Rooster without a Plume.

[organicspark]

Hi New Friends,

Man, am I happy to have found you! I posted a story about losing a plume of my rooster from a predator, and one of my readers suggested I check out this forum. I'm so glad I did! What a wealth of information! I am a new farmer in Moorpark, CA, and I inherited 5 chickens (2 roosters that manage to co-exist and 3 hens). They had been caged since birth, and I just began letting them out one day! Well, I lost the plume of one of the rooster's feathers to a neighbor's dog. Since then, we haven't had any incident, but I am in coyote country. Does anyone have any advice for protecting a pastured flock? They have a safe space at night, but I am letting them out in the day. If you want to read the whole story about the rooster's plume, I wrote the story up here: http://www.organicspark.com/minus-a-plume/

Looking forward to reading more in this great forum!

Molly

 

[bryan99705]

Sounds like you have a good rooster as he was the only bird involved in the fight and the hens are fine. You may need to look at building a enclosed run and only let the birds run when you're with them but even then beware that coyotes and fox are bold and may make a run at the birds while you're with them

If your field is fenced tall and well but they can dig under, consider skirting it with 18 to 24" wire laid on the ground around the outside of the existing fence and the inside edge attached to the base strand of you fence (hog rings work great)

Also you could look into electric fence and pre-insulated step-in posts combined with insulators attached to any existing posts. Don't be cheap on the charger as you want a good jolt when hit (5-6 joules) to get the message across to the intruder. The nice thing about EF is it can be moved fairly easily and is far less expensive than conventional fencing but both have the weakness that they do not provide protection against hawks, eagles, ravens, etc.