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I have 6 chickens left now from my original straight run of 16. Lost 2 to hawks, 5 to neighbors weenie dogs and 1 to a auto/ped on peebly road and 2 roosters sold at the swap meet. I now have 2 Dominique hens, 1 black Australorp hen, 1 EE hen, 1 Dominique rooster and 1 feathered Cochin Bantam rooster. I would like to pick up another 6 - 10 hens that are already laying. The process from chick to hen is too long for me to go through again for a while.
I live off of NE 23/Peebly.
We are practically neighbors. I have hens that are laying. Not sure exactly which ones are laying at the moment but I have been getting more eggs each day for the past three days.
Most I have for sale would be EE's or crosses.
Have you got a place to keep them? Won't do you much good to buy more hens just to feed the neighbors dogs.
I have a coop for them and I was letting them free range from morning until dark. My neighbors dogs (miniature dachsunds) got out one day and onto my property and killed 3 birds before I knew they were there. I stopped the slaughter and ran them off. Everything was good until the last few weeks. I would go to lock up the coop at night and there was one less bird. I couldn't find any feathers or blood anywhere on my property. I lost a second one two days later. Then my elderly neighbors came to my house and told me the stupid chickens had been going through one fence and then flying over a second one to get into the yard where there dogs where and the dogs were killing them as soon as they got in there. They suggested I clip one wing to keep them from flying over the fence. I did that and the next day I lost a rooster who went wandering 200 yards away from my house to the road. I stopped letting them out all day and now they just get out for 2 - 4 hours. Haven't lost any since. I need to go ahead and build a run so they can still go outside the coop with a little more protection and then let them free range only for short periods of time under supervision.
