NY chicken lover!!!!

[vmdanielsen]

Update; dh didnt like Erik the red so his new name is Olof, since there is a famous Olof in Norweigan history. These two have been very busy trying to keep track of all the girls. Its nice, however, to have a peaceable kingdom right now. Dumped 4 loads of pine chips into the run of the rir coop. I think they all thought it was a birthday gift. At least I dont have to spread it out!

My DH's grandfather's name was Eyolf. Nice Norwegian name. Goes well with Danielsen!!

 

[vmdanielsen]

Hi Everybody,
Do any of you do crafting w/ our birds feathers ?? If so which feathers are more appropriate for jewelry, hair adornment etc.

Try some hackle feathers!! and Welcome.

 

[vmdanielsen]

I *love* mine. Did you get the premiere stuff? Only thing I don't like about mine is that the less saggy version doesn't come in the 164 foot length, so I have the saggier one. I had LOTS of electric posts left from my last effort at just wire fencing so I used those to prop up the sag points. Other than that the electric netting rocks so far. I only have two sections attached, my third attaches at two coop points. I do have an 'iffy' connection at one of the coops - we used the shoelaces it came with to tie it to the coop posts so that's a little hinky, but it works.

oh and what charger did you end up with? my fence is definitely jolty =)

Love mine too!! I put 2 poles close together and run an aluminum wire from top wire to top wire, when joining 2 fences together.

 

[rancher hicks]

Thanks, rancher. My Dels will be 2 months old tomorrow. They are a little bit larger than the NHs and more aggressive. They seem to be very healthy, but who knows. I keep reading of chickens dropping dead for apparently no reason.

kamir

This does happen. Only if you have a large number of birds dropping dead should you worry.

 

[Henicillin]

I've been hearing strange noises at night too. Listening to youtube, I think my weird noises are foxes? Have never seen a coyote around here, but we did have them in california and at night they sounded 'creepy' for lack of a better term. They'd yelp, howl and just.. well, creepy.

The noises I have been hearing (very close to the house!) sounds a LOT like you would hear if a chicken was screaming in terror. first time hubby heard it he came and got me and calmly told me the chickens were screaming (instead of running out there himself with the .22! LOL).

In either case, I've been leaving all my electric fences on at night and so far so good.

Is it this? That's bloodcurdling.

Alan said he heard the coyotes here the other night. There's a field up the road where we see them occasionally.

 

[Sachasmom]

I *love* mine. Did you get the premiere stuff? Only thing I don't like about mine is that the less saggy version doesn't come in the 164 foot length, so I have the saggier one. I had LOTS of electric posts left from my last effort at just wire fencing so I used those to prop up the sag points. Other than that the electric netting rocks so far. I only have two sections attached, my third attaches at two coop points. I do have an 'iffy' connection at one of the coops - we used the shoelaces it came with to tie it to the coop posts so that's a little hinky, but it works.

oh and what charger did you end up with? my fence is definitely jolty =)

I did, I got the plus I think? Or something like that, the posts are closer together....

The yellow stuff? When I looked at it after my hubby put it up I thought well, thats a stupid way to join it, esp at the point you need to use to get in and out of! I also got the gate, which I hate. Don't buy the gate, buy a shorter section of the other netting, lol Going to have to put stakes in the gate, its way saggy. And the holes in that are much larger. Like Mink can get thru sized holes! Did you stake down your fence? A friend of mine says she had to so they would not go under.

I ended up getting the 25 mile Zaebra from TS, it was on sale for ten bucks off, and then I had a 10% coupon! I'm too chicken to test it out!

Hopefully it will solve my Coon problem, I need to buy one more section to include the other coop, I only bought enough to do the one coop to see if I lied it

 

[featherz]

I did, I got the plus I think? Or something like that, the posts are closer together....

The yellow stuff? When I looked at it after my hubby put it up I thought well, thats a stupid way to join it, esp at the point you need to use to get in and out of! I also got the gate, which I hate. Don't buy the gate, buy a shorter section of the other netting, lol Going to have to put stakes in the gate, its way saggy. And the holes in that are much larger. Like Mink can get thru sized holes! Did you stake down your fence? A friend of mine says she had to so they would not go under.

I ended up getting the 25 mile Zaebra from TS, it was on sale for ten bucks off, and then I had a 10% coupon! I'm too chicken to test it out!

Hopefully it will solve my Coon problem, I need to buy one more section to include the other coop, I only bought enough to do the one coop to see if I lied it

We didn't buy any gates. We have netting only and it's 'gated' at the coop wall, where my husband just put a hook to hold a tie string. We connected the fencing to the hot wires around the coop with a gate handle. So when I go out to the coop area, I detach the gate handle from the hot wire, then I just move a section of the netting away and that's my 'gate'. Works really well. I can get a pic if you are curious. Our fence sections connect together by a wire clip, no 'yellow stuff'.

Saw no need to stake the netting down, I have NEVER had a chicken try to go under it. The few times they got next to it while looking for bugs they'd get zapped and go running away. It's pulled taut to minimize sagging (just used extra poles around corners). Oddly enough not a single chicken has gone over it and I have 40+ mixed age and breed chickens in there with 400 foot of netting.

You should think about getting a cheap fence tester just to make sure everything is working unless you can get someone to touch it. My charger displays voltage on screen but I test it with the tester now and then to be sure. Found out one small section on sand would not jolt anything since the ground was too dry and sandy, so I added another ground wire along the fence.

 

[featherz]

Is it this? That's bloodcurdling.

Alan said he heard the coyotes here the other night. There's a field up the road where we see them occasionally.

Yep, that's it. I know we have red foxes around here, see them a lot when I go walking. And I think there's more than one since when I hear that noise it's a lot more often. My DH kept insisting it was a bird screaming but it sounds just like fox screams (and none of the chooks were dead or even awake).

 

[vmdanielsen]

Is it this? That's bloodcurdling.

Alan said he heard the coyotes here the other night. There's a field up the road where we see them occasionally.

When I played the fox bark, my normally quiet dog went berserk!! We have foxes around here and their bark is creepy. Lately though, it has been the barred owl that is waking me up. Who! who! Who cooks for you!! http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/barred_owl/sounds scroll down a bit, you will find it! They do remind me of some of the sounds coyotes make.

 

[vmdanielsen]

We didn't buy any gates. We have netting only and it's 'gated' at the coop wall, where my husband just put a hook to hold a tie string. We connected the fencing to the hot wires around the coop with a gate handle. So when I go out to the coop area, I detach the gate handle from the hot wire, then I just move a section of the netting away and that's my 'gate'. Works really well. I can get a pic if you are curious. Our fence sections connect together by a wire clip, no 'yellow stuff'.

Saw no need to stake the netting down, I have NEVER had a chicken try to go under it. The few times they got next to it while looking for bugs they'd get zapped and go running away. It's pulled taut to minimize sagging (just used extra poles around corners). Oddly enough not a single chicken has gone over it and I have 40+ mixed age and breed chickens in there with 400 foot of netting.

You should think about getting a cheap fence tester just to make sure everything is working unless you can get someone to touch it. My charger displays voltage on screen but I test it with the tester now and then to be sure. Found out one small section on sand would not jolt anything since the ground was too dry and sandy, so I added another ground wire along the fence.

I attach the hot wire to the poultry netting with an electric gate handle and if I am working around the fence, or moving it, I detach the gate handle and the fence is no longer hot.
the only time that I have had a problem with sagging is when it snows.(Soon, Baby, Soon!) When I move my fence to it's winter position, I put extra poles on the outside for support. If we get a lot of snow I will run extra wires on top of the t poles to keep out predators, but I don't do the extra work, unless I think a predator can get over high snow(think large snowbanks then an ice storm where everything is walking on top of crusted snow.) My husband has built me gates that I only use in winter. They are sturdy and hard to move, so I do not use in summer, but they are excellent in winter.

Cass get a fence tester. If I get zapped by my fence to often in a short period of time, I will get heart palpitations. One should avoid this!!