Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Do tell, what is the hot potato method?

 

[fisherlady]

I've personally never done spurs before but I'm going to have to soon on my CCL hen. She had HUGE spurs lol. I think I will be going with the hot potato method. It seems like it would be simple and easy.

We just use a dremmel tool, cut them back with the cut off wheel and angle it to round off the cut end. With a bright light you can possibly see the quick, and usually we shorten them about a quarter inch and then repeat it in a week if they are extremely long.
Have some blood stop powder or flour handy in case of bleeding but a bit of powder and some direct pressure for a minute or so should stop it pretty easily.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Do tell, what is the hot potato method?

My tablet is not cooperating with me on trying to get a youtube video up but here's a link explaining it. If you search hot potato spur removal on YouTube, several videos come up.
https://sites.google.com/a/larsencr...braces/roosters-spurs--shortening-or-removing

 

[Lelanae]

Thank you Anne and FisherLady.I started looking on Craigslist just now for bricks/stones--I have some bluestone pavers that I have been putting down in the mean time that were left over from when we put in our patio. (They look really nice!) If I can get him in a humane trap, I know a nice big woods---but I do worry that re-location may not really be humane. I just spoke to a wildlife re-habber in Philly who says re-location is a death sentence and swore to me that if the girls are locked down at night they are safe. (His flock free ranges near a woods full of raccoons, but are in a barn at night and he claims no losses.)
I may have to call a specialist--but do realize that they only re-locate to Rascal Heaven.
RATS! I bet Percy was keeping the raccoon away, but now he doesn't mark near the coop since he isn't allowed anywhere near it.

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Hi All! How is everybody with this warm up? Still chilly, but certainly not as bad as it was.

This morning, because of all of the rain, we had lots of turkey vultures on the ground. I think they are not able to soar with their soaked wings. So I got to watch my flock of turkeys “check out” and chase away the intruders.

There were probably 10 turkey vultures in my garden area, not to mention two other condor types. They were all promptly stalked and shooed away. I’ll have to get my camera next time.

 

[fisherlady]

We spent the afternoon cleaning the coops, changing out all the nesting material and refreshing the dusting pits. I will be sneezing coop dust for a day or so but the birds will be happy.

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Here are the Turkey vultures mentioned above. Before the nosy turkeys had played tag.

 

[gonehencrazy]

Not a bad array. 10 eggs so far today. 2 blue, 2 green and 6 brown. The army eggs were from yesterday. Getting around 8-10 eggs a day from 17. I need to get a couple of white layers.

 

[Bobby Basham]

Hello all! I hope you had a great Christmas. I am near the Erie region, which got over 50 inches of snow in 3 hours. Here, I measured the snow in front of the house: 25 inches! Had a lot of fun trying to walk/crawl through the snow to get to my chicken coop!

OMG, I can remember those glory days and what a nightmare they were.

I'm originally from Grove City (above Pittsburgh), but lived in Cambridge Springs, Edinboro and Erie while working at Edinboro University from 1977 to 1990.

No regrets here leaving all that snow since we're gonna be in the 70's all week. Stay safe and stay warm. --BB

 

[Bobby Basham]

Wednesday night, on of my little roos was missing. I didn’t think much of it, I figured he got nabbed by a hawk or something.


Last night, thankfully, my husband was able to come home early for work. At about 3:30 he called me telling me a large fox was running around nabbing my chickens. I have my dog with me at work, which is 35 minutes away. I was able to leave work early and speed home.

It was so scary because my husband called me twice on the way home saying, he came back again. Eek! Of course it didn’t care if my hubby was out there either.

Thankfully, it looks like I only lost two girls, with one more injured. I think because they were free ranging, it worked in their favor, since they were able to scatter.

I have a gentleman in my neighborhood who is a licensed and insured hunter who is going to take care of my problem. The fox was huge, almost as big as my dog. When I talked to my neighbor this morning, she said she hasn’t seen her (outside) cat in a few days either.

I will also be buying a radio to play talk radio all day while I am not home. If we get any warm days, I will be putting a roof on my run and securing the heck out of it

My one injured girl has a few bad tears, but I think she should make a full recovery.

I read years ago that chickens like NPR radio and Classical Music. We have a 24/7 Classical station here and it plays 24/7 in the bathroom with brooding chicks. A little Mozart or Chopin never hurt anybody.