***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[BetsyOK]

2A371, erring on the side of caution, I suggest you think carefully about feeding the soured feed to your poultry. If it is just scratch, it is possible it would be OK, but it could also kill them if it is not.

 

[SimplyMe_AngieD]

As an aside, for everybody who has to have white noise to sleep (like me), there's a great white noise app called Relax and Sleep that I use. It has a sheep as an icon and includes a timer.

Thanks. My husband snores and I have recently had to start sleeping on the couch. I will try to find this app on my phone and see if the earbuds will drown out the snoring. lol.

 

[Ksane]

We caught a possum in the trap last night. Possums pull the heads off birds, too, right? I'd been locking up the birds on the south side of the property because that's where he'd gotten 6 of them. The night before last he tore the head off one in the layer's yard close to the house.
Also in the last few days I lost a 2 yr old feed store D'Uccle and the last of the Lavender Guineas I'd gotten 3 months ago at Newcastle along with 2 Ameraucanas I'd gotten at that auction. None of the Guineas had done well but I really thought this one would make it. 11 birds in about a week. Sounds selfish but I've got birds and favorite birds. My favorites are all in roofed, secure pens and buildings. I still care a lot about the others though and didn't want to lose any of them :-(
I saw that possum's teeth, they look like coon's teeth and I can certainly see how he could've done the kind of damage to my birds that he did (assuming it was him). Do they travel in groups?

 

[Kassaundra]

Glad you got at least one chicken preditor. Sorry I don't know the answer to the questions.

 

[Kyzmette]

@Ksane yes, possums will take off the heads. Possums, minks, weasels... all of those will do it, and where you have one possum, you'll have a family. Those teeth are nightmare-inducing, aren't they? Raccoons will eat the whole body and take bites out anywhere they can get their teeth.

 

[miohippus]

We caught a possum in the trap last night. Possums pull the heads off birds, too, right? I'd been locking up the birds on the south side of the property because that's where he'd gotten 6 of them. The night before last he tore the head off one in the layer's yard close to the house.
Also in the last few days I lost a 2 yr old feed store D'Uccle and the last of the Lavender Guineas I'd gotten 3 months ago at Newcastle along with 2 Ameraucanas I'd gotten at that auction. None of the Guineas had done well but I really thought this one would make it. 11 birds in about a week. Sounds selfish but I've got birds and favorite birds. My favorites are all in roofed, secure pens and buildings. I still care a lot about the others though and didn't want to lose any of them :-(
I saw that possum's teeth, they look like coon's teeth and I can certainly see how he could've done the kind of damage to my birds that he did (assuming it was him). Do they travel in groups?

yes, they defiantly do one took the head of one of my first chickens and he didn't even go in the pen just reached thought the wire she was sleeping right next to it. have not had much trouble with them since we got our new dog scout he is good about that but the bad thing is if a chicken ever got out he would probably kill it too.

my two dogs scout and hony

 

[Kyzmette]

My mother tried to tell me my dog would kill the chickens. Nobody will ever convince me that would happen. Best. Dog. Ever.

 

[artsyrobin]

just depends on the dog- our dogs were dump dogs, and at first had real issues, after losing too many birds, decided to work with them, they had been chained- well took a few months and they are trustworthy with the chickens, since then racoon and possums are not a problem, they will even bark and chase hawks...

 

[artsyrobin]

hey guys- been doing some research on tapeworm- is the dosage for safeguard 3 cc per gallon of water?

 

[Kyzmette]

@artsyrobin, you're right. I think almost any dog can be trained to be trustable around chickens, they just have to be taught to see them as packmembers. All the dogs at my place are dump dogs or rescues, and they're great dogs, but Jewels... she's one of those one-in-a-million dogs.