, squirrels it seems to me would just eat the seeds out, these are beheaded, ad some that have been eaten are on the ground. They were there yesterday.

I'm guessing probably deer. I have coons around here but they have never eaten the sunflowers. Darn song birds get to them first.

 

[marquisella]

For those of you that do the "accumulating bedding" method and then face a hard pack to "pick ax" through, I have discovered a method that literally digs up it all and you just have to shovel loose bedding away. Pigs! OMG they work fast, and then in a few months you have lots of bacon to eat.

Yesterday I brought home 2, 8 week old piglets, and this morning, they have dug up almost half of a 12 x 12 ft. stall that was about 4 inches thick & hard. I almost....well..I exaggerate a little, want to go right out & shovel it away....

I'll keep rotating them through all my coop areas until they are loosened up, and then they will have a nice comfy pen themselves.

Now if only I could teach them how to shovel as well.....

 

[Lynzi777]

For those of you that do the "accumulating bedding" method and then face a hard pack to "pick ax" through, I have discovered a method that literally digs up it all and you just have to shovel loose bedding away.  Pigs! OMG  they work fast, and then in a few months you have lots of bacon to eat.

Yesterday I brought home 2, 8 week old piglets, and this morning, they have dug up almost half of a 12 x 12 ft. stall that was about 4 inches thick & hard. I almost....well..I exaggerate a little, want to go right out & shovel it away....

I'll keep rotating them through all my coop areas until they are loosened up, and then they will have a nice comfy pen themselves. 

Now if only I could teach them how to shovel as well.....  

I'll keep this in mind when we buy our place and I tell my husband we *need* pigs!

 

[rancher hicks]

For those of you that do the "accumulating bedding" method and then face a hard pack to "pick ax" through, I have discovered a method that literally digs up it all and you just have to shovel loose bedding away. Pigs! OMG they work fast, and then in a few months you have lots of bacon to eat.

Yesterday I brought home 2, 8 week old piglets, and this morning, they have dug up almost half of a 12 x 12 ft. stall that was about 4 inches thick & hard. I almost....well..I exaggerate a little, want to go right out & shovel it away....

I'll keep rotating them through all my coop areas until they are loosened up, and then they will have a nice comfy pen themselves.

Now if only I could teach them how to shovel as well.....

I have seen where pigs were used to clean land but mine is not fenced in other wise I'd let some one put a couple of pigs on this place.

 

[rancher hicks]

I found my leghorn hens not very nice...not aggressive though, so you're right. I was thinking personality in general, I do have hens that I need to wear gloves to pick up because they will bite while others are very friendly.

I didn't get Leghorns and I do like the Brown, cuz I've read they are hyper. I don't care to deal with high strung birds, but they are a beautiful breed.

 

[wny egger]

I have seen where pigs were used to clean land but mine is not fenced in other wise I'd let some one put a couple of pigs on this place.

my wife wants a pig ..but the pigs she wants fit in the palm of your hand ..i think my birds would prolly eat them if we had any of those pigs tho ..lol

 

[maranfarmer563]

I put a large pair of pot bellys in my coop,they not only dug up bedding but pulled up the floor boards too. I recommend concrete for pigs

 

[Pyxis]

Guess what I got myself today!

A breeding quad of muscovies! They are supposedly blue ripples and one chocolate ripple, but I think the blue ripples are really lavender, which works for me, as I love the color. So far I love them already. They are decidedly not skittish, but they will give way if you need them to, and they are very quiet. There was a brief conflict with the locals:

Which the locals won. And here's the drake checking out the odd black box I'm holding:

And a close up of the pattern on the chocolate ripple:

 

[marquisella]

Pyxis, how did your Sebastapols work out? I sold all my white breeders and just have 4 young ganders to go. Keeping My colored Sebis, getting a lavender 2 year old gander tomorrow....can't wait till next spring...

 

[Pyxis]

Pyxis, how did your Sebastapols work out? I sold all my white breeders and just have 4 young ganders to go. Keeping My colored Sebis, getting a lavender 2 year old gander tomorrow....can't wait till next spring...

Not well. They all came down with a weird respiratory disease that was quite possibly mycoplasma and had to be culled. Thank goodness it didn't spread. I tried a second hatch of them later in the year but none of the eggs were fertile. So, I'll start again next year with a different source of eggs.